Easter 2007 - Houseboat Day 4

08 April 2007, Sunday - Highlight of our trip~!

Instinctively, the first thing that all of us did when we woke was check out our surroundings. After last night’s episode, we just wanted to make sure that we are still where we are and that we had not floated into the middle of the ocean.

Fortunately, we were still anchored and secured. Unfortunately, we were too secured… to the point of being grounded. Yes, we had run aground. Of all spots, we landed on this one – 10m to the left of deeper waters!

When we woke up, it was slightly less than 1m deep. After breakfast (mushroom and spinach omelette, bacon, hashbrowns, salads), the water was less than 1m deep...

Since we were grounded, we decided to do some rowing. So Esmond, Roger, Pearl, Kareen and Rachel climbed into the orange dinghy. All the girls tried their hands at rowing and even scored themselves a few blisters. Ian and Heng Onn went on the inflatable dinghy and both boats competed to reach the nearest sandbank. The inexperienced female rowers had the dinghy turning round in circles and doing s-courses. Needless to say, Ian and Heng Onn had paddled to the sandbank and back to the houseboat, while the girls were still struggling to keep their boat heading in a straight fashion. Roger and Esmond were getting pretty impatient, telling the girls what to do while sitting back and looking on helplessly.

At one point, Haw and Shy had walked from the houseboat towards our dinghy and lent a hand by pulling us towards the sand bank. Finally, Pearl and Kareen was able to bring all 5 safe and sound back to the houseboat while Jit and Pei continued with their swimming lessons.

Since we were grounded and it was forecasted that wind speed would be between 20 – 30 knots in the evening, we decided to have the BBQ for lunch rather than having it in the evening.

We brought all BBQ food stuff up onto the upper deck, while Roger and Shy worked on the BBQ burner. With wind gusts of 20 – 30 knots, it was almost an impossible affair to get the gas BBQ burner going. But they finally got it going when Esmond and Shy formed a human wall, sitting upwind of the BBQ to block off the wind. But the burner was too slow and we were starving! So we carted some chicken wings and Taiwanese sausages back down to the kitchen and have them grilled in the oven. Which is just as well, because shortly after, it started pouring! We packed up and ran in a frenzy, back into the lower deck and have “bbq” in the oven.

Christina had also whipped up a nasty Malibu cocktail, which all of us had some. And you know what alcohol can do to people… we went cuckoo / nuts / bonkers / “siao” / off our rockers… you name it, we had it… well, most of us did anyway… we did something that someone may regret it in the future….

And the story goes….

Take a guess...

Whose beautiful eye is this?

Roger was feeling dozy from the late night’s sleep, the morning’s activities and the booze. So he dozed off on the couch. Pei came to “disturb” him and suddenly “ding!”, she came back armed with a lipstick! She tried putting lipsticks on Roger’s pouty lips! But Roger was aware and he woke and tried to struggle free. This was when 4 girls (Pei, Christina, Pearl and Rachel) pounced on him to hold him down. He was trapped! He had no where to go and we had forcefully ‘made him up’. Then, Christina and Pearl went back to their bags and brought back more make ups!

Upon seeing this, Roger again tried to struggle free but was held down again. He subsequently resigned to his fate and sat quietly on the couch, “enjoying” the make up session. So he had some eye shadows put on, blusher and his eye lines drawn. He was so, so pretty, that he paraded in a catwalk and posed for some very raunchy photos!

Phew-weet...(wolf whistle....)

But seeing him in his T-shirt, sweater and shorts with his make up on didn’t really match up. So Rachel went into her room and came back out with a wrap around skirt. The girls went into a frenzy again and nearly tore off Roger’s clothes from his body. We even enhanced his figure and put in some implants for him! (Originally was two oranges, which we decided wasn’t big enough… so we settled with two rolled up t-shirts!). And this is his final look.

Wow... well endowed.....

All these while, the girls were having the time of their lives. The screech of laughter could be heard from afar. They were laughing so hard that they couldn’t stand straight! While the girls were having fun, Esmond just looked on and Haw and Kareen were busy taking pictures, recording the whole event. Heng Onn, Ian, Shy and Jit were out helping other people pushing boats into deeper water.

