小動作，大感動

Something that happened at ECP today:

Halfway through a half-eaten bak zhang during lunch at our usual stone bench this afternoon, a man came up to us and suggested to Chubs and Yuetmun that it'd be nice if we could pick up trash littering the beach (the bay right in front of PA) because there seemed to be more rubbish than usual today. 

So off the three of them went, picking up pieces of plastic as they walked along the beach.

I continued working on my bak zhang, carefully picking out mushroom slices, chestnuts and fatty meat to chew on while skillfully avoiding the sinful clumps of sticky glutinous rice. With eyes observing what was going on down on the sandy beach, I thought aloud, somewhat bemusedly, "Wah, self-imposed CWO?" when I saw how Chubs and Yuetmun set off with the man without hesitation. In the midst of the semi-devouring of my yummy bak zhang(s), I saw another lady join them in the cleaning act; later learnt that the man is her husband.

"Let's get a plastic bag to contain the trash!", the man suggested again, and someone (I can't remember who) came back with two large trash bags from the restaurant.

Bit by bit, the four of them started filling one of the two trash bags; one person would be holding the mouth of the bag open so that everyone else can throw the bits of trash picked up into it with greater ease. By the time I was done with my bak zhang (*burps* :p), I decided to join in the 'fun' with CY too. It started off as a relatively dry affair for me; I stuck very closely to the shoreline, never venturing beyond the point where the sand and water met. I picked up small broken pieces of plastic sheets, bits of styrofoam from food containers and this trash-picking act must have been gratifying in one way or another, because in no time, I found myself going deeper and deeper into the water, trying to 'go after' floating bits of trash. 

I don't know what made me decide to step into the water (when I haven't changed into my wet gear), and when I finally realized that the water was at my chest level, I decided to get out of the water and change into my rash guard (and floppy fisherman hat!) before heading back to pick up more trash. 

On my way back to the water, I saw an old lady, and two more other windsurfers join in the trash-picking (one of them even swam quite far out). For a moment, I felt a warm and fuzzy feeling (partly probably due to the heat) in my heart after observing this chain effect. They began picking up the trash too not because they were told or asked to, but instead, did so of their own accord, after seeing others do it. 

And I had to ask myself Why.

Was it because they felt that the beach's cleanliness should be a collective and shared responsibility?

Was it because they felt that more hands make lighter work?

Was it because they wanted some recognition from the beach users?
Was it because they only realized how dirty the beach is after others started picking up all that trash?
Was it because they felt like doing something nice by helping to make the beach cleaner for the other windsurfers/beach users?

Or was it simply because they were just too bored from the waiting of hopeful winds promised by ULFP?

I know it's just a very simple deed, and of course, trash-picking can not and should not be placed on the same rung of deeds as say, pulling someone out of a burning house or even volunteering at some shelter/home, but still, it was a very nice gesture that was made (assuming they were motivated by some of the reasons that I've just tried to provide) that I'm sure all the beach users would appreciate. For me, I  felt that it was a pleasant experience to witness this goodness in man and I was also truly surprised by the responses that could be triggered with just a bit of initiative by a single person.

Anyhow, the two trash bags were filled up very quickly with the help of people who chipped in a bit of time and effort. Some of the other things that were picked up in addition to the slimy plastic sheets/bags and styrofoam bits included: slimy straws, empty packet-drink/shampoo sachets, plastic cups, nylon strings and ropes, a durian husk (!) and more slimy plastic sheets. It made me a little upset thinking about how some people simply treat the sea as a dumping ground, judging from all the trash that we've picked in that very short period of time; there's really a lot more we can do to educate. And I was kind of hoping (with anti-fervour) that I should not be so unlucky as to come across really gross trash like a used condom (thank goodness no!).

The water was exceptionally clear today; at knee level, I could still see my toes on the sand bed. To be honest, it'd still have been this clear even without us picking up those trash. Knowing that we have a trash-free environment that's made possible by ourselves (however temporal it might be) to windsurf/swim in however, seemed to have made that matter to a slightly lesser extent.

loss

is a miserable feeling.

The unfairness of life, and the reminder that life goes on are both reinforced at the same time.

I hope the loved ones find strength to tide through this period of sadness, and he shall live on in our hearts, always reminding us of how life should be lived to the fullest.

a day in the life of a storm surfer (wannabe)

That must have been one of the scariest things I've done in a long, long while; trying to surf in a storm much earlier today.

