Dive Club 854
Night Dive at Pulau Hantu
13-14 September 1997
By Danny Ng Soon Chai (A678092)
The annual haze from Sumatra did not dampen our excitement as we embarked on our night dive expedition to Pulau Hantu, also known as Ghost Island. Together with fellow Dive Leader and buddy, Daniel, we had been planning for the trip for the past one month, canvassing for participants and writing letters to the Sentosa Development Corporation requesting for permit to stay overnight on the island. When the permit was granted, the pace of execution of the plan was hastened. Excitement was in the air!
I couldn’t wait to finish my gruesome six-day work-week to stride into the water at Pulau Hantu. The same thing went for the rest of the enthusiastic club members.
The day finally came and according to the meteorological report, the haze had reached the unhealthy level of PSI 114, the second worst days for the past months. Daniel, Nikole and I lugged along diving equipment and enough food and drinks to feed 10 persons! We arrived at Jardine Steps at 1525 hrs sharp and saw our Dive Marshall, Soh Chee Peng waiting for us. He had been there since 1330 hrs to ensure that the boatman was present and ready to move out; Soh is truly a devoted and experienced Advanced Instructor. Soon after, Livia the last member of the expedition party arrived.
The diesel engine roared to a start and was soon edging away from Jardine Steps, making way towards Pulau Hantu. As we moved out, we began to worry about the condition of the water as we saw a huge dredge furiously dredging away, rendering the waters around Jardine Steps muddy and cloudy. The haze did not cheer us up either, lowering the visibility to about 2 nautical miles and making it looked like as though a dome was covering all around us! For the first time, we saw the young boatman using a pocket compass to navigate. As we clear the waters of Jardine Steps, we praised our good luck, seeing that the water in the channel was greenish and beautifully clear! We exclaimed with renewed excitement.
After about 45 minutes, we berthed at the Pulau Hantu public jetty and unloaded our stores, equipment and food. Everyone was very co-operative and shared out the work. It was only when the boat had made its way back to Jardine Steps that we realized I have absent-mindedly left the two packets of charcoal in the bumboat! There went the fuel for barbecuing the delicious food that Nikole had seasoned. Soh Chee Peng, the ever optimistic member of our club, assured everyone that it would not be a big problem and we would somehow think of a solution. The time was 1805 hrs and we had planned to be in the water by 1830 hrs to catch the almost still water of the slack tide. And so we immediately kit up and the food issue was temporarily shelved into some recess of our mind.
Daniel was the Dive Leader for Livia (Novice Diver II) and I was the Dive Leader for Susie (Novice Diver II). The first dive was to be a dusk dive. We walked towards the calm lagoon where we would start our dive. I began to brief Susie on the dive plan. I followed the Dive Leader briefing guidelines, SEEDS, but in my mind there was the TOE DDD to run through. We planned to dive along the eastern breakwaters of the island to a depth of 3m for a duration lasting from 1830 hrs to 1930 hrs. However, I made it clear that we might go deeper if the corals and marine life were richer. Daniel conducted his briefing, we conferred our dive plans with the Dive Marshall and both teams headed out into the lagoon.
Soh, the Dive Marshal, was already on the breakwater with his eagle eyes on our every single move. To our amazement, the evening water was unusually clear. The beam of our torches penetrated very far into the water. We headed north with the breakwater lying in the east on our right side. The corals were covered with silt; on and off, a few parrots fishes greeted us as we finned along. Greet us? I think they were trying to protect their territory. One particularly large parrot fish was fearless of our approach and tried to bite us on our masks.
Occasionally, I checked Susie's air and was very pleased that her breathing rate was the same as mine. She was apprehensive of the dusk lighting, which was getting dimmer and dimmer with every passing minute. She held on to my left hand tightly, refusing to let it go on many occasions. After a while, I realized that she was having difficulty to stay at the depth of 3 m and was always straying above me. I had to pull her down towards me several times and finally I decided to put two pieces of rock into her BCD pouch. That solved her buoyancy problem. We went on to explore further north and came upon a single spiny sea urchin. I demonstrated to her that the urchin was actually quite harmless, carefully picking it up by its spines and putting it onto my right palm. Susie’s reaction was weird , her immediate response was to move herself behind me when I encouraged her to try the same thing.
