Tall Grass by Andrew Chan...

When it came time for “It’ll do” to be replaced by “It’ll do II”, I ultimately decided to go it alone as a boat owner since all my co-owners, Viz, Pauline, Ben and Huen Poh, in the previous decade had each got married within eighteen months of commencing their co-ownership with me.  So, with Scott and Alice as matchmakers, I chose a new Nacra 5.0 catamaran from Australia to be my bride, sight unseen.

Ah, what a joy she was!  “It’ll do II” was faster than a Hobie 18, yet helmed as sweetly as a Windrush 14. The skeg hulls were not as efficient upwind as I had hoped but the overall package was indeed an upgrade. The boomless sail was a particular pleasure with my many guests who were novices at crewing.  Soon, the Club’s fleet of colourful Hobies gave way to anonymously white Nacra 5.0s, all uniformly bland except for the occasional bright yellow deck or colourful jib; and, depending on each owner’s whim, uniquely evocative names.  On windy days with flat seas, “It’ll do II” would skim across the sea like a flying carpet, her twin hulls easily slicing through the swells where banana-shaped or heavier hulls would have pitchpoled.  My mail-order bride certainly did not disappoint.

Pat, who had introduced me to Dr Michael Chia, became the new owner of “It’ll do”.  Victor Tan, my scuba buddy and fellow jungle-trekker, transitioned from sailing Lasers and keelboats to crewing for me regularly on “It’ll do II”. While Scott and Alice were vacuuming up prizes at regattas, we eschewed course-racing in favour of the occasional passage race and multi-day sailing adventures.

One memorable outing with a fleet of fellow cat sailors from the Club took us on a fast reach around Changi Point to the sandy, reclaimed shores off Changi Airport. An intrepid adventurer discovered that a temporary saltwater lake had been created within the Changi East Reclamation Projects. The containment bund encircling the lake’s eastern boundary was like a tall sand dune over which we had to manually carry each of our cats after beaching on the seaward side. Thankfully, the Nacra 5.0 is much lighter than a Hobie 18 and willing bodies made light work of the effort involved.

By mid-afternoon, we had unpacked our camping gear on the sandy beach and were whizzing across the mirror-smooth lake on our cats. The constant wind was strong enough to fly our hulls but didn’t disturb the water’s surface. We were amazed by the gin-clear water, a result of being separated from the shipping traffic which keeps well-churned sediment suspended in the seas around Singapore. I wondered if the local waters Sir Stamford Raffles had sailed through in 1819 to found Singapore had been equally clear. Our camping instincts emerged with twilight:  while some took seawater baths, others avoided a bath altogether and I used the main halyard of “It’ll do II” to suspend my state-of-the-art PVC 5-gallon solar-heated freshwater-filled camp shower for well-deserved ablutions. Campfires were started and food produced from waterproof bags. Suddenly, in the dark of night, a loudhailer broke the peace and we could hear a diesel-engined vessel motoring up and down the other side of the containment bund. Since we couldn’t make out what was going on, we ignored the ruckus.  Eventually, the vessel and loudhailer left.

It wasn’t till much later, when we were reminiscing about this sailing camp-out that someone suggested the Marine Police might have been looking for us because we had camped – however harmless our intent – in a construction site.

That night, with our cats resting high on the beach, their trampolines made perfect camp beds for sleeping under the stars. Luckily, it didn’t rain. Toilet facilities, you ask?  Well, Alice still remembers with amusement the plastic trowel (nowadays officially known under “Camp Toilets” in www.rei.com as the GSI Outdoors Cathole Sanitation Trowel) I brought along for communal use; the only request made of users was that they clearly mark where they’d dug so an unsuspecting soul wouldn’t inadvertently dig in the same spot…and find buried treasure.  NOT!

Toilet etiquette aside, we hadn’t reckoned on how cold it would get towards early morning for those sleeping on trampolines. Without a light sleeping bag for heat retention, some sleepers were getting chilled because the mesh trampolines were as well-ventilated as a venerable charpoi. Alas, when the ambient temperature reached dew point we all got damp from condensation.