It wasn't too bad until a gust hit and I had to drop my sail after getting overpowered and losing my balance. After seeing a few bright streaks of lightning across the sky, hitting land was the only thought in my mind. And so, I tried hard to uphaul, frantically like some crazy woman, though it was one futile attempt too many.

With the wind beating so furiously on it, I soon realized that there was simply no chance getting my bloody heavy sail out of the water. With that, I stopped trying and looked up at the dark patch of clouds that was hovering closely above us. It was a massive patch of grey, or put more accurately, many great patches put together. In the not so far-off distances, I could see rain falling from the clouds where the cargo ships were, as well as Lagoon and even further upfront. They always look the same (i.e. observing rain from a distance), long wispy trails leaving clouds and bending back and forth at the mercy of the winds. The surface of the sea around looked at least 5 times rougher than usual as the storm made its way through it, and it was slightly more choppy than what I'm describing now.

Cold droplets pelting angrily against me, I stood as still as I could and looked at the turbulent scene in front of me. It was so dark and gloomy, and yet so beautiful. However insignificant it may have compared against other greater-known wonders, I was still in awe of yet this wonderful creation of mother nature.

As I stood admiring the scene, thoughts of getting struck by lightning creeped into my mind slowly. There're stories of sailors/surfers who were struck before, some of them ended up dead, others paralyzed. As a not-so-firm believer of karma, I started recalling all of the 'misdeeds' that I've thus far committed in my life, and tried to 'rationalize' if any of them was bad enough to warrant me death by a lightning strike.

Guess I just haven't been bad enough.

After waiting it out for a little while longer, the wind died a little and I managed to get my sail out of the water. Headed back to the nearest shore in the shortest possible time that I could manage and hauled my equipment back to the usual bay.

Phew to the scary experience.

We had a second round of barbecue (with last night's leftovers) after everyone else had a fill of the storm. In the cold, it felt really nice to stand beside the charcoal pit. And of course, even nicer to sink my teeth into a piping hot wing.

Life is good.

it took awhile, but i'm finally back

My absence and lack of commitment in windsurfing during the past year would have rendered me a terrible, terrible backslider if I were to liken it to a religion. I came up with more than enough silly excuses to stay away from ECP, e.g. too busy with school-work/life (when it's just really poor time management on my part), bad weather conditions (the list goes on).

Doesn't take a genius to figure out the more I stayed away, the more terrible I became at the sport, so it's not really surprising that I've not really been making much progress in my windsurfing journey. In fact, it's more or less come to a standstill after I hopped back to use the longboard. Since I came back from HK last year, I've been trying to get myself better acquainted with SK's longboard. It's a whole new cycle of learning all over again. Sigh.

Things were quite bad when I tried to be regular again. There were (and still are) many instances where I lost my balance every time I tried to do my tacks/gybes, and it got really tiring when I had to up-haul over and over again when I dropped my (freaking heavy) sail into the water. I'd lost whatever sense of balance I had back then, and I lost the strength that I used to have too. :(

I sustained new bruises from carrying the equipment each week and they make my already-horrible-looking legs look even more unsightly. And there was a nasty one too when my left rib rammed into the boom after the rig was catapulted by the wind.

All that failure was disheartening, to say the least...
And it felt awful to feel disconnected with friends whom you were great with once upon a time too.


But I'm not quite ready to give up on windsurfing yet.

It's given me some of my best friends in and out of university, and helped me form a sense of self-identity I never had prior to getting acquainted with it. Through it, I got a taste of what it feels like to win a competition after putting in much sweat and effort (literally, physically) for the first time in my life. Victory was sweet, with strong hints of saltiness. I think it'll take me a long time to forget how I clambered back to shore, exhausted, but relieved and the hug I gave to my mentor, after ending a few rounds of nail-biting races.


And so, I'm desperately trying to make up for all that self-induced lost time now.


To kick-start things, I signed up for the basic instructor course when I got an invite in mid-February. We had to pay a handsome fee for it (in addition to the other requirements), and that's my expensive  reminder to stay committed this time round. It helped that school's nearly over when I attended the lessons.

Over the past few consecutive weekends as the lessons were being run, I tried to squeeze in a bit of surfing whenever it was time for breaks from the lessons. As luck would have it, the wind's been blowing rather nicely (by Singapore's standards); we even had a sunny South-West on one fine Saturday! It's rare to have the wind and sun appearing at the same time because good winds usually imply impending storms. So, that's a good sign!

