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.

29th 10 Years On

Everytime one of us goes back for ICT or drops by TRACOM / HTA, the old timers would always say that we were the best batch to ever pass out for the longest time.  Looking back, our squad accomplished many, many things.  Maybe it's because almost all of us were ambitious in our way.  Some of us hated each other.  Remember this guy LTW?  Daryl used to call him LT Fucking W - LTFW.  He was amongst the most incompetent of us.  But he got posted to MHA.  Someone in the government valued him when we knew better.  Try dragging his 140kg kayak all the way to the Southern Islands when he wasn't paddling & see how much you remember the guy a decade later.

In the end, how many of us actually signed on in the service?  Daryl went to PID, Teck Leong is probably a Director now.  But the rest left.  Frankly, there was no career path for us.  But many years later, Recruitment wants us to come back when all the rats are jumping ship.  You know things are bad when Old Walrus himself prefers to shape lives as a teacher rather than ferreting out the little weasels and sending their arses to jail.

So where did it all go wrong?  For me, it went wrong at the interview for posting when the lard bucket virtually admitted that he interviewed us because he didn't want to be seen as discriminatory but he preferred someone who could speak Mandarin.  I don't think it should be our problem if after at least 10 years of formal education, he could barely be comfortable in English & preferred a Chinese successor.  Definitely not Singapore government policy.  Merely the fear of the different.

Maybe the 29th Batch should get together after all these years and actually try & do something together.  I believe that we should all try to build a legacy.  We're on the wrong side of 30. Soon we'll be on the wrong side of 40.  I'm not content with remembering our accomplishments with rose-tinted glasses.  We were better than the rest because we tried harder when they were all content to sit on their asses.

One by one, all the familiar faces we knew in the Force are leaving.  It is the process of renewal.  But perhaps it is my entrenched cynicism when I see that the new hardly fills the shoes of the old.  Maybe Singaporeans in general are getting soft.  All of my siblings are in the military of the force.  It says something that the backpacks have wheels, regardless of whether they use it or not.  It is a statement of intent, inadvertent or not.  But anyway, I'll build on this theme when I can.

Solo Nights

hello hello... wow Asri that was some post! The memories that it jolted to life must now be recorded. For the uninitiated of course, solo night was preceded by the round Ubin kayaking expedition. Not a particularly big deal on the big scheme of things, well at least it was a squad level initiative and I was partnered by Boon so it meant getting away from the goons for a while. Despite his small frame and all, Boon was one excellent kayaker. He kept us both on track with his nifty use of the rudder and was able to give me all sorts of good advice and encouragement during the round Singapore expedition. Kudos to you Boon!

Anyway, if you bear with me, this was the highlight of the round Ubin kayak. We had finished the expedition and were all at the ramp leading to OBS waiting to get our kayaks on shore. Boon and I were getting a little impatient so we decided to make a dash for the ramp in our kayak despite a boat coming past and so we paddled quickly to the ramp, taking one last check, we felt that we had enough time between getting the kayak up the ramp before the inevitable backwash from the boat. Unfortunately for us though, the backwash won the race and it hit the kayak, the kayak hit me and I went over the ramp wall (which was underwater) and went head first into the water, I felt a bit of pain on my right shin but thinking it wasn't a big deal, I managed to get to the surface and proceeded to be run down by Mark and Asri's kayak. Once again struggling to the surface I managed to get back onto the ramp and hauled the kayak up the ramp with Boon and then I felt more pain in my right shin. Lo and behold! A small 1cm by 1cm chunk in my right shin was missing! I cut myself on a barnacle. I told Boon, "Check this out man, I gotta go to the sick bay!" The nurse was hardly brimming with sympathy and told me I didn't need stitches, patched it up and unceremoniously booted me out the door.

The dressing had to stay on for a few days and I had to keep it clean. So it meant skipping the running that day. I was a little worried for it during solo night. And so it came, I decided to smuggle my handphone out with me despite being single at the time. I thought it'd be good to catch up with home whilst I was out in the woods. So we were all given our rations and equipment for solo night, the groundsheets for the basha, comms cord, food, solid fuel and we had to pack our stuff into zip lock bags. Anyway, during the issuing process I decided to zip off to the toilet and I told Aziz, "Get one set of whatever is issued for me, need to go to the toilet!" I returned and the process was complete. The instructors warned us not to mix around as it was solo and we needed to reflect on our time at OBS and were given a letter to write to ourselves. Then off we went!

