Lost and found: the fascinating tale of Sarong Island and the power of archival research

Detail from a 1992 nautical chart shows that both Sarong Island and Pulau Selegu are now part of Sentosa.

The two islands were reclaimed in the late 1970s. Singapore. 

Nautical Chart 60 “Keppel Harbour and Cruise Bay”, 18/03/1992, HC000490, Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore, courtesy of National Archives of Singapore.

 

Raster chart for Small Craft Singapore Strait And Adjacent Waterways, 2011/2012  

zoom

 

SG5C4035 MPA ENC in the GeoGarage platform

From Medium by National Library Singapore

Not many people know this, but there was once an island off the northwestern coast of Sentosa named Sarong Island.
It no longer exists now, having been merged with the larger island of Sentosa.

 

Navigational chart produced by Captain Wilde c.1680.

Blakang Mati is the land mass depicted in the lower half of the chart.

From left to right just north of Blakang Mati are Pulau Renggis (a reef), Pulau Selegu (large round island), and Pulau Sarong.

(British Library) 

source : Colonial Singapore 

 

Sarong Island ( P. Selugu in the map) is part of Sentosa now, after Sarong island was joined with Pulau Blakang Mati in 1980.

other picture 

 

 

 However, back in the late 1950s, well-known socialite Christina Lee (the ex-wife of cinema magnate Loke Wan Tho), purchased the island, and in the 1960s, marketed it as the “First Tourist Isle of Singapore”.

It was a place where visitors could “dine, dance, watch floor shows, or just sip a drink and watch a breathtaking view of Singapore harbour” from the so-called “White House”.¹

 

This “White House” was the only known structure on Sarong Island at the time.
A bungalow built by Frank Blackwood Sewell, who served as Senior Superintendent of Surveys of the Straits Settlements from 1927 to 1932, it was where Lee stayed after she bought the island.
She later turned the house into a restaurant that served the visitors of Sarong Island “curry buffet with added European dishes” for lunch on Sundays and “air-flown steaks, imported capon chicken, and whole rock lobster” for Saturday-night dinners amid music and dance performances by local groups.²

Perhaps due to the novelty of the concept of having a “tourist isle” in Singapore or the star power of Lee, this part of the island’s history is well-documented in newspapers of the period.
However, by delving deeper, I was able to uncover a lesser-known part of the island’s history that has been either misunderstood or largely unknown.

 

All set for opening of Sarong Island, Source: The Straits Times, 20 September 1967 © SPH Media Limited.
Permission required for reproduction.

While it had a nice ring to it, Sarong Island was not its original name.
It was one that Lee and her then husband, Jeffrey Stone, came up with because it was easy to remember.³ Press reports widely referred to the island as “Pulau Selegu.” However, with the aid of library and archival resources, I discovered that “Pulau Selegu” was in fact the name of a different, though nearby island.⁴

This intriguing truth about Sarong Island’s name was uncovered when I came across a 1966 map of Singapore from the collections of the National Archives of Singapore.
The “Topographical Map of Central and Southern Singapore, and Singapore City” showed that there was a “Pulau Selegu” located just off the northwestern coast of Sentosa.
However, the “White House” was not indicated on it; instead it was on an unnamed island to the southwest of Pulau Selegu.⁵

 

Detail from a 1966 topographical map shows the White House on a green patch of land off the northern coast of Pulau Blakang Mati (now Sentosa).
Pulau Selegu is shown northwest of the White House.
Singapore, 1966, M2016_000173_SD, Survey Department, Singapore, courtesy of National Archives of Singapore.

This unnamed island also shows up in an aerial photograph taken in 1949 by the British Royal Air Force.
The photo shows an island with a structure (the White House) and a footbridge linking the island to Sentosa.
This was mentioned in a sale notice for the island that appeared in The Straits Times on 16 March 1967.⁶

 

A sale notice for the island, Source: The Straits Times, 16 March 1957 © SPH Media Limited.
Permission required for reproduction.

 

An aerial photograph taken by the British Royal Air Force showing Pulau Selegu (1), Sarong Island (2) and Sentosa (3).
The White House on Pulau Selegu has been marked out in the photograph in red, while a footbridge linking the island to Sentosa can also be seen south of the White House.
Part of a series of aerial photographs from south-east to north-east showing: Pulau Blakang Mati, Pasir Panjang Wharf, 1949, 258513, Aerial photographs by the British Royal Air Force between 1940 to 1970s, from a collection held by the National Archives of Singapore.
Crown copyright.

