yayyyyyy!!!!!!!! back from obs!!!! i already miss elgene. and amundsen. :(

7th march.
we arrived at punggol jetty point at 8.30 to take the ferry to Outward Bound School (Singapore). well, its pulau ubin actually. upon arriving at OBS camp 2, which is for the Mobile ppl, erm which is me, we were streamed into groups. i'm in Amundsen, with the first half of my class. we got a wonderful instructor maned Elgene. we were brought to our stores and were made to clean up, check equipment and learn to use them. i was made store IC. :)

then, we were taught how to pitch tents, (unfortunately and fortunately not the npcc type...) and we pitched. then, we were taught how to put on harnesses and helmets, and we learnt belaying. it was pretty fun as we belayed our frens up and down the staple pillar. yea. then we went to pack our stuff into a backpack given to us to take along on our expeditions. stupid me only packed one set of clothes and one nightsuit, and in the end, when i got back to camp 2 on thursday i ended up having 3 sets of unworn clothing, clean, dry and sweet-smelling. grrrr. okie nvm. where was i? uh yarh. so after packing, we went to eat. we built fires and anyi was the cook for the night. we had burnt but half cooked rice with sausages and baked beans. but everyone was hungry, and all the rice was soon eaten up. then after that, we went down to the beach to get the mess tins, utensils and cooking pots washed and scrubbed clean, before we bathed and went to bed.

8 march
we woke up at around 6, washed up, had breakfast and gathered to meet elgene. we were briefed on the medical kit and its contents before we were told to change into our wet suit, which means swimming costume, shirt and shorts, and wet shoes. to our delight, we found out we were going kayaking first thing in the morning. we flopped to the sea with our life jackets and whistles safely fastened to us, grabbed our paddles and waded into the water. we learnt to paddle, forwards and backwards, manoeuver and capsize. then we each took kayaks, paddled into water and started our capsize drill. eunice and jiewei were me and corinna's rescuers. corinna and i paddled, capsized, swam out from underneath and waited in the super salty water for jiewei and eunice to paddle their way toward us. they took our paddles and waited while corinna and i lifted our kayak onto theirs by playing see-saw. i leaned as hard as i could on the stern and waited as corin dragged our kayak across eunice's. then with see-saw again, we managed to shake out all the water from the capsized kayak. we turned it over and got onto it via the pregnancy method and were laughing our heads off in amusement when jiewei suddenly noticed we were no longer in a safe region of the water; we were in the channel, which is something like the expressway where huge cargo or non cargo ships and industrial vessels were passing the waters for trade. shocked, stunned, we quickly manoeuvered our kayak until we were within the yellow bouy, which marks the start of the safe region. we got up on shore, took a short rest, dried under the sun, had lunch from our rations and set off again on kayak. this time, it wasn drill anymore but a real journey, for we were travelling to another camp for the night. we pushed off at a bad time; it was very super-duper low tide, and the shores were ultra muddie. (not yuzhen) all of us, junko and amundsen were frantically trying to find foothold in the hungry, sucking mud while we tried to push each other off into the water. many of us fell in the mud and ended up with muddie legs and arms, but in the end, we all managed to push off and successfully slide into the water, to embark on our journey across the seas. corinna and i started off well, happily paddling, yakking away at high speed. but soon after, i started to get reallie seasick, and terrible giddy spells began. my arms started to get tired from all that paddling and manoeuvering, (because only the person sitting at the back will manoeuver the kayak. the person in front paddles.) it started to get reallie very bad and i was on the verge of puking, but as i didn eat much for lunch, there wasn anything to throw up. so it was just me and a bunch of headaches. my entire head was swimming and i was reallie uncomfortable. i hardly was able to hear what corinna said. i tried to let go for a while and let corinna paddle us while i skived a little but the kayak just wouldn go straight, so in the end, i had to grab the paddles and manoeuver us. i was complaining to corinna abt how uncomfortable i felt and she was reallie reallie very sweet. she knew i was tired from all that paddling and manoeuvering, she knew i wasn feeling well at all, so she reallie did her best to help me and she talked all the way to entertain me and make me feel better. she tried to steer my attention away from giddiness and tried to get me to look at the scenary instead. but erm, unfortunately, as i tried to turn my head to see the beautiful green mountains around us, i got even giddier. and i slipped into a pretty bad mood, cursing the kayak and seas all the way. and corinna beared with me. THANK YOU FOR BEING SO SWEET!!!! I LOVE U! :) despite my cursing and snappiness, corinna maintained a cheerful disposition and tried to make me feel good and tried to improve my seasickness. in the end, i lay back on the kayak for the remaining 4 to 5 kilometres we kayaked, and yes, i paddled lying down. halfway throughout our journey, the tide was so great and we were kayaking so slowly that we drifted off with the tide, unable to manoeuver our kayak, unable to make things turn around. we drifted off, away from our watchmates, away from the instructors, towards the huge, open, glaring sea. there were huge vessels coming our way. frantic to get back onto track, i summoned all my strength, grabbed the paddle and manoeuvered like crazy, crying tears of frustration with each unsuccessful attempt. i was very tempted to lie back on the kayak and nurse my splitting headache and swooning giddiness, and forget abt manoeuvering the kayak, but i couldn. cos now, i am responsible for corinna's life too. she still wants to live. so i gathered all my courage, whatever spirit i had left, (by then, i didn have anymore strength. it was my spirit that kept me going) and paddled. tears were streaming down my face, and yes, i was crying my eyes out. i was frustrated, angry, cursing openly without stopping to think what kind of words i was using and above all, i was scared. finally, with the help of our sweepers, huijun and juuu, as well as elgene, we managed to get back on track, and i released my stress, and lay back on the kayak.

the kayaking went quite smoothly afterwards, not to mention that i screamed when we crashed into a floating house. that irritating kayak just wouldn cooperate and detach itself from the floating house, and we were kinda stuck for a little while. but we pulled it off. and after many kilometres of gruelling torture, (for me at least) we arrived at some ULU campsite, which was to be our home for the night, and we stepped out of the kayak, shivering cold, giddy and sick. this beautiful one night stay resort was so modernised and had wonderful toilet facilities. we as campers could actually afford to choose whether we wanted a sea-view toilet or a garden-view toilet. and it was such a popular hang-out that all the insects like sandflies and mosquitoes flocked to stay for the night too. all the grass were so adapted to the place that they refused to be cut and grew long and sturdy. of course, being such a popular hangout, there wasn much time to clean the place, and it was rather dirty, save the toilets, where lovely, kindhearted cleaners washed away all our "gold and silver" every day regularly, free-of-charge. we pitched our tents, zipped it up tight to prevent pickpockets and unwanted guests like SANDFLIES from entering. yea. so that night, we had instant noodles, didn bathe, and didn toilet at all.

Blogged @ 6:30 PM