Outward Bound Singapore
MOBILE B
Watch: Columbus (Barbarians)
Our Instructor: Chew Yien
Buddy Watch: Cook
Their Instructor: Natalie
Columbians (14): Shuna, Shara, Ping Fang, Zhi Ying,Crystal Chng, Crystal Lee, Sandra, Indira, Arati, Claire, Yu Min, Jolene, Pei Ting, Qiu Ping (Mostly 308'06ers)
Duration: 16th Jan - 20th Jan 2005

I've got muscle ache all over my body, especially the legs and hands, even fingers. ARrrrr....WE are the mobile team that is having sea experdition. which meant lots of sea stuff...so here it goes

Day 1:
I arrived at Punggol jetty with 301 and waited there for the ferry to come. finally, it came and took about 10 of us up. we went to camp 1, the newer camp. then we waited again...for about 45 mins. finally, the teachers wanted to put us into watched liaoz.. BUT, for duno wad reason, i was magically popped out opf my class, which meant no bonding with my classmates. and was shipped all the way to camp 2, the older camp. i was like...errrrrr...i thought the main aim of this camp is BONDING???? when i reached camp 2, i was placed in Columbus. The first person i talked to was Zhi Ying and Ping Fang. Hahahaha....after that we moved to a place and did some admin stuff, wheer they took away our money and handphones....then we went to our stall to do some more admin stuff like checking teh stuff in it. the stall smelt terrible and in no time, i felt terrible...so i raised my hand and said i felt unwell, and i got a bread in return, i think something is really wrong with my stomach then, i guess i have gastric juices that are too acidic. then, after all those...its already 4-5 pm liaoz, we went to practice bealying, we've learnt that before, so there's not much of a problem. then...its tent pitching time...wahhh...they gave us ancient tents ar...those triangular typed ones...so when the tents were really pitched up, they were kinda sloppy. then its cooking time...we cooked by the seaside...its really troublesome ar. our rice turned into porridge and the cans were ULTRA difficult to open. BECAUSE we had to use some ancient looking can opener. hahaha....dinner was okay...we ate, just for teh sake of eating, then its bathing time (we were still unthoughtful at that time and left teh washing to only some of the girls). My intructor was saying, tmr there will be NO bath for you, so scrub yourselves...haha...and we did....after that ...we packed our stuff and all the food rations into the obs' backpacks which is not long very long, but also very old but also very sandy. we had to bring the heavy heavy ponchos too, which we had NO use for it!!! then after much slogging and stuffing and complaining, its sleeping time...we are sleeping on this kinda muddy slope with trees around us and facing the sea. I slept with shara, ping fang and zhi ying...haha...sounds like i onyl knew the both of them...but no la...i got to know all of them well!!!ping fand n i talked amd crapped about anime and manga just before we plopped down and went into a deep sleep....

