Easter 2007 - Houseboat Day 2

06 April 2007, Friday – All aboard!

We were so excited that most of us are up by 8am in the morning! We were vying for the bathroom and lining up along the corridor, hurrying whoever was inside to hurry up and reminding him / her of the water restrictions….

We had egg sandwiches and ham croissants for breakfast (courtesy of Christina!). After breakfast, Heng Onn, Pearl, Roger and I, set off for the mainland so that we could get to the nearest service station to get some of the stuff which we’ve lost last night.

We got to the pier and called the security to open the gate for us. We were told that we have to wait for about 30 minutes (coz they were very busy and it was Easter) but lucky for us, somebody appeared in 10 and mentioned that they’ll leave the gate unlocked so that we could get back in when we are done with our shopping. We drove 15 minutes to BP and stocked up on dairy products, batteries, travel pills and 2 Nandos chicken.

We got back to the houseboat, stored our purchases and braced ourselves for our voyage through the maze of channels up to South Straddie. Roger (the driver), pulled up the anchor, locked in the gear and steered us through the river towards south of South Straddie. Ian (the captain cum navigator), Heng Onn (the co-navigator) and Esmond (the parrot cum deck watchman) took their respective positions on the boat to ensure a safe journey. The journey took us over an hour and on route, lunch was cooking and a few of us (Kareen, Pei, Shy and me) had a game of monopoly.

When we got to our destination, we anchored and Heng Onn, Roger and Esmond took the motorboat out to the shore to recce the area. Meanwhile, lunch was served and we had fried rice and rice vermicelli in soup (thanks again to Christina!). We also had Nandos chicken on top of Christina’s delicious cooking.

The boys returned from their recce trip and Roger excitedly exclaimed that there is a beach volley ball court and shower facilities on shore! When we were done with our lunch, we set about changing into our “play costume”, slapping on loads of sunscreen, putting on our cap and riding the waves across to the shore in the orange motorboat. When all 12 of us got on shore, we made a beeline for the beach volleyball court after securing our motorboat to ensure our return trip to our houseboat.

We split up into two teams and pitched against each other. The result? Blue black hands, palms, thumbs etc. (too bad we didn’t get a picture of our injuries….). After a few rounds, we decided that we’ve had enough injuries and wanted a rest. Roger suggested that we take 10 minutes trekking to the other side of the island to blue waters since it is facing the ocean. (our current side has black, murky waters that’s not appetising for swimming purposes….). So we pack up our stuff and walked in single file.

We walked and we walked and we walked….. 10 minutes past and we haven’t seen any blue waters around… all we see are green leaves, brown shrubs and hairy balls….

After loads of “Are we there yet?” from the crew, there finally was a light at the end of the tunnel (figuratively and literally speaking…).

The sand was so fine, the water so blue that without hesitation, we dumped our bags in a corner and ran to the waters. We stoped short when our feet got into contact with the cold, clear salt water and hesitated… until…. a water fight broke out. The thirst for revenge set about a chain reaction and we were splashing cold water on each other in the cold blustery wind. (again, we were having so much fun that none of us want to miss out on this opportunity to dunk the other into the water, hence, no photos taken of us in action….)

In the end, we all got wet. Christina and myself even took the chance to exfoliate using the fine sands from the sea! As the sun started to set, Roger herded us out of the water to start our walk back to the boat. We dried ourselves, took some shots of the aftermath, and headed to our motorboat.

When we got back to the houseboat, I started to prepare our steamboat dinner while some of us took to the shower. We had two different flavours for the steamboat – Satay and “Ma La” flavour. We were all so hungry that we dug into our dinner with so much fervour that we literally snatched food from each other.

After dinner, we settled for a game of modified Pictionary. Instead of drawing (coz we didn’t have enough paper supplies), we did charades. We split into two teams and pitted against each other. It was good fun and we had a lot of laughter (especially when Ian kept throwing one on the dice and Esmond and team having sixes, as if Esmond was Hiro Nakamura – from American series, Heroes – who could stop time, tele-port and change things! Ha ha!)

After four hours of charade, Esmond and team (Christina, Heng Onn, Pei, Jit and Rachel) won the game, much to the dissatisfaction of the opponent. It was past midnight when we all retire to our beds for a good night’s rest before facing the next day’s adventure.