The instructors dropped us off at different points in the woods and I was dropped off at a clear and relatively flat spot overlooking an altar of some sort (I never went to check out the altar and had no intentions of offending the local spirits). I looked around and saw that around my spot was surrounded by high ground on three sides and I had a feeling I would be in trouble if it rained.

I decided to set up my basha quickly just in case and lo and behold, there was no comms cord to tie the basha! I sat down for a few minutes thinking about what I was going to do to Aziz when we got back, uh actually if... but then I decided to bin the no contact with others rule and ran up to the next site and found Vincent there. Thank goodness he had spare comms cord and was willing to share with me. So I set up my basha and lay down to rest. Then it happened, the rain pissed down for hours and my basha was flooded from the water gushing down the high ground which had become a waterfall. My clothes were sodden, my food bag was getting wet and the solid fuel was also wet, I managed to save a block but the rest were gone. After the rain stopped, I looked at the damage, I had to survive on a loaf of bread, some kaya and some biscuits plus I had one chance of a hot meal - instant noodles.

Going by the good old survival maxim of eat the hot food while you can, I set up my semi-dry solid fuel block to start and fire. There wasn't much of a flame and I decided to help things along by tossing the envelope and the paper for the letter into the fire. But the fuel was too wet and I only managed to get a fire for long enough to partially cook my noodles. I ate it, and it was disgusting. 

My first night was relatively unexciting compared to Asri's experience and I managed to sleep through somehow. I awoke the next morning and realised that my dressing from the wound had come off, deciding not to hang around, I decided to head back to OBS to get some attention. Of course, I was unceremoniously booted out by the nurse and was given one hell of a talking to for breaking the rules by one of the instructors. Rather pertinently or so I thought I remarked "That's fine with the rules and all but what about the dressing for my wound?" They remarked that they'd patch it up later. Round about 4pm to be exact!

The only other event of note was how I managed to scare the living crap out of myself by venturing out of the basha to relieve myself late at night. I had tried to avoid it for the longest time, but summoning up the guts I ventured to what I thought was my designated pissing tree and I noticed dark black shape at my feet, I jumped about 4 feet into the air and shining my L torch at it, it was my rubbish bag! Damn it! Wrong tree, this was the tree where I had placed my rubbish bag!

The next day, the sorry exercise was over and we trooped back for the debrief, they asked me, "Daryl where's your letter?", I had one of those Arnie moments and I told them "I burnt it" and I walked off. 

Mark-guyver

The 21-day OBS Course is supposed to teach us to live on just basic necessities, without the luxury of electronic conveniences/distractions and that everyone is given an equal share of survival materials/food.

So during the first few hours of arriving, the instructors asked us to voluntarily give up our handphones, pagers, chocolate bars, tidbits, snacks and any other "contraband" before they do a check. And if you were caught with any contraband, a suitable punishment or fine would be meted out to the person or the whole team.

Well most of us gave up some things and hid others. There were a few exceptional souls who said they gave up every contraband they had, but I didn't. I hid the nylon cord, swiss-army knife, a few chocolate bars and surrendered the other half of my chocolate bars and all my potato chips. I took it that if the SAS trainees can hide rolled notes/money up their a**es, smuggled chocolate bars and even an FM radio to overcome the Brecon Beacons, I would keep some stuff too which would help keep me sane from the boredom and discomfort to come. Of course OBS is nothing compared to SAS training, but to rationalise, we were trained to be a thinking soldier and the number one rule I learnt in BMT was "You can do anything you want, as long as you don't get caught". You can add any other caveat or exceptions you want to that as per your moral or ethical reasonings, but that was the basic rule.