After putting some consistency in place, I'm slowly (but surely) getting used to the equipment and the elements again. I've been regaining my sense of balance and a bit of that strength needed for holding onto the rig while it's up, and I can do (chicken) tacks and gybes without falling into the water most of the time now (at least for light wind conditions!). Progress for beach starting is slow, but I think I've somehow felt what the 'correct version' should feel like. Chubs also pointed out my mistakes so I'm looking forward to work on them again soon.

Honestly, I know that I still have a long way to go on this path and that there'll be so many more problems to face in future. But I'm ready to make a commitment for the first time in a long while, so AJ, make it work man!


ps. No new bruises sustained over the last weekend. Another good sign, surely!

Equipment failures

Today's the first time I spent so many hours at ECP after getting back from HK a few months back. 

I was the first person to head out to sea (that's a first), and I did so much (more) surfing than I usually do (really proud of myself for that), but it didn't quite turn out to be my day. Last week's and today's surfing made me realize that I'm quite the magnet for equipment failures.

1st instance: 

picture from here

This is what we would usually call a universal joint (or u-joint in short) in windsurfing, it's used to join the mast (sail) to the board so that the two parts are linked together and therefore can work to allow windsurfing to take place. The middle part with the little black rubber band around it is known as the tendon and it is made of rubber to allow flexing of the u-joint when we manoeuvre by moving the mast around while on the board.

To cut a long story short, the tendon of my u-joint snapped into 2 last Sunday (due to wear and tear over a very long period) while I was somewhere out at sea and not very near to the shore. My sail couldn't be up-hauled any longer since it's no longer linked to the board and all I could do was sit on my board trying to get help from the power boats around as I drifted further and further away from PA (one of the NSC boatmen walkied Zai and he came to my rescue not long after).

Pathetic!

2nd instance:

This happened today and it had something to do with the u-joint again; it wasn't tightened tightly enough as I rigged up my board and sail, and the whole freaking u-joint got disconnected from my board (well, NTU's actually). At a distance of 400-500 metres away from shore with legs suspending in goodness-knows-how-deep water, I panicked like a mad-dog due to fear of losing the mast and sail altogether (it will sink if I did not hold onto it). I waved frantically to other passing windsurfers on my board for help and *I-must-have-done-something-right-in-my-previous-life* because this kind uncle spotted me, made a detour and came to help me put things back. 

My gratitude to him cannot be expressed in words, I can only wish he'd felt it.

Cursed myself for not checking my equipment more thoroughly before heading out to sea, especially after last week's incident of equipment failure.

3rd instance:

It also happened today and this really takes the cake.

After a really great run (i.e. down-wind sailing), I tried to make my way back up-wind and back to shore. One slip and I ended up losing my footing; I lost control of the sail and was overpowered terribly. In the next few seconds, I got flung to the front (with my harness still hooked on), and heard a loud "crack" when my boom-head landed on the tip of the board. My body-weight (stupid harness, stupid me!) was really what broke the board.

If this did not happen today, I wouldn't have even considered the possibility that windsurf boards are destructible.

I made a desperate (pathetic even; I wasn't thinking straight at this point in time) attempt to get back on shore with the tip of the board flapping against the waters; I don't know if it was merely a psychological effect but the board became super wobbly without its front part. Landed in the following bay and did a walk of shame back to PA with the broken board resting on my head (this really nice guy brought my sail back for me); I combed the bay but the front part couldn't be found.

board that is now at Uncle Richard's workshop

The guys couldn't contain their laughter when they saw me with the board and they went "Wah! You kena shark-attack ah!" and "It's time to lose weight!" It would seriously have been funnier if I was not the butt of their jokes argh. They said all sorts of things but the shark-attack thing resonated best with most of them basically - Chubby said that was the 3rd time he's ever seen a board break throughout his windsurfing years; the nice guy who brought my sail back for me tried to make me feel better about it by saying it's happened twice to his board too, one uncle suggested bringing home the different parts (e.g. foot-straps, fin, etc) of the board as souvenir and someone else said "thanks to you, now I know what the inside of a windsurf board looks like".

I wanted to dig a hole in the ground and die. 

Okay just kidding.

But seriously, why the fuck do I keep fucking up? 

I don't want to admit it but if (someone puts a gun to my head and) I really have to answer that question, the problem obviously lies with me since I did not do thorough equipment checks prior to heading out to sea. I'm starting to detest myself for that and I suppose the best thing I can do next is to make sure everything's working fine before jumping into the waters so excitedly. 

Murphy was right - anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Took me such a long time to figure this out. Noob!

Anyway, dinner with the long-boarders at Bedok Point tonight and bubble-tea after. It was all good and I came back home to this:

Honghong-cuddling! I love Mumsy!