Esmond shouted for them to come back for a show. When they saw Roger, they couldn’t believe their eyes! And Shy (who was Roger’s ‘hubby’) even……

When the girls were done with Roger, they eyed a new victim. The sleepy Esmond! After some minor persuasion (he had already resigned to the fact that he’ll be one of the ‘models’ when the girls made Roger do it…), he too was made up. To a further extent compared to Roger. Esmond had his eyelashes curled and was given some mascara as well! And he had beautiful, curly lashes! The girls were all so jealous! And because Esmond was bigger in size, the girls had a hard time trying to find a costume for him, but had settled for the wrap around skirt, in a different fashion. Esmond looked like a Mamasan!

Ha ha... you were laughing at me right?
Now's your turn...

Oh my... mamasan!

Next came Ian! He was reluctant but after some persuasion from the girls (and the two new ‘chicks’) he was also made up! He has a different style compared to the other two. He’s onto the “kawaii” / cute image! Rachel whipped out a cute set of costume for Ian. Look how cute he looks!

Kawaii~! (so cute!!!)

Last but not least, Shy. With 7 people going after him, he didn’t have much choice. Pearl designed his costume from a scarf. Isn’t he sexy?

When they were all done, the girls came to the conclusion that when a guy has a pretty sister, he’ll be pretty when he has make up on! All looked a little more similar to their sisters after having cosmetics on.

Originally, the girls wanted to do it to all 7 guys. But Haw and Kareen had disappeared to their room after Roger’s stint, Heng Onn too had gone to bed after Roger, Jit had hurt himself while helping people with their boat.

Unsatisfied, the girls got the 4 new ‘chicks’ to pose for photos….

(see how the "new chicks" are enjoying the photo shoot? The girls didn't have to use force at all!)

After all this, it was back to more serious matters (as the alcohol had worn out….). After the lunch and make up sessions, our situation turned from bad to worse. There were no water surrounding us as all! We were practically on dry ground!

What the?!

The crew was thinking of ways to dislodge the boat from the sand. Roger suggested digging the sands out from both sides of the boat so that it’ll be easier to float when the tide comes in. Esmond thought otherwise.

Then, Pearl (thanks Roger for correcting me) suggested having the anchor moved to a different position so that when the tide comes in, we will be led to deeper waters and away from the shore. We agreed, and the crew put their backs to it.

Once the anchor is out, it was carried 8m to the right of the ship, towards deeper waters and was set down. To ensure that it was firmly embedded into the seabed, Heng Onn reached down into the muddy water. He felt something and thought it was a shoe, but he immediately flung the ‘object’ down upon seeing it. 5 seconds later, he realised that that ‘object’ was a sea cucumber (a fine asian delicacy) and reached into the waters groping for it again. When he got it, he flung it towards the sand bank and it landed with a thud. It was a fat, big, long sea cucumber – about 6 inches in length. But it was not a pretty sight as it started spewing “gooey shit” out of one of its end. This turned us off and we left it where it was… (some Asian aunty would have ‘ta bao’ it home for claypot sea cucumber….)

Oh no! We're stuck! Help!

It's all his fault!!!

He picked the spot!

Suddenly, it began to pour, causing us to run helter skelter back to the houseboat for cover. The rain continued till dinner and past dinner, on and off and the wind was howling. Our wish was that the rain would bring in a higher tide faster because it was forecasted that the highest tide would be at about midnight.

That night, we had baked rice and Chick Kut Teh (bak kut teh with chicken meat) - thanks to Esmond and Christina.

We didn't have our Pictionary - charade competition that night. We were all tired and felt that we had somewhat become "expert" and cleverer in trying to deliver our acts. So we sat down and "talk cock, sing song, play guitar"....

As we were aground, the toilet wasn't able to pump up water to flush so we had to get sea water from outside. Braving the rain, Esmond played hero and braved the rain to get water. Luckily he went outside to get water because the rain was so heavy, our dinghy was filling out with water. His years at a naval base came in handy because he knew we had to bail water out from that dinghy otherwise we'd have another problem - a sunken boat!

Past 10pm, the tide came in and was pushing and tugging at the houseboat. The familiar swaying feeling came back. We were elated and continued to pray for more tide so that our boat could loosen itself from the sand bed and do what ships do - float!

Come 11pm, our houseboat had started floating! So everybody was activated and posted back to their positions on the various decks as Roger ignited the engine and steered us to deeper waters. We anchored and monitored for half an hour to ensure that we were secure and was not drifting. As we were in deeper waters and in a wider, busier canal, the seas were rougher and the houseboat was bobbing up and down more violently than ever.

Luckily, Rachel bought some travel pills during the emergency shopping on Day 2. The girls took them and went to bed.

Aren't they beautiful? (It's as if it's taken in a studio~!)