Mark smuggled in his handphone and playing cards. On arriving at the bunk, Mark immediately tried to make a call back home. But as coverage on the island is pretty bad, his Sony Ericsson, which at that time was one of the latest model, can only manage a faltering one or two bars out of 5, even when he risks falling out the window by leaning out so far. Those days most handphones had an extendable antenna, or the newer ones only had a short antenna stub, which the latter was what Mark's phone had. He tried to make a call but I think the call quality was pretty bad and he got also got disconnected. And I guess the saying is really true that "Necessity is the mother of all inventions" and that "Distance makes the heart grow fonder, and I sure as hell want to hear my girlfriend's voice while the battery lasts cos I'll be stuck with 36 males for the next 3 bloody weeks". Techie Mark might have planned it all along, cos he brought a few clothes hangers, but not the normal plastic ones. He got the flexible metal wire hangers.

What he did next was either a stroke of genius or just dumb luck. He unscrewed the short 1 inch antenna stub from his phone, untwirled the metal hanger, so that it was just a long piece of wire, but which still retained its triangular shape, stripped off some of the plastic sleeving on one end of the wire, and stuck that end into the phone's antenna recess. And lo and behold, if he held the new "antenna" just right he can now get three to four bars out of 5!

Thats like 60-80% signal strength and just enough to maintain a decent quality call. From far someone might think you have a clothes hanger impaled into your skull, but who cares about looks when you can croon sweet words with your girlfriend to soothe your sagging morale.

That was just one of the innovations that Mark devised during the 21-days. The next innovation was during the solo night and it involves a humble stick. To cut the long story short, solo night for us was actually foursome night around the campfire at Mark's campsite, cos he had stashed a large pile of dry leaves under his tarpaulin. So after a long rainy day, we made our way to Mark's camp after dark and when we knew the intructors would not be back for their inspection round for the next few hours. What greeted us was a nice cosy fire, Mark sitting beside it and he was drying his wet underwear and socks over the fire by putting them at the end of a sitck. He had found a nice foot long stick with a forked end, so it was great to spread the socks and underwear a bit for it to dry faster over the fire.

So, soon we were feeling hungry and we opened up a can of sardine and hot dogs. Some of us poked a stick through the bread to toast it over the fire before putting the meaty stuff in it. Mark using his useful stick took a piece of bread put it flat on the forked end of the stick and toasted it over the fire. It was the very same stick which just a few seconds ago had a piece of soggy sock hanging over it. Well we were too hungry to lose our appetite and continued eating, but still I'm sure a few stomachs turned after seeing how useful Mark's stick was. Bleargh.....

Sailing into Troubled Waters

I suppose we all have 20/20 vision in hindsight, but I suppose the wheels that were starting to come loose during the land expedition came flying off spectacularly during the sailing expedition. I suppose I came to realise what must have been running through the minds of the men on the HMS Bounty as they prepared to cast Captain Bligh off in his boat into the Pacific Ocean or any of the infamous mutinies of the 1800s for that matter.

I wasn't best pleased at the prospect of attempting to sail a miserable little cutter replete with a sail and all around the windswept reaches of northern Singapore. Those of you in the know of course would realise that there isn't a single gust of wind anywhere up there. I think the memories are so severe that I've somehow managed to block off all other memories except the acts of idiocy by my team mates.

Somehow despite the disputes between team members, we somehow managed to get our collective acts together and load stores into the cutter and to use a sailing term, barely managed to get underway. We were co-expeditioning with Sang Nila Utama (this refers to the watch that Asri and Mark were in and not the dude who saw the lion or more correctly Sri Tri Buana/Parameswara). The in-fighting started right from the beginning and then the weather closed in so we turned on the motor and chugged our way VERY slowly to the resort island of Pulau Sajahat just off Pulau Tekong for a long night being scared out our wits in the creepy Pre WW2 British Army building on the island. It was cold, wet and all rather scary.

Of course somehow the demons only showed up on the boat the next day. Our destination was Pulau Seletar which was to our west and so off we went. The sun was out and the wind had gone on holiday, so it was us versus the sea and soon it was us versus us. We had to row and the person who was the skipper had to give the command to dip the oars "Dip!" and the others who were manning the oars would dip the oars into the water and pull and shout in return "Pull". Not being old sea dogs like Terence, we hadn't a clue how to proceed and so Aziz being the squad chairman took the poisoned chalice. "Dip!" "Pull!" and so it went on for all of 4 minutes after which the luminaries in the watch started to whine about Aziz and start to tell him what a crap job he was doing as skipper. Then I saw and heard something for the first time and have never seen since. Aziz, the epitome of calm and even nature lost his cool and started swearing at Gorbs, Ken, Leon. Phyllis our instructor was so stunned she didn't know what to say.

