The Round Island

Daryl has just pointed out something I never really realized.  I have no idea what happened but after we hit 30, we kind of switched roles.  He was always the serious, uptight one.  Mr. Solid & Dependable.

I used to be the cheerful, reckless one.  Maybe it was the fearlessness of youth.  Frankly, I would take those OCT days again any day.  I guess a divorce, an aborted engagement and chasing your first millions do that to you.  I admit I have become the brooding, philosophical one.  Life is indeed a circle.

I just found out today that my ex-fiance told her entire family I called off the wedding.  Her mother recounted how she cried for four days because I broke her heart.  Maybe she should get an Emmy for that performance.  She said my family objection was the reason.  What a sad story.  Unfortunately, it was bull shit.  She did not have the balls (literally and figuratively) to tell them she was seeing someone else.

Looking back, I think the Round-Island was the highlight of our entire time together.  It showed the true character of everyone.  As the expedition leader then, I would gleefully left LTFW to the sharks.  Unfortunately, the man-eating kind are in short supply.  And with our luck, they are probably a protected species.

I remember, when we went through the Explosives Anchorage, even Phyllis's leg hairs turned white.  It wasn't as if one of those barges would explode there and then.  The issue was we wanted to make a statement of intent by completing the fastest round island ever.  I doubt that the record is broken yet.

When I was sailing, we got to know the Singapore Harbour area intimately.  But we have to pay tribute to the people like Hafiez and the gang for being willing to tow the weaklings.  I was the one who towed LTFW all the way to St. John's and Pulau Hantu.  That was the first time he was way in front.  Remember when everyone was going, "Front Man slow down" to mock that lazy-arsed bastard?

So he had the energy to shag his bitch in the car park when we were all dying of exhaustion that night and the Choo Lovers were having their gay fight.  I believe Rashid had front row seats for the snogging sessions.  He must still be undergoing therapy because the last time I saw him, his facial hair made him look like one of the lost Dwarves from Snow White.

I remember that Mark or Aziz tried to see if they were faster than the launch at the Sentosa crossing.  Talk about paddling for your lives.  I also demonstrated the hallowed art of peeing standing up on a kayak.  Since Vincent Chua was in the front seat, I believe that he was extremely concerned I might miss.

But Daryl is right.  We eventually learned who our friends are.  It has been more than 10 years but we can still remember some of the events like it happened yesterday.  We should have another ACR soon.  Especially before I turn gay.  Women are such bitches.

OBS - The last days

As one would expect, after the fastest ever round island trip in OCT history, we thought we'd earned our rest and admin day. Just imagined how unhappy we were to be dragged down the the quadrangle for warm up for a 15km run in the afternoon. I remember trying for the first 10km of the trip but when I passed Terence and Mark who were walking and having the time of their lives on my way back, I decided screw it! I'm walking, I've got nothing to prove!

We all got back somehow or other and that was it, we were going home the next day. Being together for 21 days does weird things to people, Fauzi and Aziz had a minor bust up over some really small issue and many people were strangely quiet that day. LTFW was trying to elicit some conversation out of various people but was ignored by all and sundry.

We picked up our OBS 21-day course collar lapels, packed our things, boarded the boat and went back to TRACOM. Changed into our walkout attire and went for a short period of off-in-lieu and life slowly went back to normal.

Did I enjoy OBS? Actually, at that point in time, I hated it, the daily grind of running twice a day, the fraud reflections which I didn't take seriously, the dynamics in my watch, the time away from home and the expeditions.

But 10 years down the road, it was possibly one of those life-defining experiences. It made me very clear who my friends were and it strengthened our friendship from that of close friends within the squad to close friends for life. It also taught me a thing or two about how people reacted in times of adversity and how people change over time.

I never appreciated it at the time, but OBS taught me mind over matter and never to give up, no matter what happened and that my limits were self imposed.

And so, yes, that's about it for my OBS reflections, so here's a song for all of you
!

Kayaking Expedition

It's hard to imagine things these days, Terence being the serious brooding one and I'm the one who's telling him to lighten up! Hey man, LIGHTEN UP! Things could be far worse, you could be LTFW....

Let's talk about something close to all of our hearts, the kayaking expedition. I hadn't stepped into a kayak for almost 10 years until last November when during my NPCC course I was forced to seeing as that it was one of the course requirements.

So I duly stepped in and our instructor, a trained kayaker at that and I struck up a conversation whilst waiting for the inexperienced ones to raft up. He told me that I kayaked pretty well considering I wasn't a one star and above, and asked if I had kayaked before. "Oh, that, well, I did go to OBS and the round island expedition." I said. "Really? How long did you take?" he enquired. "Two and a half days, we would have made it in two and a few hours if not for some unnecessary delays" He had a look that had bloody bullshit written all over it. I insisted "Yeah it's true man, we kayaked through the anchorage instead of island hopping thanks to some crazy ex-sailor squad mate of mine"

And so it started, the grand finale of our suffering at that godforsaken corner of Singapore, 3 days and a bit it took most people and we had heard how much it hurt and the stories of sea sickness and capsized kayaks etc. And so with a slightly heavy heart, Aziz, Boon and I started to make our preparations for the trip. By this time, in Nehru, we had all given up the pretence of attempting to get along, we had lots of trouble trying to sort out the issue of rations, then I gave up and I said "Let's split the rations up into groups." Everyone readily agreed and so Boon, Aziz and I would arrange for our rations on our own. We pooled the budget and got essentials, instant noodles, canned sausages, canned curry, lots of chocolate wafer bars and fruit cake and yes, the famous carton of 12 eggs which made us the object of envy amongst all the others as we were the only ones with fresh food.