I'm badly burnt from today's surfing and I sense a headache coming up really soon from last night's lack of sleep (had the awesomest impromptu bbq and mahjong session with ktowy at ZL's place). 

Time to hit the sack.

It's recess, baby!

Last weekend's surfing sessions were heartening, to say the least. Chubs shook his head and said two words to me that made me die a little inside on Saturday, but that feeling left for good on Sunday. I did pretty okay in the light wind conditions with the 6m sail and 160-litre board, I think (though everyone else will probably disagree :x). It wasn't anything fantastic, but still, I really enjoyed Sunday's surfing and felt what made me stay on. Ginger steps okay.

Jeremy's back from the U-S of A and it was a nice surprise to see him again after such a long absence. Had quite a dinner feast at Old Airport Hawker Centre and I finally tried the much-hyped Lao Ban Soya Beancurd; the texture's a little different from the usual beancurd that we're used to (it's the coffee-mate and gelatin!), it's much smoother. I'm no tauhuay connoisseur but I thought it was pretty damned yummy - Mumsy approves lol, and oh, the queues were definitely legend... wait for it, ... -ary!

It's recess week this week and I have 2 assignments due when school starts again in 7 days. It doesn't sound too bad, but as usual, I wish I'd procrastinate a little lesser.

Two pictures from the phone so that it doesn't get too boring in here:

Orange (mini) dress that I got from aeons ago but only rediscovered it in the wardrobe last week. YF went nutters when he realized I wasn't wearing any safety shorts beneath it and kept telling me how I would zao geng hahaha. I think he's trying to practice what he would say to his future girlfriends on me.

Yummy drink at Bugis Junction today.

Okay time to shoo the newly unemployed YF off my bed. Goodnight earthlings!

I have the sea

I love the sea, and she loves me too.

KH brought me to Stanley for windsurfing yesterday. I sailed for nearly two-and-a-half hours non-stop; thoroughly enjoyed feeling the sun's rays on my face, skin, my hair in perpetual disarray from the rush of the wind, and the cold (really cold, ask KH if you don't believe :p) water running over my feet as the board glided effortlessly across different points. I was so happy that I couldn't help but let out a few small screams when I was far away from all the other windsurfers.

Thought about many things on the sea; I finally settled on Happy. And My-Life-Is-Within-My-Control.

So, no more emo Chang! For now :p

A female instructor offered me few slices of orange in the bathroom after I was done with my shower. Guess I look pretty attractive to females when I'm only in my underwear hur. 

Had Pizza Express for dinner (finally!) with KH. Very, very, very yummy, but it's really not for the budget conscious I guess.

It's really been an awesome day. Thank you brother, and thank you sea!

Old is gold

Uncle Tan is always on the lookout for thrown-away equipment; and we'd usually be super excited whenever he comes up to any one of us to say "Today I found this piece of sail/mast/boom/board/*insert any other possible part* at the dumpster..."

Some few weeks back, he managed to find me a brittle and old Naish 6.6metres sail from the dumpster. And from his wide collection of spare parts, he pulled out a boom for my sail too. We (he actually) looked around for a long-enough mast, and found a carbon one that was slightly short, even after the mast extension's been added. No matter about that though, because Uncle Tan managed to further extend the mast extension/foot and now it fits the sail to a T. Activated SK to help me with the rigging up a couple of times until the old sail couldn't take the tension any more and decided to tear right in the middle. :(

Took me quite a while to decide to send the sail for repanelling; I just couldn't decide if it's going to be a better idea to get another set of secondhand sail or should I just send the entire sail for repanelling. Decided on the latter and sent it to Uncle Richard's workshop. So, one week and $135 later, I've got a sail that "looks as good as new" (either it really looks that good or people are just trying not to break my little heart) and have also taken over SK's old raceboard. I brought both of my new, old equipment out for a test-run today and I really love what I have now (despite today's lack of wind and strong currents bleagh). Manja-ed a little in the office after telling Dennis & co. that I'll be taking over SK's board, and yeahhhh, they decided to give me a board rack and sail loft! No more constant derigging/rigging up of sails!

I've probably mentioned this like a million times but I'm still going to say it again, thank goodness for Uncle Tan (and of course everyone else who's helped me obtain my very own first set of equipment along the way)! He's been giving so much of his time and effort into helping NTU/NUS windsurfers all these time; I sure hope everyone will appreciate him for all that he's done. My board and sail may be old and from the dumpster, but they're still very usable and I guess that's what really matters. Besides, I didn't have to spend too much money in the 'repair works'; you really can't be too picky when you don't have a lot of $$ right?