I think I managed to slip in the cool down bro talk to Aziz and so we got underway again. Aziz passed the chalice to me and the others kept bagging me for not rowing as hard as they were so I had a stint as skipper. It took only two seconds for the murmurs to start and 1 minute later it was a full blown mutiny as Gorbs and Ken plus almost everyone else except Aziz, Boon and Fauzi started making lots of noise about how useless I was. So I lost the plot and had a showdown with some of them and told them if they were so unhappy they could all swim back. I can't remember who backed down first but eventually Boon took the helm for the next few hours and things eventually settled down. It's quite telling when you realise who didn't take the helm at all at any point.

Somehow or other we struggled to Pulau Seletar someway behind Nila Utama and so we got off and settled down for the evening. Needless to say we couldn't even agree on the dinner menu and so the bitching went on and on and on.... But for me of course, the highlight of the stint at Pulau Seletar was Terence coming to the realisation that shit floats, but that of course is another story all together.

After enduring a night of very loud noises from the resident crows on the island, we finally could start rowing back to Ubin or so I thought. We were proceeding along rather nicely even though the in-fighting continued and then some bright spark, i.e. Ken or Gorbs decided it was going to be a good idea to put up the sail and start sailing despite the wind being strong enough to blow a feather all of 2mm. So Aziz and I were once again out voted, mind you, we weren't even consulted and so as Nila Utama paddled off into the yonder we struggled for the next 20 minutes to put up the damned sail and after all that was said and done, there wasn't a gust of wind anywhere, and we were becalmed. I was highly annoyed at all this but by this time I didn't say a word. Then the morons started to turn on each other and they finally pulled their fingers out and decided to paddle and paddle we did. 

By the time we got back, Nila Utama had already unpacked their stuff and showered and were waiting for us.  I can remember how many swear words I managed to say in one breathwhen Asri, Mark and Terence, all showered and rested asked me as I struggled up the path to the bunk with all the debris from the trip, "What took you so long man?"

Till next time folks...

Mr Gorbs I presume?

We started off ok I suppose, but in the back of my mind, I had no idea how I was going to get along in a group with a bunch of guys that I hardly spoke to with the exception of Aziz, Fauzi and Boon. And yes, I was none too fond of any of the others too.

I suppose I wasn't overly surprised by the conduct of a few members of the group as Indian chief syndrome set in, but Gorby's performance took the cake for unexpected behaviour!

We always thought of him as the 42nd cadet who showed up on the second day of training after escaping the evil clutches of SISPEC. He was always quite a low-key character around the barracks. He never really took part in the banter around the lower barrack and was always polishing his boots. He smiled and laughed occasionally and was quite a pleasant chap. He didn't do particularly well in training either, (I was no hotshot either but I sure could hold my own in PT, swimming, academic stuff and the police training, though the less said about TKD the better!) I still remember Nunis and someone else having to literally drag his backside over the finish line in some 2 x 2.4 challenge.

Then again, being stuck in some corner of Pulau Ubin tends to bring the worst out in people or perhaps to expose their real selves. Of course we should have smelt a rat on the first day when we chose our bunks, Aziz, Boon, Fauzi and I dived into a smaller room in our barrack as opposed to hanging out with the others but oddly enough he didn't join us. Next thing you know he's joined the creeps and started telling us all what to do and that really started to piss me off considering his previous status during junior term. By the second week he was openly critical of Aziz and I and was generally insufferable. He was always questioning the rationale of our actions when we were in charge I thought this was quite rich coming from him. By then I was not going to have anything to do with him as far as possible. I don't recall speaking to him again for the rest of our training stint when we got back, not that he ever hung around the lower barracks too again much after OBS except to sleep.

What makes someone change so much? Was it the environment that brought out the inner demon or was it just the real him? I really don't know, though I do know he ended up being called the Malay equivalent for backside for the rest of senior term!

Another Barrack Song

hello,

Will be adding to the OBS posts soon, but here's a favourite from the barracks! Last Kiss by Pearl Jam