There were no mosquitoes or sandflies, however, and the overall experience was much more enjoyable than the time Chris anchored her powerboat off Pulau Tekong for Khang and I to attempt scuba diving in the Strait of Johor. In bright daylight, with Chris and Jinn keeping watch, Khang and I flipped backwards off the gunwales into the sea. At a depth of three metres, the water was saturated with sediment and we couldn’t see our own hands in front of our masks. Our bottom time lasted only long enough for us to follow the anchor line to the seabed; trailing it between our fingers in zero visibility, we knew we’d literally touched bottom when it smacked us in the face. With the anchor retrieved, we motored to Pulau Tekong and spent the night on the beach near a kampung. Our tent provided protection from voracious mosquitoes but it was so humid that we had to intermittently release compressed air from our scuba tanks to cool ourselves. At least, we’d logged another dive.

Morning at our private lake in the Changi East Reclamation Projects found some of us shivering atop trampolines whilst others had snuggled under theirs.  Rubbing sleep from our eyes, hair askew, it was time to sail back to the Club and our creature comforts.  But first, it was only proper that we enjoy a few more high-speed tacks across the lake before shouldering our cats back over the containment bund into the Strait of Johor.

Another sailing adventure that would have unintended consequences for more than a decade started innocently enough. Pulau Lobam was the destination, a tiny island off Pulau Bintan in Indonesia’s Riau Archipelago. Three Nacra 5.0s would make the trip, with Scott and Alice in the lead.  With appropriate approvals in hand for this cross-border sail, we enjoyed a fast 80-minute tack from Changi Sailing Club to Nongsa Point. Clearing Indonesian Immigration and Customs at Batam, only two cats continued to the final destination. The third cat stayed at Nongsa Point as helm and crew checked into the hotel for more amorous pursuits.

Beaching at Pulau Lobam, Scott, Alice, Victor and I made camp on high ground.  My PVC 5-gallon solar-heated camp shower was suspended from a tree and the sanitation trowel placed nearby.  Reconnoitering the island, which takes about 30 minutes to walk completely around, we found that we weren’t alone.  A couple of Indonesian workers, accompanied by their dog, were landscaping the island for the owner who wanted to make it a tourist destination.

Gathering driftwood, we made ready for dinner. With the fire lit, smoke kept mosquitoes at bay. The prospect of a good night’s sleep before sailing back to the Club the next morning was scuttled when the wind picked up after dark. We could hear the loud ringing of halyards madly whipping our cats’ masts and heavy surf breaking on the beach. Scott decided to check that our cats were securely anchored while the rest of us busied ourselves trying to keep our campsite from blowing away. Hard, lashing rain came with bolts of lighting and rolling thunder, so close that I thought it was like being trapped in a barrel with exploding firecrackers. Our fire died.  Even with battery-operated torches, it was difficult to see what was happening.

Eventually, the squall passed and Scott returned. He had been the surrogate storm anchor for our cats, holding onto lines with his hands and teeth while standing in chest-deep water, trying simultaneously to keep our cats from smashing into each other.

Soon, mosquitoes descended upon us.  It was their turn to dine.

After a sleepless night, we relished the next morning’s sail back to the Club. It was slow going from Pulau Lobam to the channel between Bintan and Batam.  Once we passed the latter, however, the wind picked up sufficiently to capsize “It’ll do II”.  Back underway, as we sailed past the Changi Airport runway, Vic and I enjoyed the leisurely approach of a Boeing 747 coming in to land.  Twin waterspouts sprung up below the plane’s engines, trailing beneath it on the sea’s surface.  Scott and Alice were watching, too, and sharing a smirk because they knew what would happen next.

One moment, Vic and I were placidly sitting on the trampoline.  Next, the 747 had flown over us and our cat had turned turtle, dumping us into the sea.  We’d never heard of waterspouts capsizing boats but now had firsthand experience!   Scott and Alice were probably trying not to fall off their cat from laughing so hard.  As Vic and I dragged ourselves onto “It’ll do II”, fatigue coursed through our muscles.  We missed our handholds while righting her and “It’ll do II” rolled 360°.  It seemed to take forever, but we finally had her up and moving under sail before drifting dangerously close to the Changi Airport Fuel Hydrant Installation jetty.

