Saturday, August 27, 2005

kusu reefwalk, 21 aug 05

leapt out of bed at quarter to 4am, determined not to be late this time after missing the cab that i was sposed to share with bernie the last time. only 2 hours of sleep and very grouchy.

got me some kaya toast from the coffeeshop - yup, i was also surprised that they open so early. then waited for my cab buddies to pick me up.

it was such a cold morning and i so wanted to curl up in bed... we took the Penguin ferry from sentosa to kusu. the plastic green seats werent conducive for sleeping but i somehow managed to anyways. until a loud VOICE boomed across the ferry, selling a brochure map of the southern shores of singapore. $3.20 only. very cheap and money goes into the bwv fund.

when we reached kusu, it was dark, cold and raining. our reef guide was daniel and he was still upbeat regardless of the dreary weather and assured all that the rain will stop in a while. after waiting for some 15 mins, the rain became lighter and we made our way down the part sandy, part muddy lagoon. it was full moon and tide was at its lowest. yup, when the moon and the sun and the earth are aligned, you get spring tide and that's when the high tide is at its highest and low tide at its lowest.

daniel is one amazing guide who can spin a story out of anything. e.g. that the sand mounds were created by shrimps as they displaced the sand from the hole they lived in. or that there is a myth that little depressions in the sand were created when stingrays burrowed into the sand in wait for its prey. i personally found it dubious but it was entertaining nevertheless!

didnt spot much stuff as the water was murky. rainwater had seeped through the ground and was flowing down from inland to the shore. we can't see the fish and the fish can't see us. something wriggled from under my foot at one point. i hope he survived. one of the guys in our group had very sharp eyes. he spotted a copperband butterfly fish and a stonefish. we were discussing whether it was a stonefish or scorpionfish. well, the stonefish has an upturned mouth and looks a little 'uglier'. it's just my subjective view. of course, you may think he's prettier than the scorpionfish. the guy we saw was of a muddy colour. he's very very venomous (most venomous of all fish) and i was glad that i was wearing shoes this time.... that's right, no more flip-flops. i had heard of uw photographers who accidentally rest the hand on these guys. according to them, if such accidents happen, quickly soak the hand in hot water and well, pray. the little bastard's poison can kill within 6 hours. it contains a powerful neurotoxin that attack the nervous system, reducing breathing and heart rate until.... always look where you step or rest your hand.

kusu's reef flat is a little different from labrador. labrador is sandy and rocky and there are quite a lot of coral mounds, zoanthids and a sprinkle of anemones. kusu has stretches of sand with nothing much on it at some part and portions of mud where the feet will sink in at other parts. at the far end of the lagoon near the breakwater, there are areas covered with hard coral and other areas covered with huge, pinkish-brown soft corals called 'Dead man's fingers'. this is a man-made lagoon. dunno what the gah-men was thinking when they made it. as if singah-poreans will take the expensive and infrequent ferry to swim in a muddy lagoon. well no loss, anyways, cos it turned out to be a great habitat for corals and creatures.

on the breakwater you can find little limpets and barnacles. once settled, these guys do not move house. when the tide comes in, the barnacles extend their feathery legs to gather plankton from the water. they are hermaphrodites and have very long male organs that can sometimes reach another barnacle 7 shells away!

nearer the shore where it is sandy, there were many mating sea-stars. sea-stars are echinoderms - same family as urchins, sea cucumbers and sand dollars, characterized by generally having its body divided into 5-fold symmetry. they lay on top of one another and burrow in the sand when mating. fertilization is external. these guys are brainless - yes, really! no wonder always kena caught and made into souvenirs. those poor buggers. they are carnivorous, feeding on clams, mussels etc. using suckers on their tiny tube feet, their can pry open the clam shell, then extend the stomach into the shell to eat the insides. quite cool, isnt it?

oh well, quite disappointed that the weather was so wet and cos of that camera went into hiding so no pictures to show. must pray for good weather the next time...

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

skydiving 2005


went tandem skydiving on 18 aug 05 with edy, megan and kabei. what an exhilarating ride...

our chopper
chopper

getting ready for the jump
getting ready for the jump

my tandem master, aleks. looks a little like sean connery, no? he's from latvia and speaks russian.
aleks

the sensation of free falling through the sky was indescribable. there was definitely fear. of falling endlessly with nothing to hold on to. we were rushing down into the rain and it felt like many pins on the face.

then parachute is opened. a slight jerk. sailing smoothly down. mesmerizing skyline of singapore. spinning down, down, down, a little dizzy now.

over all too soon...

some pics of megan's jump:

cruising in the air


coming down fast..


a great landing!


megan and tandem master


megan and tandem master

kabei and her tandem master




edy and tandem master
edy and tandem master2

edy and tandem master

some out-of-the world costumes...
photos

photos

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

“Youth”, by Samuel Ullman

Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigour of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life.

Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of sixty more than a boy of twenty. Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals.