I love my new old equipment, and I'll go get some funky stickers to stick onto my sail soon.

Cheers to happy surfing! <3

Meet-ups & windsurf!

I've been trying to meet as many friends as I can ever since I got back from Penang last week (in other words, food and more food); I'm going to miss everyone since the next time I'll see you guys will be at least a month later!

At Miss Clarity's with three pretty ladies for lunch...

Then we moved onto Food for Thought for desserts; I've been coming back quite a bit for this cream cheese red velvet cake, not because it's super duper nice but because it's red and I like it! Now I feel so bimbotic for saying that ha.

We also had the Peach Crumble-something... loved the crust! & raisins...

Played L4D2 with the girls, that was my first; and you probably guessed right, we were shrieking over the mics more than half the time & laughing away really loudly. Let's go play again before TA starts!

Met G the next day at Bugis (fast becoming my favourite hang-out place when I'm not in school), and I was really mean; kept teasing her about the '10-days supplementary English camp' for non-English majors. We shopped, we caught up and filled each other in with what's happening in our lives. I think I'm going to miss her badly next semester...

Met up with Doug Saturday evening for tau huay, and a new friend on Sunday for breakfast; we talked a fair bit about travel... and teaching (since we're fellow teachers). I love travel-talk! I enjoy hearing what people have to say of their travel experiences, and wouldn't mind sharing mine if they're interested to know more. Doug told me what it was like in Bangkok when the Red Shirts just started getting violent last month; he's just plain lucky to come home safe la. 

Made my way down to ECP after; having not surfed for the past one month at least. Mingle's sold the set of equipment that he's loaned to me for the past god-knows-how-long, so I'll need to assemble a new set (of sail rig) when I get back. Uncle Tan's been nothing but helpful; he's offered to help me find a mast that's suitable for the sail that I'll be buying, and even has a suitable boom for me in mind already! I'm extremely thankful for a mentor like him, and I think everyone else is too. Speaking of everyone else, exams have been keeping everyone away and I was really happy to see them at training, even though the guys were busy making fun of me mostly. & I think I'm starting to behave like them, I can be like a brother to almost every male there who I know; they don't treat me like a girl wtf! 

It was practically breeze-less when everyone's just arrived, but the wind picked up a little later and I managed to sail for 1 full hour with the 5m sail before I decided that I needed to rest my arms. Went out again but used a junior's 3.5m this time round. I don't know if it's because I'm so used to using the harness, or if it's been too long since I last sailed, that I cannot last as long as before! Anyway, even though I couldn't go fast on the big, fat board, I'm still very happy that I managed to ride some waves; so happy that I started grinning to myself while cruising along hehe.

I am happy because I have the sea.
Are you happy too?

So far, so good.

I've been seeing Siaos a lot this week; first, I bugged her to head down to Vivo with me (to take a look at the Canon tripod, but the showroom's out of stock!) on Tuesday evening. We had Thai Express for dinner and some OiO yoghurt (quite a number of new yoghurt ice-cream shops around these days) for dessert.

We met again on Friday afternoon; I wanted to drop by National Library to look at a professional photography exhibition and since she'd end school around that time I thought we could meet up or something after the exhibition. I turned up late, and we ended up going to the exhibition together; she started telling me how & why some of the architectural structures in those pictures looked really fake (must be a designer's thing!). She offered me some (yummy) chocolate biscuit sticks the moment we met, and after the exhibition, we walked over to Shaw for ice cream! We tried some flavours at Tom's Palette and they were gooood. Anyway, the two of us are always eating when we meet, and after we're done eating we'd start blaming each other for making us eat so much. Blah.

I'm really glad I went for the photography exhibition; that's my first, and hopefully not last, I really love looking at great pictures. Oh, and I sent the roll of B&W film that's been resting on my bookshelf since a few months back for processing too! I hope they won't come out too over-exposed... & Thank you Siao for helping me collect!

Taken while we were on our ways to Raffles City; my first 2 successful panning shots:

These are really quite fun to shoot.

Windsurfed today, and I had fun trying to make good use of my harness; got a little more comfy with the 140 board even though I was still heeling too much. Catapulted once or twice, thankfully it wasn't anything too serious. The wind was an almost constant offshore, and I couldn't make my way back... Rodin offered to sail back to the launching bay so I still had it easy in the end. Tied my new up-haul line (with the easy up-haul hook) onto my boom just, and I can't wait to use it next week!