Two weeks later, I thought the flu that was being transmitted among my office colleagues had also infected me.  My eyes tired easily, my head and bones ached; I seemed to be doing things at a third of normal speed.  Back home after work, I had a high fever which abated and left me chilled.  I crawled into my sleeping bag, which was rated to -4° Centigrade to keep warm. I had contracted a particularly virulent influenza virus, I thought.

My mother’s suspicions were confirmed after a blood test the next day.  I had malaria, a disease she was familiar with from her wartime experiences.  My father promptly entrusted me to the care of his fellow-physician, Dr Goh Teck Chong, and I was admitted to Gleneagles Hospital.  It turned out that I had two of the four strains of malaria:  Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax.   Since medication could only kill the parasites in my bloodstream and not those in my liver, it became routine for me to respond well to treatment and resume work, then have a relapse three months later, when the parasites had re-entered and multiplied in my bloodstream.  Each relapse caused me to be hospitalised for a week or two in a severely weakened state, suffering waves of high fever that alternated with bone-shaking chills while the malaria parasites destroyed my red blood cells.   My third stay in hospital was complicated by a bout of pneumonia.  Thanks to Dr Goh, I had no further relapses. But he cautioned that I wasn’t considered cured until I had lived another ten years without a recurrence.

I developed an interest in malaria beyond the little I knew from biology classes in school. Only the female Anopheles mosquito transmits malaria.  Of the estimated 200-300 million cases of malaria every year, about 1% – or two to three million individuals – will die. Plasmodium falciparum causes the most deadly form of the disease, with the other types of malaria being milder.  Having suffered both, I can only say that what didn’t kill me certainly hurt me longer.  Luckily, none of the other sailors in this outing had been infected.

The 1990s had begun with many exciting activities and I had trouble accepting my weakened condition.  My intense workload at the office was balanced with brief but equally intense escapades to go sailing and scuba diving, as well as what had become an annual holiday with a diverse group of trekkers.

Most of us had met during a trip to scale Mt Trusmadi, Malaysia’s second highest mountain.  Bruce Comer, an American working in Singapore, was one of those so motivated that he summitted both the latter and nearby Mt Kinabalu in the same trip.  He later introduced three of his countrymen, Will, Peter and Ramsey, to our future treks. The rest of our group consisted of Singaporeans and Malaysians.  Shared characteristics included a hearty sense of humour, especially the ability to laugh at our own foibles, a willingness to help each other and a curiosity to try new things, including the monkey porridge once proffered by native hosts at a longhouse in remote Sarawak.

Rahim, Piee and Leong, co-founders of a trekking business, were our undisputed leaders. Khang and I had the good fortune to meet Piee when we were washing dishes at the MNS Field Study Centre in the Boh Tea plantation.  The quintessential Malaysian equivalent of Tarzan, Piee taught me to wear socks when negotiating slippery, moss-covered riverine rocks.  To my amazement, the wetted surface area of socks significantly increases adhesion versus boots, sandals or bare feet.  Through Piee, we got to know Rahim.  They introduced Khang and I to Endau-Rompin before it was designated a Malaysian National Park.  Imagine having one of the world’s oldest rainforests as a playground:  2.5 times larger than Singapore and stocked with wild elephants, tigers, deer, boars, tapirs, hornbills, gibbons, fishes, exotic seasonal jungle fruits and a host of flora and fauna new to science.  Later, we met Leong, an expert in junglecraft and a walking encyclopaedia on forest flora and fauna, whose idea of fun was to hike barefoot through virgin rainforest while hefting 80kg, including 5 gallons of water for the whole group.

Fortune further smiled on us when we were invited to join their expeditionary trips wherein they would explore new trails in remote jungles for the purpose of determining whether to add them to their treks for paying guests, among which numbered the BBC.  We’d only have to share the basic costs. Their professional guiding fees were waived and there’d be no porters.  The caveat was that we could bring whatever we liked as long as we carried it ourselves, together with communal supplies like food, water, fuel, cooking equipment, tents, goundsheets, etc, to be divided amongst the group.  Learning from these masters, we became adept in leech lore and delighted in dispensing unsolicited advice to new jungle trekkers – or bored yuppies at cocktails:

“…leeches [are] frequently an unavoidable part of the adventure.

