Fishy business April 6, 2009

I survived the kelong trip! Even though spoilt me had brought along my fully charged ipod, DS and a storybook, apart from playing with the DS on the ferry, I did not touch them much.

I caught a Red bream! That happened unexpectedly fast in the first 2 hours of the hot afternoon, motivating me to continue standing in the heat to try catching my 2nd fish. The Bf and I were both inexperienced fishers in the kelong setting, so we braved the sun with no caps and no sunblock. The result was intense sunburns (in the shape of a tank top) on my back , shoulders and neck…heat rash and a headache from too much sun for the Bf.

And yep, I still could not bring myself to hook the live prawn, it jumped too much and I was scared. We depended on one of the bf’s colleagues to do it for us, although we felt really bad to run to him with the fishing rod and a live prawn everytime.

I hadn’t intended to bathe or sleep, after seeing the appalling sleeping conditions and hearing that bathing has to be subjected to 1 pail of cold water per person. By 1 am, I gave in. The stickiness was too much to bear and cold water from a pail was heaven. Never mind the crab that was trying to climb through the planks to be my friend.

By 2.30 am, I gave in to exhaustion and threw myself onto one of those thin mattresses they had. Thanks to the earplugs I brought, I was spared the disturbance from the 24-hr mahjong table and chattering from other groups of people at the same kelong.

Early morning, I woke to find seafood porridge served. It was as though the kelong ppl threw in anything they had. I feared for the safety of my little crab friend but after burrowing through the contents, I see no traces of crab meat. I heard the greatest record of porridge consumption at that kelong was 8 bowls. I only had 2.

We took some last minute photos. The Bf had no luck throughout the night so our only fish was the Red bream which we didn’t include in the picture because it was in human terms, in ICU struggling with its last breath. Somebody in the group caught 11 groupas by himself so most of the loot belonged to only 1 person.

Sunday was just spent recuperating. I think I am fine without anymore live prawns, fishes for a while..be it eating, touching or seeing.

Will update again with photos once I get them!

*Btw, the SONY TSC90 seems quite fun to have. You can edit the pictures with silly stamps and I do love the touch screen features. Last year I wasn’t too impressed by it when I visited the electronic store but that was probably because of the overly enthusiastic salesman who kept forcing me to take pictures of him in order to prove the effectiveness of the “smile-capture” feature. Hmm….maybe I should get one.