Had dinner at Applebee's 111 with the seniors after training. Food's not cheap there (mains from $16+ onwards) but I thought the portions were pretty generous and I liked what we had. I exchanged half of what was on my plate (Ultimate Trio) for some glazed ribs, and was really, really full at the end of it. Udders after and it's been so long that I last visited that I forgot which road to take after the Velocity junction; spent at least 15 minutes making rounds. Yummy as usual, plus now there's much company from the traffic police. Packed a pint of Rum & Raisin back for the family, and I realized... the place is a 10 minutes drive from my home!

Weekend's been great so far, & I hope it'll stay like that for a long, long time... Zoo visit with the family tomorrow, looking forward to it!

today's a breeze, literally.

No honking, but there was enough breeze for me to move and hook on at times. I brought the waist harness (that I got as a prize from ITWC this year) down to PA and used it for the first time. Not used to it at all; either that or I was having some serious problems with the position of my harness lines. Blah. Didn't help that I was using a lighter shortboard and the currents were quite strong as well. I can go on complaining how terrible things were, but, I'm not going to. I'm just thankful that I can finally hit the waters after such a long time... and that I'm receiving so much help from the people at the club! Uncle Tan offered to help us get epoxy to mend the cracks in our boards next weekend, gave me a long line to tie for my easy-uphaul line when I complained to him about my blistered hands, and he even offered to give me a ride back to school together with his daughter later in the night! I'm really lucky to have met all of them guys who made my learning journey such a pleasant one so far...

SIM Windsurfing Championship 2010

It was two exciting days of racing for the few of us from NTU who took part. Everyone had such high expectations for the event but great expectations usually lead to disappointments, and that was exactly what happened. It's really easy to whine about how many things could have been improved, but then again, it must really not be easy for the guys from SIM to be coordinating such a large-scale event. Hence, I really want to say a heartfelt thank you to them for the successful organization of SIMWC.

david, tits

It was the first time where I did not screw up as badly for my races as I used to, where I stopped panicking badly and actually had more or less an idea what to do, and the first time I've ever gotten a medal (finished in 2nd place) for windsurfing. There were 3 girls in my category (so I'd get 3rd at worst), two of which are from SIM. While I did quite well for the races on the first day, I got complacent and got my ass whooped on the second. It was definitely a good experience though, finally having won something and not being at the back of the pack. I'm looking forward to more racing before I graduate in two years' time!

shiqi, kayyong - 4metres!

If either one of you two are reading this, I just want to say to you, DON'T GIVE UP! It's only your first races (and there's definitely more to come), so you'll need a lot more of experience before you guys can finally get something out of it. I can totally relate to how you guys are feeling, since I did just as badly in the past and it's not exactly the nicest feeling. Don't be demoralized, stay in the game, train hard, and the hard work will pay off.

yinghui - can't wait to see her surf!

And I've not mentioned how much I appreciate the help of all the (NTU) helpers who came down and helped out, one way or another. Yinghui's always giving us advice on the right courses to take, starts, just about anything we can think of and I'm so thankful she's there to give us so much guidance.

all of us!

ITWC in about less than a month's time. I hope we will all race well!

First visit to Jason's Bay

Hopped onto Rodin's car last Friday with Mingle and Gerald, and we made our way to Jason's Bay (somewhere in/near Kota Tinggi in Malaysia).

attracted a fair bit of attention at the customs

I've been hearing stories about the place from the senior windsurfers; stories about big, tall waves, honking winds, how the surfers would need to walk a kilometre down the beach should they get drifted too far off, and so on. Now's finally my chance to take a look at the place myself.

pretty patterns in the sand

After our hearty Ba Kut Teh lunch, it started pouring heavily along the way to Jason's Bay. It didn't stop even after we arrived, and the guys were even thinking of moving to another location, Palau (or Pulau, can't remember) if the rain wouldn't stop.

some more pretty sand patterns

Thankfully, the rain stopped a hour or so later. The wind started blowing constantly and the guys were more than ready to rig up and start sailing.

Mingle's, Rodin's and Gerald's

R using G's Ka sail.

G on R's Neil Pryde.

I was the photographer for the day since I decided that I wasn't ready to surf anywhere else other than Singapore waters.

R's 94Litre.

The shore extends for about a hundred metres into the water, so it was really shallow up till quite far out. The waves, however, were much bigger than what we usually get back at ECP and water conditions were moderately choppy with few white caps. The wind was blowing a constant 10-15 knots; in between gusts, the guys became happy windsurfers.

apparently his first time on a hammock.