The most definitive source for verifying that Sarong Island and Pulau Selugu were different islands is a 1979 map by the Survey Department that reveals that the lot number of Sarong Island and Pulau Selegu were different.
Sarong Island was “Lot 52 Mukim XXXIV”, while Pulau Selegu was “Lot 196 Mukim XXXIV”.
Assigned by the government, lot numbers are unique identifiers or “barcodes” of every land parcel in Singapore.
So, it is near impossible that two pieces of land would share a similar number.⁷

Left: Circled “Lot 196 Mukim XXXIV” from Mukim Number XXXIV: Other Islands; and Right: Circled “Lot 52 Mukim XXXIV” Mukim Number 1: Telok Blangah, 1979, Survey Department, Singapore.
Singapore Land Authority collection, courtesy of National Archives of Singapore.

These findings provide strong evidence that Sarong Island and Pulau Selegu were not the same island.
However, I still do not know the original name of what was subsequently known as Sarong Island, even though I have scoured through the collections of both the National Library and National Archives of Singapore.

One possible explanation could be that Sarong Island did not have a name originally because it was a tidal island.
This means that it was a landmass that had a sort of land bridge to the mainland at low tide that was submerged at high tide.
As such, it was not given a name and could have been seen by surveyors as belonging to the bigger Sentosa Island.
In a parliamentary speech delivered by Law, Environment, and Science and Technology Minister E.W.
Barker on 27 February 1971, he described the coastal area between Sarong Island and Sentosa Island during low tide as being surrounded by “muddy flats, mangrove swamps, and flotsam”.⁸

The discovery that Sarong Island is not Pulau Selugu highlights the value of library and archival resources in providing invaluable insights into the past and uncovering little-known facts and stories.
Without access to historical maps, aerial photographs and newspaper articles, the truth about the island’s history might have remained hidden forever.

To learn more about the history of Sarong Island and relive its days as Singapore’s first tourist isle, check out the Biblioasia article “From Sarong with Love” or listen to the podcast episode, Sarong Island on the Biblioasia+ podcast.

Senior Librarian Lim Tin Seng works at the Singapore and Southeast Asian Collections of the National Library, Singapore.
A big fan of city building games since the days of SimCity, it is no surprise his passion and focus in research lies in the fascinating topic of urban planning.

Links :

• BiblioAsia : From Sarong Island With Love: Singapore’s Original Tourist Isle
• Blog to Express : Ways Done in the Past - Sarong Island

 

[1] “A Many Splendoured Island,” Eastern Sun, 23 September 1967, 5; R.
Chandran, “Christina’s Isle of Joy to Be Opened on Thursday,” Straits Times, 16 September 1967, 7.
(From NewspaperSG); Mrs Christina Balsara, oral history interview by Patricia Lee, 18 July 2001, MP3 audio, Reel/Disc 4 of 9, 30:28, National Archives of Singapore (accession no. 002542)

[2] R.Chandran, “All Set for Opening of Sarong Island,” Straits Times, 20 September 1967, 7; “Page 6 Advertisements Column 2,” Straits Times, 18 November 1967, 6 (From NewspaperSG); “Brilliant Backdrop Sets Mood,” Straits Times, 23 September 1967, 9.
(From NewspaperSG)

[3] Mrs Christina Balsara, oral history interview, 18 July 2001; “Christina’s Isle of Joy to Be Opened on Thursday,” Straits Times, 16 September 1967, 7.
(From NewspaperSG)

[4] “For Sale: Isle Dream Home,” Straits Times, 16 March 1957, 5 (From NewspaperSG)

[5] Survey Department, Singapore, Topographical Map of Central and Southern Singapore, and Singapore City, 1966, map.
(From National Archives of Singapore, accession no. M2016_000173_SD)

[6] Dunlop, Peter K.G. British Royal Air Force, Aerial Photographs from South-east to North-west Showing Pulau Blakang Mati, Pasir Panjang Wharf, 22 November 1949, photograph.
(From British Royal Air Force Collection, National Archives of Singapore, accession no. 258513); “For Sale: Isle Dream Home,” Straits Times, 16 March 1957, 5 (From NewspaperSG)