Day 2:
Shara woked us up at 5:00 am coz we had to continue our packing with we had not managed to do finish. we had to unpitch teh tenets too meanwhile, through all those work, we gobbled down our breakfast. finally, with the rations and our personal stuff and ponchos in our bags and tents and groundsheets , we lugged all of them to blk 7, along with our bottles with is 2L each and the jerricans which is still empty at that time. we meet up with chew yien and started lugging the heavy stuff towards the jetty and flunging them into the boat...the jerricans were then filled up...wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....H-E-A-V-Y is not enough to describe it ar...adding E-X-T-R-E-M-E-L-Y is still not enough ar..okay...i ran out of words to say about its weight liaoz....okay...after the loading of things and bags....we went for rock climbling..which is also not much of a problem coz we had it before.....then we gobbled lunch down...lunch = bread. then its kayaking drills....we waited under the huge sun, listening to insturctions and picked our own paddles. i didn know the weight of a kayak until i finally lifted it up with 3 other people...GOSH.....its.....really heavy ar....finally we get into the waters which is not only salty but also very stinky....haha...we practised capsizing and rescuing....hhaa...xian, i parterned yannie leh...hehe...i thought they were quite fun la...i only capsized twice in the whole 5 days...when the instructors thought we were ready, they told us to kayak out into the sea, to our next campsite, the rtip us only like 30mins and all of us were grumbling that it was really short...but we were utterly wrong...we didn know what was before us.....okay, coming back. we reached our campsite, which was a place infested with sandflies (mostly at the beach), weeds, rocks and again, sand. we were like WAH>>>WE ARE CAMPING HERE AR???????haiz...but yup, thats what our unstructors said. we were to pitch our tents up, have dinner and then meet the instructors at a certain tme. we pitched the tents with LOTS of difficulty coz the ground was hard so the tentpacks could get into it, we had to use large rocks to hold the twines down, sometimes the rocks are not large enough and teh tent start to slack down. anw, we changed inside the tent, out of our wet clothes. the we coooked maggie mee (gosh im not eating maggies for the next 1 whole mth). we ate liek barbarians, all the forks going into ONE pot, when we looked around, other watches had their food splited up nicely in different mess tins...we were like, hu cares...its only saliva!!!!! haha...then soon night fell, our instructors gathered us and told us about the SEA EXPEDITION we were going to have the next day...they told us about the route and etc...then its sleeping time, BUT, we had to do watches, as in watch guard. my tent's one is from 12 to 1 am...haha...so we woke up at that time. zhi ying and i took the unwashed pot down to teh seaside and immediately, got welcomed by lots of sandflies. we flung the noodles into the sea and started scrubbing the pot(we were suppose to dig a hole and bury them, but who cares, it TWELVE minight!!)till now, i still think we are very brave. and walked back to our campsite, this time meeting with shara and sat and toked till 1. oh, i forgot to mention. i looked right out into the big sea while doing what i had to do...wahh....hahha...good experience ar!!haha...then its sleeping....

Day 3:
woke up at 5, unpitch tents and got into my wet clothings blah blah...we got into our kayaks and went out into teh sea....luck was not on our side. since its too difficult to describe what we went through, i shall say it as briefly as i could. we went against the tide. we had all the energy and kayaking was still fun. we had time ...all teh time...until our instructor said we haf to make it to teh frog island before 1:30 pr we had to turn back...so we used all our might to paddle and paddle and paddle....finally we reached that stupid island, but was 15 mins late..phew...the instructos said we can go on. BUT, many of us were seasick then, and that includes me...and of course seasickness comes with puking and i did too. sb handed me an orange peel which didn do much help...then we cont to paddle, despite all teh uncomfort. in other words, we puked while we paddled. then we got caught in this choppy sea. there were people lagging at teh back ciz they couldn manage the yellow kayaks which i cant too. so we had to wait. but whenever we waited, we get pushed back in a speed of like 5m per 2 sec?? so choppy sea...i puked again...seasickness was getting really bad, so i had to depend on shara to keep the boat steady. shall not drawl on this part too long...but it will always be in my mind...we had lots and i really meant lots of obstacles on the sea...people are getting frustrated and upset coz of the obstacles.....we had a really hard time...finally we got out of danger zone, but that doesn mean we were close to our destination....paddle, paddle. paddle...then we exchanged our red boat with a yellow one. then we fell back, from teh leading ones to the lagging ones...haha...finally we reached......its 5: 30 then. WE had kayaked none stop for 9.5 hrs....through all those puking and stuff...which meant we are all at teh brink of death. BUT all was not finish. we had to clear all 28 kayaks of the water inside them and pull them up a steep slope. we also had to pull the bags (about 5-7 kg each)up teh slope to. we had a human chain tehn...after all the work, i felt like one who had just committed sucide, but didn manage to die...thats ont all, we had to trek back to our camp. some picked up bags, some picked up ponchos (2-3kgs each??)some picked up bottles...we trekked. and we trekked into the night, in a forested area, which meant ZERO light, except for 4 pathetic torches the instructors had, but we had 56 pple on teh move leh, 4 torches were definitely not enough!! we walked and walked and walked. imagine who tired we are, after kayaking, after loading the kayaks, after loading teh bags....now...trekking with stuff on our hands and in teh dark...we trekked back to camp 2. the intructors told us that camp 2 was not our destination. but with all teh corcumstances, they had to do an impromptu plan. so there we were, at camp 2. then we had dinner. thanks goodness...they were packed ones, we didn have to cook. we were all extremely hungry, but when we got teh food, none of us could finish, coz our stomach have shrunk due to all the hard work. then we went to unload more bags from the jetty, then its washing up time. then sleeping. luckily, our insturctors allowed us not to pitch tents, but sleep in the hall (hall as in place with a roof, but is open at both sides). after teh slogging, we fell inot a dea sleeep, though the floor was concret hard. and i forgot to mention that when we were on hard ground, we continue to feel thet we were "bobbing", guess we had to much time on sea.