I hope by the next visit to Jason's Bay (probably end 2010), I'd be ready to ride the waves and harness the wind! G asked if I wanted to try windsurfing when he thought I was really bored taking pictures on the shore, and I was so tempted to... but I remembered SIM Open's the next day and I really don't want to have any aching muscles before the races start.

cows on the beach

Dropped by some Crab King place back in Johor, and we had some butter-cream crabs (奶油蟹), deep fried calamari coated with salted egg-yolk, sambal lalas and some seafood tofu. It was quite a hit-&-miss dinner; I really liked the calamari and lalas, felt that butter-cream crabs could've been a little better and the tofu was just, ordinary.

Windsurful weekend.

Friday saw me and Shunxiang heading down to PA at a super late timing of 2-ish p.m. We were lucky to have just caught the wind in time when we reached. Rigged up quickly and Boom, off we went (only to have the wind die down on us a while later).

On Saturday, I woke up at 2 p.m. after seeing a sms. Not much wind left by the time I got down to PA, but the currents were super strong. So, it wasn't surprising that I had a tough time making my way back to the shore on my shortboard.

Today was the best out the 3 days when I was at East Coast Park. We reached PA at 10 plus a.m. and started sailing at 11 plus. We were going to sail from PA all the way to Lagoon Food Centre that's near Bedok Jetty; it was my first time sailing such a long distance so naturally, I was a little apprehensive. Started off with relatively light wind blowing, and we were heading upwind. All was fine until we drew closer to Bedok Jetty; the wind picked up and it was so gusty my knees were shaking (strong winds scare me most of the time), and it was much harder to uphaul my sail when it dropped into the water. The wind speed peaked at around 15 knots. We landed two bays away from the food-centre but Chubby brought us over on the powerboat. Lunched and we had a short theory assessment after. The journey back was relaxing because we only had to sail downwind the whole time; took it slow and really enjoyed the surf. Arrived at PA again sometime close to 1 or 2 p.m. and it was time for windsurf training to start proper! Did a bit of guiding today; to the juniors who came down for training.

The guiding went on for awhile until Gerald took over so I could practise my beach-starts. I'm not as quick a learner as most other windsurfers, but I think I'm finally getting it, more than I used to! Lili showed me my problem when I do my beach-starts, I always end up kneeling on the board and Mingle and Chubby gave me tips on how to open up the sail, etc etc.

Did a few gybes within the bay and I thought that I was doing okay, until someone came up to me and volunteered to demonstrate how to perform effective and correct gybes. He flipped the sail from side to side so effortlessly like it was a piece of paper la. Gave me tips on how to shift my feet around the board when I want to do a gybe, things that I've never really gave much thought about before. I learnt so many things about gybing today! Anyway, I later learnt that he was an ex-national windsurfer during supper.

The juniors are making good progress; they're much faster learners than I was when I just picked up the sport. Kay Yong is able to move about quite comfortably now and even though Uyanga seems to be falling a lot, she's got the main ideas in her head; all she needs is to work a little more on the balancing.

I am really happy today. I think that's all because I've come to better understand the Kona board. Whee.

And another one turns 21.

We celebrated Shir's pre-21 with a dinner at some ulu (but yummay) seafood place along Thomson Road and some ice-cream for dessert at Siao's place after. I hope the birthday girl is going to have an awesome day tomorrow, and awesome year ahead. Quite amazing how it seems like it was only yesterday when I first transferred to Cedar Primary and met them all. Time flies, and you never realize that until you look back.

Anyhow, I just got back from windsurfing and a Xing Wang dinner. Reached supar late in the afternoon when everyone was out planing because I slept till 2 p.m. Strong currents and light wind by the time I completed rigging up my equipment and it was quite a pain in the ass to make my way back into the bay against the current.

Feels like I have a thousand and one things to rush for (okay I'm exaggerating, there's only two group assignments) and I feel as though I'm behind time because all my group members are so punctual in our self-set 'deadlines'. It's early and I'm going to start doing my work now, hope I won't end up sending in my parts too late!

ps. Exams're going to be over in exactly a month's time. I should be packing my bag at this time if nothing goes wrong. Hang in there, everyone!

What I had for dinner and Sam's present from Taiwan

Training was great great great today; the freshies turnout was heartening, Richard gave me a mast-protector that stopped my boom from sliding downwards and I managed to hook onto the harness successfully. Launching and heading out of the bay was kind of a bitch though because the wind was blowing onshore most of the time, and the currents were pretty strong. But no matter, we all still managed to have a good time.