We packed our things, got our wet gear ready, pulled on the spray covers and got the kayaks ready for lauch. The first day went pretty smoothly I thought, we got to the causeway and onto dry land for a lorry and bus trip to Kranji for a relaunch and we eventually made it to Tuas where we camped overnight near Raffles Marina and the luxury yatchs.

Day 2 was the longest day of all, we left Tuas early in the morning and kayaked to the Western Anchorage off Singapore. At this point there was rumblings in the squad that some dick was refusing to kayak and leaving his buddy to do the work. The dick was LTFW and the poor buddy was Alvin Law. Despite the difficulty, Alvin struggled gamely on. However they were always very far back and inevitably the cry of 'Front man slow down' would be heard and we all needed to raft up to wait for them. At some point, the stronger kayakers had to tow them for a while. The image of LTFW lightly patting the water with his paddle and of Alvin cursing and swearing whilst rowing and steering the boat will always stay in my mind.

A few things emerged out of this, we had always known LTFW was a slack arse who didn't put much effort into whatever he did, but this really took the cake, for goodness sake, Aziz was dying of sea sickness, Chee Chianh Wah was on a solo kayak, and yet, they continued to fight on, and if they needed a tow from time to time that was fine, but if he couldn't be bothered, why the hell couldn't we just dump him with the instructors and continue on? We were severely pissed off with him and things turned terminal for him when we got to Keta Campsite after Bedok Jetty. Sometime in the evening, he changed to jeans and t-shirt and went off to meet his girlfriend. From that point on, none of us who went to OBS bothered talking to him for the rest of the course. This was to have severe downstream implications for me later on.

Alvin Law on the other hand emerged with tremendous credit from this sorry episode. For me, I had always lumped him with the beng group which LTFW was part of, but I'm glad I saw him in a different light after that and have had nothing but the greatest respect for him for his toughness that day. A weaker person would have thrown in the towel or assaulted LTFW with the paddles, which is what I would have down, but Alvin was made of far sterner stuff than that.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves here, let's go back to the Western Anchorage. We rafted up as Terence briefed the instructors what was happening next. "We're going straight through here and land on Pulau Hantu" declared Nunis. "Uh, that's the explosive anchorage" said the instructors. "No matter, we will go through here then" he pointed to a slight detour but same objective. The next 3-4 hours was a bit too exciting for my liking, rain, big waves, ships, slackers, sea sick people trying to breathe in orange peel and eventually the formation split up as all of us charged for Hantu.

Somehow or other we all got there in one piece, yes, even LTFW. Boon and I collapsed under the shade of a tree and Mark was along shortly and offered some of his corned beef and bread to me together with some chocolate biscuits. It was a heavenly meal I tell you. We almost didn't want to leave Pulau Hantu for a while, but off we went, round Sentosa, past Tanjong Pagar and by evening we were off East Coast. At this point I wasn't thinking anymore, just trying to survive, by trying to sing 'Yellow Submarine", I think Boon wanted to hit me but he held back. Although I noticed as we went past Mark and Asri's kayak, Asri shouted "Woah, warm water" Mark had had an unfortunate accident with the peeing bucket but chose to keep quiet about it.

By twilight we had arrived at Keta Campsite. Boon, Aziz and I pitched the tent and hunkered down to cook our dinner. It was only instand noodles and canned sausages and eggs but it was the best meal we had eaten for a long time. Then we collapsed in heap and fell asleep.

The next day was supposed to be a cake walk, round the corner, past the airport, get to Changi Beach and across the channel and back to OBS for lunch. That's what we thought anyway. Never quite happened though. The sea off the airport was very choppy and we were held up by Chee capsizing at least 3 times everytime someone bumped into him and then Aziz and quite a few others were quite sea sick. Aziz had wrapped his face in a towel trying to breathe in the orange peel and was asking around for more when Mark started calling him the Bangla Virgin Bride, I don't think he was terribly pleased when Johnny Ngoh and I started hurling orange peel at him.

We finally arrive off Changi beach but after paddling for hours we didn't seem to move and Boon and I were moving backwards and one point and I noticed LTFW catching up, I realised it wasn't a good thing and I shouted to Boon "Hey man, let's do it, paddle like a madman!" Boon shouted back "Yeah let's do it" Finally we got to the beach, I climbed out of the kayak but my legs had gone softer than jelly, I collapsed into the water, for Beng Kwee to haul me out of the water shouting at me to hold onto the paddle that he had stuck into the sand until I got my balance back. When I finally did, I collapsed under the shelter along with the others and waited for the final leg of the trip.

When that finally came about, we paddled across the straits and engaged in the inevitable hi jinks and Terence attempted to stand up to pee. Uh well, that's another story altogether. We even engaged in a bit of irony by putting LTFW up the front and shouting "Front man slow down" then all paddling quickly we left him and Alvin behind.

We finally rafted up off OBS for the last time and waited for LTFW to come in and sure enough he was patting the water and Alvin was paddling for his life as they struggled in. I felt sorry for Alvin with having to be stuck with that arsehole, but also admired his resilience for having hung in there for so long without any complaint.

Looking back, I'm glad to have gone through this trying journey, sure it hurt enough, the sun burn, the blisters, the wet clothes, the spray in the face, and worst of all, the cowardice by LTFW. But I have to say I really enjoyed the camaraderie amongst most of the squad as we united in the face of adversity, the acts of courage and resilience by Alvin, Chee, Aziz and the acts of kindness by so many squad mates. It was truly a great journey and I think deep down, many of us were changed by it, those who had missed the trip to OBS never quite understood what happened out there and why we'd changed so much when we got back, but if I could put a finger on it, it was down to the kayaking expedition.