Day 4:
WE woked up at 5, with muscles aching all over, we could even get up from our sleeping position. we were to pack our stuff into teh backpacks and trek to camp 1, with is about 2 km away. we brought a bagful of harnesses, a bagful of helmets and 2 bags of ponchos. then we started trekking. its onyl 6:30 in the morn, image how how light we had. so its still trekking in the dark. after much walking, we finally reached camp 1...our instructors toked for a while before letting us go for breakfast. we were like...wah...we barbarians are here at a civilasation!!! haha...but before eating, we had to wash the plates and etc...finally, we got FOOD, COOKED FOOD and sat down. then i exclamied, "My goodness!! first time in 4 days we sat on a chair leh!! and forst time in 4 days theres a table in front of us!!!" haha....we saw syrup and went "wah!!! S-Y-R-U-P~~~~~~!!!" we saw milo and went "M-I-L-O~~~~~~~" haha....seee??? we do sound and look like barbarians in a civilisation dont we?? haha...next we went to Indiana (the ship S. Raffles took to come to singpore) and did some height elements. haha...i dozed off numerous times, while waiting and my friends made a comclusion about me "Shuna can sleep anywhere at anytime" hahah....tehn its ,lunch...we ate again. this time, we became smarter. we didn fill up our cups one by one, coz the last time we did dat, when we went back for a second re-fill, there's no more drinks. so we filled up our jugs and filled them 3 times...hehe...we are water buckets!! after lunch, we played games like "empathy ball" and "duno-what-coconut trees-island-game". haha....then again, we trekked back to camp 2, its a fine day overall. back at camp 2. we recieved instructions and started pitching our tents. after so many days....we got pro in pitching. so teh tents were nice and striaght, but it was teh last day liaoz...haiz...tehn cooking was fine too we ate maggies though we are suppose to eat until stupid. haha...then its bathing and packing our own stuff etc etc...then we toked with chew yien, then we scrubed our bags...then its sleeping..me shara ping fand zhi ying had planned not to sleep and talk all night, but we were just too tired and slept...haha...

Day 5:
Woke up at 5 again. this time, we bargained with shara and got another 30mins of sleep haha....then we woked up to unpitch the tents in dark. after the hustle and bustle...everyone was up. we washed up and gobbled down some breakfast...then its washing time, not us, but teh tents and etc....we washed and dried them, chew yien came to check them..then finally, everything went into the stall. oh, we also did a performance for chew yien and natalie and cook. soon, its time to go home...we took our own bags and proceed to the place near the kayaks. we did souvenier shopping, i got 2 shirts..haha...then its time to go home. we bid good bye and took the ferry back to singapore island........i'll miss my watch and instructor!!

Results of obs:
1) turned into complete barbarian (haha)
2) got 30+ sandflies bites
3) got 6 blue blacks (cant recall when i got them)
4) 1 lip burnt due to the sun
5) achings all over
6) arm muscles
7) stinking clothes which came out of the sea
8) a whole class of new friedns!! 308'06ers
9) a GREAT experience!!!!!
(took me 1 hr and 40 mins to blog this long)

shuna! wrote at 02:50 | 0 Comments