We headed down to Stadium's KFC for dinner, and it was soooo satisfying (I'm quite sad the portions have shrunk though).

I love crispy, deep-fried chicken with fatty bits

Funny how we never thought of heading to Stadium for dinner before, when parking is free and plentiful on weekend evenings, now that I realized. And the next time we're going to have fried chicken again, I will suggest for us to go to Arnold's. I've heard and read so much about them from my friends but I've never remembered to make a trip down.

fries were unsatisfying. I think my favourite place for fries will still be Carl's Jr.

And this is way overdue, but I'm still going to blog about it. Sam got presents for all of us when he headed to Taiwan in May. Novelty candies and snacks to be exact. I thought it was really creative and cute for them to manufacture them in the forms of our daily necessities; sanitary napkin cotton candy, condom candies, traditional Chinese medicine chocolate and so on. I forgot to snap pictures of the other snacks but here's mine:

The front and back of the box.

more description

It was actually white chocolate that fizzes when you put it in your mouth. So fun to eat!

Hey there cool cat

cute fellow we met when we headed to JB for supper some two weeks back.

Recess week is officially ending in a few more hours' time; I'm only just starting to understand the severity of what it means. A few more hours to complete my half-done English essay. Yay me. In more bad news, I've gotten a warning letter from NIE for failing to register for the School Experience module last semester. Keeping fingers crossed really hard that things don't end up in the worst-case scenario: getting fired. I'm cursing myself right now for having forgotten to do something as important as registering for a compulsory/obligatory module, and thinking about how I'm going to drag my sorry ass down to the coordinator's office to apologize first thing in the morning later. Damned!

In the first time in what feels like quite a while, I finally windsurfed. No chance of doing that last weekend because all the NTU peeps were rushing about, helping out with PA Championship. I rented a Kona and paired it with a pink 5-metre sail; it was the first time I rented a Kona and the experience sucked! It was unstable as hell, and every single time I tried to do a gybe, I was bound to fall. I did all I could to try to prevent myself from falling; stood towards the back of the board, raised the dagger-board, bared away as slowly as I could... just about everything I could think of! In the end, I became exhausted from all that uphauling and I guess I got a little sea-sick (chops were plenty and big today too), totally felt like puking my guts out when Ben helped me drag my rented equipment out of the water.

Tits let me put on his booties on my last round out, and I felt like I was almighty with those booties on. On my next payday, I'm getting my own pair of booties, and I'm going to conquer the Kona! On a brighter note, I think I'm getting slightly better at my beach starts!

Dinner after with the senior windsurfers at 511; I was so full from stuffing myself with kidney meesua, chicken wings, satay and deep fried pieces of ngor hiang. I love eating with them!

I've yakked on for quite a bit now, guess it's time to shift my mind back to the assignment for now. Cheers people, I hope your week's been great!

update: I'm not getting fired anymore! Coordinator's an extremely nice lady. Thankgod.

Pictures from the last two weeks.

From Weijun's belated birthday celebrations:

I have friends who can draw really well #1 : Ruilong! Weijun's birthday cake; decorated it at The Icing Room.

I know her hands were probably shaking at her palms were perspiring, but still, she makes it look so easy!

Lighting up all that candles wasn't as easy a task as I'd thought it to be. Our surprise for Weijun flopped when he entered the room halfway while we were lighting up the candles. Ha.

All of us, but Yenling's not in the picture!

Siao's pre-21st celebrations:

Siao's (expensive) birthday treat; it came up to about $80/pax but there's a 15% discount for UOB credit cards. Took me awhile to find Shangri La, and some time to find my way to the restaurant. Thank you siao eh!

Making her first birthday wish for the year. Love you much! We'll go skating again once the weather clears up and I'm not sooo busy with school stuff okay!

I have friends who can really draw well #2: Shirleen Sim. I hope I'd be able to decorate a cake as nicely as my friends do if there is a need for me to do so one day.

Windsurf Orientation:

Sucked the life out of me; being in the sun almost the entire day, but I am so glad that it is finally over (for the year at least)!

us, from the morning session. Can you spot a few familiar faces? Like Choonyan who's standing right beside me... and Ruilong, your good friend Kengfoo...

Titus and his prep talk.

the conditions on the day were quite ideal for beginners; everyone seemed comfortable enough doing what they were doing on the boards.

waiting for Mingle's simulator session to end. Jack, Shunxiang, Shiqi and me!

mingle and an ang-moh guy on the simulator, he looks like a surfer, don't you think?

Titus having a go on my bubblegum board and orange sail!