4
S OOT
C
(
i s l and hopp i ng
)
1
t one point in time life had taken a turn for the
worse if you found yourself sailing to St John’s
Island, located roughly 6.5kmoff Singapore’s
southern coast. Immigrants afflicted
with cholera or leprosy, detained political
dissidents, recovering drug addicts: for nearly a century these
were the residents of St John’s, until the mid-1970s when the
island, which was previously by turns a quarantine centre,
detention block and rehabilitation clinic, was reimagined as a
day-trip destination.
With fishermen casting their lines
into a placid harbour, coconut trees
rocking and creaking in the wind, and
families building sandcastles on the
beach, the current incarnation of the
islandmakes it hard to picture this
patch of land as anything but serene.
Remnants of St John’s less salubrious
past do remain, however.
Take a walk along the paved path
winding into the island’s interior and you’ll pass basketball
courts with barbed-wire fencing, abandoned guard towers
and blocks of plain housing barracks, the latter now used
for summer camps. It all feels very Dharma Initiative, but
back towards the island’s jetty these surreal traces give way
to picnic tables, barbecue grills and a shallow lagoon. Better
swimming can be found a short walk away, across the St
John’s Causeway, on connected Lazarus Island.
Lazarus’s small beach directly opposite the jetty is suitable,
but further inland, through a thin strip of palm trees, is a
marvellous, crescent-shaped beach you’ll likely share with just
a handful of others. Unfortunately debris sometimes washes
up on the shore, but not in sufficient quantity to spoil this
somewhat secret hideaway.
Visible from the north end of that beach is Kusu Island,
amassive outcrop of rock swathed in dense jungle which
was expanded to seven times its original size in the mid-
1970
s, around the same time St John’s underwent its own
transformation. Even so, compared
to Sentosa it’s still just a tiny speck of
neatly landscaped terrain – you can
walk a complete loop around in about
20
minutes. You’ll see a slow trickle
of visitors, many of themdevotees
worshipping at Tua Pek Kong, a Taoist
temple built in 1923, or praying for good
health and financial fortune at Kusu’s
kramats
,
the shrines of threeMalay
saints located 152 steps up the rock.
Like St John’s, facilities on Kusu are spare. Aside from
touring the temples and ogling the colony of turtles housed
in a small sanctuary – the word
kusu
translates to “Tortoise
Island” inHokkien – the island offers little else in the way of
activities save for swimming, picnicking and fishing, but if it’s
a lazy day on amostly deserted island you’re after, it’s a fine
choice. The two sand-bottom lagoons are the best swimming
beaches on the Southern Islands – with a bonus, on the north
shore, of the Singapore skyline as a scenic backdrop.
GETTING
THERE
Singapore Island
Cruise provides
round-trip ferry
services to St
John’s and Kusu
islands from
Marina South
Pier at 31 Marina
Coastal Dr.
islandcruise.
com.sg
COST
$18
TRIP
TIME
35
minutes to
St John’s; 50
minutes to Kusu
DON’T
FORGET
There’s no food
or drink available
on these islands.
Stock up on
nibbles at the
small store by
the pier.
a
Through a thin strip of
palm trees
is a marvellous,
crescent-shaped beach
you’ll likely share with just a
handful of others
Cruising the Southern Islands
PHOTO
STB
