Visiting Raffles Lighthouse on Pulau Satumu

Last updated June 28th, 2026

Singapore’s southern islands are a nice way to escape the city life for a bit – St John’s, Lazarus and Kusu Island are some of the more well-known ones as they are easy to get to, and you can even do intertidal walks at Pulau Hantu, but have you ever heard of Pulau Satumu? This is one of Singapore’s offshore islands that you cannot easily visit on your own as access is restricted – I took a tour with Singapore’s Maritime and Port Authority to visit Raffles Lighthouse on Pulau Satumu and here’s how my tour went.

Update 2026: Raffles Lighthouse is managed by the Maritime & Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) and this particular tour is on hiatus for now. Check out the new tours that they’ve launched to Sultan Shoal Lighthouse instead, and keep a lookout on the MPA Eventbrite page or check out Lion Heartlanders (MPA engages to manage their public tours) for future updates .

Where is Pulau Satumu?

If you head in a southwest direction towards the edge of Singapore’s waters with Indonesia, you’ll find the island of Pulau Satumu at the western end of the Singapore Strait. The boat took about 1.5 hours to get from Marina South Pier to Pulau Satumu.

Pulau Satumu was apparently known as Coney Island back in the day – not to be confused with the current Coney Island in Punggol! The name also apparently translates to One Tree in Malay. Pulau Satumu is a very small island and as with many other Singaporean offshore islands, some of its land was reclaimed from the sea. The island’s main claim to fame is that it is home to Raffles Lighthouse.

About Raffles Lighthouse

Standing 29m tall, Raffles Lighthouse is quite a historical landmark. First built in 1855, it’s one of Singapore’s oldest lighthouses and is still in use today keeping ships safe as they enter the Singapore Strait. It’s the southernmost of all the lighthouses.

The only lighthouse I knew about in Singapore prior to this trip was the Raffles Marina Lighthouse in Tuas, which is actually a privately owned lighthouse and doesn’t fall under MPAs governance. I didn’t even know we have a lighthouse on top of a condo block in Bedok.

The 5 lighthouses managed by the Singapore Maritime and Port Authority:

• Raffles Lighthouse on Pulau Satumu, southernmost lighthouse, 2nd oldest
• Bedok Lighthouse in Marine Parade – on top of a condo block on the mainland
• Horsburgh Lighthouse on Pedra Branca – oldest lighthouse built in 1851
• Pulau Pisang Lighthouse on Pulau Pisang – island belongs to Malaysia but lighthouse operated by Singapore
• Sultan Shoal Lighthouse – in the Tuas megaport area near Jurong Island

Fun fact: only Raffles Lighthouse and Pulau Pisang Lighthouse have lighthouse keepers, of which there are 8 people in total. 2 men are assigned to each lighthouse at any one time, working on 10-day shifts to ensure the lighthouse is in working order. It must be an interesting job but you have to be really good at being isolated because you’re really in the middle of nowhere. There is internet and phone connection though, but otherwise it’s all wide open sea and passing ships and a very small piece of land to wander around.

We got to see the 2 lighthouse keepers on duty when we visited. I hope they’re all good friends because there is literally no other soul around during your 10-day shift and nowhere to escape to.

The Raffles lighthouse Tour with MPA

Meeting point: Marina South Pier

The tour starts at 1pm but you’re encouraged to arrive a little earlier as the boat usually sets off on schedule. There is a table set up at Marina South Pier (take the North-South MRT line right to the end NS28 Marina South Pier), which is the same place where you take the boat if you intend to go to St John’s, Lazarus and Kusu Islands.

The tour group that day was quite large, over 70 people signed up! And it was a mix of Singaporeans and some foreigners, though I get the sense that these foreigners are people living in Singapore more than tourists passing through.

Overall it was quite well organised – we were given a briefing on what to expect at the sign up point and split into 3 groups using coloured bands, each following a different guide. Use the toilet before you go! There are some toilets on the island itself if you really need though.

The boat is a privately chartered boat with an open-air upstairs deck and a sheltered lower deck. They arranged it such that the different groups would swap levels so everyone would get a chance to be on the upper deck. I managed to snag a seat right up front on the upper deck on the trip there, but you can actually walk around the deck if it’s not too rocky.

The guides shared quite a lot of information and stories throughout the journey, from pointing out the southern islands that we passed by to facts about the giant tankers that would sail by, so it was quite interesting throughout. On the way back they had quizzes and some small prizes too.

Destination: Pulau Satumu

The 1.5 hour boat journey along the Singapore Strait lets you see Singapore’s busy waters and appreciate the southern skyline. It’s times like these that I truly appreciate the fact that Singapore is an archipelago – I usually say Singapore has 60+ islands, but according to our guide, we’ve reclaimed, joined and demolished many of these islands in the name of industry so the true number of islands actually is around 40+ now.

The southern islands that you’ll pass by along the way:

• St John’s Island & Lazarus Island (Kusu Island is behind Lazarus) – see my guide for more info
• Pulau Tekukor – a former ammo dump site, currently uninhabited
• Sisters Islands – Big sister’s Island can now be visited, while Small Sister’s Sister’s Island is a protected area
• Pulau Sebarok – home to oil refineries that belong to Singapore Petroleum Company
• Pulau Semakau – Singapore’s landfill island, but it doesn’t look remotely trashy at all as the trash is incinerated and buried. I’ve heard that the biodiversity here is pretty good.

Finally, Pulau Satumu!

Pulau Satumu is pretty small, you can see almost all of it at a glance. The jetty and cove is on the east side of the island where there are breakwaters to protect the coast, while the rest of the island is grass and the lighthouse.

Raffles Lighthouse

Since there were three groups, we rotated between exploring the island, checking out the museum and climbing the lighthouse. Raffles Lighthouse is 29m tall and 88 steps lead you to the top. Lovely view of Pulau Satumu from above and the surrounding islands as well as an up close look at the lighthouse lamp.

Update: While I was able to climb up to the top of the lighthouse when I did this tour in 2022, friends who took this tour at a later date say that guests are no longer allowed to go up the lighthouse which is a pity because it does offer a great view, so you can enjoy it in the pix here, but just know that you can’t go up these days.

Raffles Lighthouse Museum

At the base of the lighthouse is a small room which serves as a mini museum of sorts for the lighthouse. They’ve stored some old artefacts like the old lighthouse lamps and news clippings about the lighthouse here. We popped in for a brief look. They had a gun cabinet in case of pirates back in the day (it’s empty now though).

Raffles Lighthouse Tour Details

The Raffles Lighthouse tour ran from 1pm to 5pm and overall I did enjoy learning about Singapore’s maritime history on this tour. It makes for an interesting way to see Singapore’s southern seas and you get the chance to visit a landmark and island that you wouldn’t normally be able to visit on your own which is quite cool. If you’re interested in Singapore’s history or just want to spend an afternoon outside for a bit, I think this tour is worth checking out.

Check out Maritime and Port Authority on Eventbrite to see their latest event listings as they seem to run this tour on an ad-hoc basis. In the meantime check out their new Sultan Shoal Lighthouse tour.

---

Looking to see more of Singapore’s offshore islands? Check out these posts here or see all my posts about Singapore.