-= adventures in Europe =-

Posted In: Of Camps and OGs . By Zεηιτħ

Northern Island Xpedition!

And well, as the term goes, there's only 1 island in which we explore (did we truly do so?) in the north, and even so, it really aint actually the North!!!

Haha, I'm talking about the event organised by the Canoeing Sub-club. The meeting time is at an unearthly time of 7.30am at Pasir Ris Park, which is super early for not just me, but anyone who does not live in the east!!! Sheesh. They could do better with the timings though.

Actually, I din feel like going for the event in the first place after clicking on a link Yi Si sent to me the previous day. Added to the fact that I was tired and required rest, and an early trip back to the East, I was really tired and feeling sad already.

Anyway, I still managed to wake up and met up with Skadians Joyce, Minghui, Xiangyu and Yisi, and saw Zhanwei with his friends at the event. Pasir Ris Interchange was a hive of activity with teenagers and their parents, bags in hand, moving over to a particular spot at the Interchange, and that was due to them having to go over to Tekong. Well, 'tis the time of the year again. Haha...

Saw Siu Hang and he was apparently tricked into joining this expedition by his friend. Haha. But the number of participants seemed quite fine for such an expedition, there were a total of 19 doubles and 7 singles. How I wished that I was on a single canoe for this trip, but after the trip I was silently happy to be in a double with Siu Hang. It was great, cos 2 of us had some experience in canoeing, so it was kinda more fun! The groupings for the canoeing were based on friends basis, so there was no re-pairing of girl-girl doubles or guy-guy doubles. This made things slightly difficult as the slower canoes made the entire formation drag too long and this meant that the fast crafts were really fast, and the slow ones were really slow.

On top of that, I felt that I was fighting the current for some parts of the trip (eg along Ubin), and it was quite bad especially since it takes up energy and is not favourable. Still, we managed to make it to Ubin and shore up for lunch, but not before rain hit and we had to hide for shelter in one of the newly-built huts. And the hut was where our Ohana campfire was held!

After lunch, we canoed over to the nearby Frog Island, but was hit by a passing shower with rain that pricked the skin. Forced to seek shelter between the shore and a big rock due to the waves, it was a momentary 10 minutes of respite. Frog Island is near Chek Jawa, and we managed to move our canoes very inland despite having about less than a fifth of paddle length till the bottom! Took pictures and had a rest there before embarking on the trip home.

The trip home is the worst in my opinion. Although the current was in our favour, and rightfully we should be canoeing with relative ease, the current was quite unpredictable and we had to deal with shifting waves too, which pushed our canoe sideways, and we ended up canoeing in a zig-zag fashion. That was bad and we wasted much energy getting ourselves back on track most of the time!

And that was made worse with the 1km wide crossing which we had to do. Despite being in the clear, the waves and current made me want to give up at times, 'cos it was really too crazy and nutty to be canoeing and constantly being shifted off course. In the end we went left-right-left-right and then before we knew it, we had reached our destination: Pasir Ris Park.

Relief indeed, and a sore back and muscles to account for the entire day's activity. The ending was rather smooth, with a black NIX tee and then off to take pictures and wait for our turn at the nearby public shower.

Most of us were sunburnt, with obvious tans for those with spectacles or caps. Yi Si was pretty much burnt like a red-hot lobster, and Xiangyu was in similar fashion too. Joyce, Minghui and Siu Hang have 2 shades of colours - paler above the nose and rosy cheeks.

Skadi then proceeded over to White Sands and we had our dinner at Cavana (it's Halal!) and then to Swensens' for some Earthquake desert! And poor Minghui encountered an incident and in return, got a free Happy Feet tee, this after he mentioned how he had wanted to watch the movie when he first saw the trailer but never did till now. lol!

Went home with Joyce on the 88 (all the way for me) while the rest took other routes home, and I was so tired that after Joyce alighted I KO-ed all the way till the interchange, and had to take another bus back to my home. Sighs.

Concussed on the bus, but full of energy now! Ophir next!