PULAU Pisang is the only island in a cluster of islands some 15km off Pontian that is not named after parts of a ship.
The island, whose lighthouse is managed by Singapore, is named after wild bananas there while the other islands are Pulau Tunda or ship's bow on the westernmost side; Pulau Kemudi (stern) and Pulau Sauh (anchor) on the easternmost side.
Pulau Pisang is the largest of the four. The islands were part of the Johor-Riau Empire.
The islands are floating orchards, with hundreds of fruit trees such as mango and durians.
But legend has it that the islands were actually parts of a large ship that was cursed into stone by the mother of the ship's captain, Tanggang, because he refused to acknowledge her when she brought his favourite banana to the ship.
A fisherman from Kampung Nelayan in Benut, Abdul Razak Masdek, 70, said the early settlers had found wild banana growing on the island.
They used the banana leaves to treat emphysema (a disease of the lung), which was prevalent at the time, by covering the chest of the patient with a paste of black glutinous rice flour and egg white before wrapping the abdomen with the wild banana leaves.
Apart from the common mango (Mangifera indica), the sweet smelling Saipan mango or kuini (Mangifera odorata) trees are also found in abundance on the island.
The kuini mango here are excellent due to the absence of fruit wasps that normally plague mainland kuini trees, inject the young fruits with its eggs and render the ripe fruits unmarketable.
The mango trees are easily a century old, some acquiring such enormous girths that three grown men with outstretched arms can hardly encircle their base.
Durian trees are also planted on the island, some so laden with fruits that their branches can hardly be seen, reflecting the fertility of the soil here.
Pineapple, of a type predating the Masmirah clone that boosted the pineapple industry in Johor in 1974, and yam plants could be found under the mango and durian trees, most probably remnants of a plantation in the past.
From the sea, one can still see clusters of wild bananas on the island, especially around Batu Mandi on the western tip of Pulau Pisang.
In the 1800s, the agricultural drive by the then Johor ruler, the late Sultan Abu Bakar, had boosted the agricultural activities in the islands as the fertile land gave excellent yield on whatever the islanders chose to plant.
Most of the islanders, who were of Bugis descent, then moved to the mainland. They were the pioneers of many Bugis villages in Benut and Pontian.
All the beaches on the islands are lined with large, craggy boulders that resemble cuts of layered cake or kek lapis.
Large boats do not berth at the jetty on the island for fear of hitting the shallow and rocky seabed. The private jetty, built by Singapore and meant for lighthouse crew, is situated in a cove on the southern side of Pulau Pisang. The jetty walls are constructed from the rocks found on the island
Spotted sun skinks or bengkarung, frolic on the path leading to the lighthouse as it was one of the few places where sunshine could reach the ground unhindered, providing warmth to the cold-blooded creatures.
The skinks are much larger than their mainland counterparts, which can also be said for the millipedes and insects found on the island.
The path to the lighthouse is tortuous, the steep incline makes it dangerous to climb on rainy days, and each step needs to be thought out carefully as the slippery path does not provide much foothold.
The lighthouse stands majestically on the highest point of Pulau Pisang, and the tiring 800-metre climb up the cliffs was made worthwhile by the magnificent view from the hilltop, with the shrill chittering of cicadas in the background.