We headed west to go deeper down the edge of the reef. Beyond 6 m there was not much marine life, so we headed back south to return to the start point. The reason we had planned to do the dusk dive was to have the chance to orientate ourselves to the site for our night dive. I had decided that Susie was performing well as her current air pressure was still the same as mine. She looked calm and comfortable. So I decided to instill more confidence in her by bringing her further down to break the 10 m mark. I constantly checked her reaction as we approached that depth. We finally reached 10.2 m before we made the slow ascend. She was brave and was doing fine throughout.
When we broke the surface, the sky has darkened and there was only the industrial lights of the refinery at Pulau Bukom. Our Dive Marshall was already within 5m of our position, on the breakwater checking our condition. All was well and we gave him the proper hand signal. We finned into the calm and sheltered water of the lagoon enjoying the stillness of the early evening. We could hear the calling of a residential bird, probably calling to her kin that it was time they were back in their nest.
Daniel and Livia was already at the edge of the lagoon. As Susie and I back-finned towards them, Daniel guided us in with his powerful dive torch. Livia was too hungry after her the dive and went off immediately to forage for food. Nikole was very kind and considerate to have been carrying Susie’s slippers all the while. She had been following Soh on his marshaling round. Soh assessed the tidal conditions and suggested we (Daniel, Susie and I) do one more dive. Susie’s enthusiastic and sporty nature refused to let her to say no. And we immediately thought up a simple dive plan. With 160 bar in each of our tanks, we decided to conserve air by snorkeling out of the lagoon. The dive plan was the same as my dusk dive with Susie, except that we would not go descend to 10m. The route of advance and return was to be the same. I led the dive, Susie was holding on to my left arm as in the previous dive, and Daniel positioned himself on her left side. Never had she felt safer, to be diving with two Diver Leaders from BSAC! At about three-quarter of the total northward distance, I spotted a single prawn, about 10 cm long, hiding in a coral. I edged myself towards it, positioning Susie so that she would not miss it. Daniel helped to illuminate the spot and stunned the prawn by the high lux.
I used my left hand to slowly catch the prawn from its behind. This way it couldn’t jet backward to escape. I succeeded and was enthralled. I carefully placed the prawn into Susie’s palm and she held it rather firmly. I quickly gave her a no-no signal indicating that she would injure the poor fellow. She finally released it and that guy swam towards Daniel and escaped. In my heart I thought to myself that we had been just visitors to the home of the animal and so we must respect the lives and creatures in their environment.
I gave the signal to head west with the pre-decided signal. It was a 90 degrees shift and within the next few moments, I my ears became quite painful. Instinct told me that we were dropping and dropping fast. I held on to Susie’s hand tightly and finned up until I felt better. Daniel followed suit. We checked our Aladins and found ourselves at the depth of 5.6m. I decided to head south with a gradual ascend. The reason being that Susie was not very experienced and the sinking to whatever depth a few moments ago (10.4m as the Aladin displayed after the dive!) might have frightened her somehow although she didn’t indicate she was not feeling okay. However, Daniel must have been puzzled when I altered the dive plan so abruptly, but he had followed suit. I did not want to endanger anyone.
Near the end of the dive, Susie’s cute little torch went from very bright to orangy and finally, it gave up on her. On the breakwater, Soh realised something was amiss but he predicted correctly that Susie’s light had gone out; and the two remaining lights were of my Toshiba (too directive) and Daniel’s torch. When we broke the water surface, Soh was again very near to our position, marking out the entry point (red), midway point (yellow) and turn back point (blue) with cylume sticks. He said we had done a great dive and deep in my heart, I was very pleased with myself for having led two night dives rather confidently. After checking our tank pressure (110 bars, Susie’s tank pressure was still the same as mine!) and equipment, we idyllically finned the long way back into the lagoon. This time, both Daniel and I offered to take turns to tow Susie back as she was lamenting of being overly exhausted after having to do two consecutive dives without much rest in between. But they were two dives that she had enjoyed tremendously. We were happily chatting among ourselves on the long way back. That was two great dives into my logbook!