[7] See Survey Department, Singapore, Mukim Number XXXIV: Other Islands, and Mukim Number 1: Telok Blangah, 19 June 1979, map.
(From National Archives of Singapore, accession no. SP004294); Survey Department, Singapore, Mukim Number XXXIV: Other Islands, 19 June 1979, map.
(From National Archives of Singapore, accession no. SP004295)

[8] Parliament of Singapore, Reclamation at Sentosa Island, vol.
37 of Parliamentary Debates: Official Report, 31 January 1978, cols. 254–55.
(From National Library, Singapore, call no. RCLOS 328.5957 SIN)

Breathing life into the ocean

source

NASA Earth Observatory images and video by Joshua Stevens, using data from NASA's Ocean Color Web and VIIRS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE, GIBS/Worldview, and the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership.
Story by Emily Cassidy.

From NASA

From global to regional scales, images from satellites portray the dynamic beauty of the world’s oceans.
Each view reveals something unique, from the seasonal pulses of life to the colorful signature of phytoplankton blooms.

Almost all life in the ocean depends on tiny photosynthetic organisms known as phytoplankton.
These microscopic plant-like organisms capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and release oxygen.
Phytoplankton act as Earth’s lungs and have produced about half of the oxygen we breathe.

One way scientists can track phytoplankton in the ocean is by measuring concentrations of chlorophyll—the compound that allows phytoplankton and plants to absorb energy from sunlight.
There are several kinds of chlorophyll, but they all absorb blue and red wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum and reflect green light.

The animation above, composed from a series of images acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite, shows chlorophyll concentrations across the planet’s oceans from January 2021 to January 2022.
Light-yellow areas on the maps show where chlorophyll concentrations are high; darker blue areas show where they are low.

As the seasons change, chlorophyll concentrations change with them.
Chlorophyll is especially abundant in spring and early summer, when plentiful light and nutrients support huge blooms of phytoplankton.

“The color of the ocean provides us with important information about phytoplankton, the health of the ocean, and the global climate,” said Ivona Cetinić, an oceanographer at Morgan State University and member of NASA’s Ocean Ecology lab.

Regional differences in chlorophyll concentrations are due to factors such as the shape of the seafloor (bathymetry), ocean currents, and nutrient availability.
Near coastlines, phytoplankton thrive on abundant nutrients washed into the ocean from land and from upwelling of cold, nutrient-dense water from the deep ocean.
In many cases the blooms are harmless.
But rapid growth of certain types of phytoplankton in shallow coastal waters can create harmful algal blooms, which can lead to fish kills and produce toxins harmful to human health.

Some of the highest chlorophyll concentrations can be found in cold polar waters, where nutrients build up during the dark winter months.
When spring sunlight returns, phytoplankton flourish.
Near the equator, a streak of high chlorophyll concentrations can be seen where the ocean’s warm upper waters mix with the cooler, nutrient-rich waters from the depths.
This process, known as equatorial upwelling, creates ideal conditions for phytoplankton to thrive throughout the year.

November 21, 2022 JPEG

High levels of chlorophyll also show up at mid-latitudes.
On the global map, notice the seasonal abundance of chlorophyll off the coast of Argentina.
This area, known as the “shelf-break front,” is at a crossroads of ocean currents.
The nutrients they carry often produce dazzling phytoplankton displays in the spring and summer.

These blooms are especially eye-catching in natural-color satellite images.
As summer approached in the southern hemisphere, a phytoplankton bloom became visible off the coast of Argentina.
This image was acquired on November 21, 2022, with the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite.
Turbulent conditions on the edge of the continental shelf generated swirls of water traced by phytoplankton that painted the water blue and green.

“The color of the swirls can tell us something about the type of plankton present in the bloom,” Cetinić said.
She noted that it is difficult to tell immediately the types of phytoplankton present.
Understanding the different types of phytoplankton present in the ocean can tell us about the cycling of not only carbon but other nutrients, too.

Although the colors of the phytoplankton bloom off Patagonia are impressive, NASA’s existing fleet of satellites has some limitations for understanding ocean ecology.
Some of these limitations could soon be resolved, according to Cetinić, the science lead for ocean biogeochemistry for an upcoming NASA satellite called the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, Ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission.

“PACE is hyperspectral, which means it will be able to see many different hues and will help us tease apart which types of phytoplankton are present.
It will also help us quickly identify and forecast harmful algal blooms,” Cetinić said.
Moving to PACE to understand ocean ecology, “will be like switching from a flip phone to the latest smart phone.”