Pulau Brani is not among the touristically visited islands, being one of the smaller Southern islands out of the total 63 islands of Singapore. The tiny island does not have special sites and there is no commercial either touristic activity there, mainly it contains a huge boat depot and container occupying the larger area of Pulau Brani.
Pulau Brani is very close to the main island of Singapore, located between Singapore City’s Keppel Harbour and Sentosa Island. The Brani Terminal Avenue connects the Pulau Brani to the city. The area of Pulau Brani is 1.22 km2, which means that it is not a hard task to walk around. The island has several legends connected to its birth as with most of Singapore’s island. Similarly, to Pulau Hantu and Sisters’ Island the story of Pulau Brani is connected to pirates and warriors saying that the island was the burial place of legendary warrior pirates. This is how Pulau Brani got its name in Malay meaning the “Island of the Brave”. According to other legends, there are talks about a certain well that is located on the top of the island with great qualities.
Pulau Brani in the old days used to be anglers’ island with several small villages like Telok Saga and Kampong Selat out of which it’s Telok Saga was the most popular for its coin diving activities.
The British always actively used the island and first it had acted as a navy and military base for the troops with the construction works starting in 1822. Later on, the island changed and all the military moved from the island and on the remaining place, they have built a tin smelting plant during the other half of British colonial period. The Straits Trading Company operated the tin smelt plant. The Pulau Brani Island got its Chinese name due to this plant. In 1942 when the Japanese occupation and their victory seemed clear, the British closed down the factory and finished all of its activities, which reopened in 1945 and finished operation with the moving out of Straits in 1965. British army had their maritime base on the island including the British Army School and living quarters too also, several children from Sentosa Island attended this school. From 1971, the island was the base of the Singapore Navy. Schools and sports clubs were built on the island. After the naval base was rebuilt, it had been reopened in 1974 on the name Brani Naval Base. Later on part of the Naval Base was rebuilt to be a container out of which the whole Brani Container Terminal was built and having the navy moving out from the island in 2000. The new headquarters of the Singapore Police Guard are now located on the island.
As an interesting fact, long time ago Pulau Brani also got a reputation for sinking ships frequently long time ago ad its underwater size exceeds its size on the ground which knowledge was on the cost of losing of several boats. The island is not much worth visiting although you can see it from Sentosa Island. Yet Pulau Brani is a great example on how Singaporeans make great use of their islands.