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

sangalaki pictures

some pictures of the trip, courtesy of cheng (who didnt bring the o-ring hence no uw pics...)

cheng's sangalaki pictures

and click here for pictures from bonz (who remembered the o-ring)

diving in sangalaki, indonesia - part II

ocean is not a zoo...

more words of wisdom from yuki. i was recounting my disappointment of not seeing as many mantas as expected in sangalaki and she replied with these words above that are now etched in my mind.

the beauty of nature is its unpredictability. in the zoo, you get instantaneous gratification cos all that you want to see is displayed behind the cold hard glass case or behind a cleverly landscaped moat/fence. but you soon realise that the satisfaction is short-lived and you get bored after a while. the difference with nature is that the patient will get rewarded and the joy of discovering new things everyday lasts forever. what we can discover about the world is limitless. i ve been diving for some 5 years now and i m still discovering new things about the ocean...

such as, sea foam is formed by planktons. when a phytoplankton bloom offshore dissolves a large amount of organic matter in seawater, and this water is transported onshore by winds and then agitated in the surf zone, sea foam is formed. how i discovered this was cos after our night dive at a dive site off maratua, we surfaced into the foam and the smell was like vomit or fermented beancurd and we were all really freaked out thinking that it must be sewage water washed off from the villages in maratua. disgusted, we washed and washed our dive gear that night. we had never been so diligent in washing our gear..... anyways, the resort manager told us the next day that it is just fermented plankton. i came back to search the web and found the above explanation and finally felt 'clean'.

anyways, there were a few other funny things that happened on the sangalaki trip which i wanted to put on record so i can laugh about it years later.

the malay staff at nabucco resort couldnt quite tell three of us apart: bonz, wangz and i. cos we are all quite petite and have long dark-coloured hair. just like all ang mohs looked the same to me, i spose we looked the same to the malay staff and this generated a few laughs. it was bonz's birthday and i had ordered a cake the night before. it was meant to be a surprise. however, the following morning, the waiter came over to our table and told bonz with big assuring smile on his face, the cake had been arranged. i was absolutely mortified. she gave a confused look and then it dawned on her what was going on. the staff thought that it was my birthday and bonz had ordered the cake. *gasp* the next morning, putu asked if it was my birthday and i was like no, no, NO! it's my sister's bd!

there was this other incident when the waiter brought hot chocolate to wangz (when it was actually bonz who ordered) and she gave them the 'i didnt order this' look and i saw him getting all nervous... i think generally the resort staff were very eager to please - could be the result of being subjected to nazi treatment by the german management haha...

the other night, the waiter also got very nervous after i asked him what is the famous indonesian fruit dessert with avocado and he didnt know the answer. i thought about it for whole night and suddenly recalled that it was esteller!! told the waiter and saw the smile of relief on his face.

other light-hearted moments included us getting terrorized by the residents of the island. there were the geckos that appeared everywhere. a particularly gross looking one was waiting to ambush me at the door of the bedroom one morning and in a stupor, i had walked right onto him and realising what touched my foot, gave the most bloodcurdling scream of my life. the guy was stunned and stayed there for quite a long while. he survived and crept away while i was hiding out in the bathroom. edy also suffered a gecko attack. one night while we were sitting around at the dining table, he got hit by a missile from the ceiling. the other scary resident is Benny, the mongrel. thought he was a friendly guy till he grabbed my leg with his front paw one morning and i was quite freaked out and avoided him ever since. he had the habit of appearing suddenly beside you while you were walking on the narrow path. bonz, who isnt very fond of dogs, got shocked outta her life when he did that to her once. after that incident, we noticed that Benny 'disappeared' for the next few days, possibly locked up and subject to nazi treatment.

other not so light-hearted moment was when cheng discovered that he had forgotten to bring the o-ring for the uw casing for his camera. he had brought everything else - yup, all of 20kg of heavy equipment, strobes and all.. oh well, i m sure he ll go back to sangalaki again to capture them magnificent creatures in his camera.

the last night of the trip, we stayed in a nondescript town, berau. there was really nothing to do besides eating and shopping for gold. according to putu, the gold here is of pretty good quality. he bought a gold ring for some S$120 cos he was going travelling for the next two weeks and he thinks its better to carry gold than cash. we sat by the yellow river for a while to chat and kabs commented that it was just like phnom penh, cambodia. yup, next to the tonle sap, there was also a row of little shops selling food and drinks and there was also nothing much to do.

we had ayam sate and seafood for dinner that night. while waiting for the sate, had a little chat with putu. he said that he wanted to work in singapore and in fact, stayed with his aunt in singapore for 6 months once but cldnt adapt to the crazy pace. talked about the escalators being so fast, he took the stairs instead.

the next day we left on a little plane. it was so little that all passengers had to be weighed to make sure the load is not too heavy. plane touched down, picked passengers up and took off again. it was like taking a bus. putu had left earlier on another flight to balikpapan and went on his way to bali? jakarta? who knows. one regret. i wished i had touched those soft brown curls and satisfy my curiosity that it really is as soft as it looks!