While we were in the water, Livia was happily tucking into the barbecue food with a group of campers who had come to the island on their own Bayliner pleasure craft. They had set up tents and were equipped to the teeth! They were a group of young people - four guys and two gals. And I thought they were very nice to offer their pit and charcoals to us to cook our food. After Susie, Daniel and I had washed ourselves down, the next sensible thing to do was to satisfy the big holes in our stomachs. Livia volunteered to cook. We lay out the ground sheet and my huge checkered picnic cloth. Then we sat in a small circle and started enjoying the food and drinks; and Soh regaled us with stories from his umpteen years of diving. After a while, Daniel and Nikole took over the barbecuing and we had delicious chicken wings and cutlets, huge tiger prawns, cheese sausages, salad and beef. The chicken wings, seasoned together with honey, compliments from Nikole, tasted great! We indulged in two and a half hours of continuous feasting!
The atmosphere was very, very cosy. The scenery was so beautiful, with the silhouette of the pleasure craft and the swaying coconut trees waving at the Bukom refinery chimneys. The lighting on the refinery chimneys looked like the flats across Kallang River, the difference being the shimmering lagoon and the constant soft caress of the sea breezes. With Soh being such a fatherly figure, our gathering of six was like a family on an outing. The experience was absolutely memorable.
We decided to get our forty winks to get ready for our dawn dive. We were supposed to wake up at 0530 hrs to do it at 0630 hrs. After we had cleaned up the place, I took a late shower and headed for my much needed sleep.
At exactly 0530 hrs, I woke up. I went to checked the condition of the water and made a call to get the weather forecast and tide time for the day. High tide was to be 2.3m at 0915 hrs. Good! Soh woke up next and we went to the jetty to assess if Daniel and I could stride into the water from the pontoon. Soon after, everybody else was awake. Daniel and I strapped on new tanks, kit up and walked to the jetty. Just before we strode in, the two ladies, Nikole and Susie, waved at us and wished us a great dive. We strode in with new found courage and confidence!
There were a lot of seaweed and the feeling was very eerie. Pictures of me being dragged down by some creatures in the seaweed scared me a little. I tried to erased the unpleasant and fearful thoughts from my mind and I gave Daniel the signal to descend further. The tide was coming in and we could feel the current. We were supposed to ride the drift and to observe for corals and marine life. But there were too much silt, causing the water to become cloudy; we could hardly enjoy the dive. There was not much marine life except for some wide-eyed fishes with silvery bodies. Again, I gave the signal to descend further, but the feeling was not good. Soh had advised me to go in a southerly direction, so I led the way towards the south; but the only way was downwards in that direction. At 12m, both Daniel and I shone our torches downward, our combined beams was not reaching anywhere. We could see only eerie darkness at the bottom, if there was really a bottom! I decided ascend as it was already 0715 hrs. The dive was supposed to end at 0730 hrs. So we let the drift carry us toward the surface and at 3m, we were greeted with the much more familiar and friendlier corals. I indicated to Daniel to search for some simple souvenirs for Nikole and Susie. And we found some small pieces of corals for them on the sandy bottom at 3m. When we surfaced, Soh had prepared a nylon rope to help us in our climb up the breakwater. With slippery rocks of the breakwater all our equipment, the attempt was tedious and tiring. We finally made it and walked all the way back, dekitted and took a rewarding shower.
As planned, we assembled at the jetty at 0825 hrs sharp after saying thanks to the other group of campers for their charcoal and barbecue pit. Our bumboat arrived at 0830 hrs and we bade farewell to the beautiful island of Pulau Hantu, the Ghost Island, that didn’t sound that haunted as I had thought. The swaying coconut trees seems to bid farewell to us, throwing flying kisses to us across the breeze that caressed our faces, telling us we were most welcome to visit her again.