The leeches you’re likely to encounter will be land-based, typically about one-inch long.  They will be found in moist areas on the ground, usually under dead leaves, along animal trails in the shade and sometimes on the leaves of low shrubs. The leeches will be attracted to you by the vibration of the ground as you walk and by your body heat when they get onto your clothes. They will move along your clothing like Omega-shaped worms until they detect a hot spot with a blood vessel pulsing just under your skin. Most leech bites will not be felt by you.  Those that you do notice – like a pin-prick or mosquito-bite – are Tiger leeches (so-called because of lighter-brown stripes along the length of their bodies) whose bites may itch after they’ve fed to satiation, whereupon they’ll have become tear-drop shaped, and noiselessly dropped off. One feeding is enough to last a leech for one year.

Leeches avoid sunlight and dry, exposed areas.  They are covered with a very thin slime (like snails) and are sensitive to many substances:  salt, iodine, alcohol, insecticide; in fact, any oxidising agent.

There are 3 ways to deal with leeches:

1.  Protective clothing:  wear a long-sleeved shirt and leech socks; tuck long trousers into boots, then spray the exterior of your clothes lightly with insecticide (any brand will do).  Beware of over-spraying and ending up with chemical burns. This doesn’t work for some because overdressing makes them hot and the smell of insecticide is nauseating after a while.

2.  Using a decoy:  if someone in your group (like our friend Will) attracts leeches, send him/her to walk 50-70 feet ahead of you on the trail so all the leeches find him/her first.  Walk lightly behind this person and avoid brushing against bushes and shrubs. Stop every 30 minutes or so in an open area to conduct a mutual leech check among fellow trekkers.

3.  Physical removal

a.  The native way:  when you notice a leech crawling on your clothes or body, use a finger to flick it into the jungle; if you play Carom, you’ll know exactly which “flick” motion I mean.  If the leech has already bitten through your skin, hold it between your (dry) finger and thumb and gently twirl the leech’s body until it gets dehydrated and releases its bite. Flick it away like you would a cigarette butt, then check to make sure it’s not still clinging onto your fingers or hand.

b.  My way:  bring a small stick of insect repellant (the type that looks like a wax cylinder of deodorant) and just rub it against any leeches, which will immediately drop off (not unlike a snail’s reaction when you put salt onto it).  My favourite is Tabard, a product of Shell, the petroleum giant.  Unfortunately, it’s no longer available – too toxic for humans, perhaps? Before I discovered Tabard, I tried cologne (all brands are effective in removing leeches but the combined smell of leech, human blood and cologne may not be to everyone’s liking).”

Intriguingly, the ladies in our trekking group handled the sight of fresh human blood far better than the guys. The latter Americans did, however, entertainingly create a new reality-based event I had never witnessed before:  The Smelly Socks Contest!  After a week of torture-testing them within our boots, we would each extract a sodden, malodorous sock and enter it in the competition.  The Americans unanimously won!  I think the real loser was ultimately the poor trekker who had to do the judging.

Reflecting on the adventures I had thus far enjoyed, it was painful to contemplate giving up future iterations of treks in the Kelabit Highlands; visits to remote longhouses; Endau-Rompin’s huge waterfalls and unique lowland plateau forest; crawling through narrow caves and tunnels in parts of the Batu Caves system not open to the public; flying ultralights over oil palm plantations in Johor…even being lost in Sabah’s unexplored Maliau Basin for ten days over a Chinese New Year had been glorious fun, thanks in no small part to Kok Peng’s secret stash of fireworks – though others in the group recall his bottle of whisky more fondly!

Nonetheless, I had to accept that strenuous physical activities would be on hold until I recovered from the ravages of malaria.  Sailing, scuba diving and trekking were duly shelved.  I thought, optimistically, that off-road driving which I had taken up after selling my motorcycle might fall into the category of “acceptable activities”.    I was new to this sport.  Despite intermittently joining Khang’s off-roading trips in his short-wheelbase Land Rover, I had yet to master double de-clutching while changing from low to high ratio – or vice versa – and was forever silently interrogating myself:  “Was that 3^rd high or 4^th low or…what “&@#!*%” gear am I in, now?!”.  I think there were two reverse gears and eight forward gears to choose from originally but he later installed an aftermarket overdrive unit and created four reverse gears and sixteen forward…??  Nonetheless, I did go so far as to participate in an epic Trans Borneo drive from Kuching to Kota Kinabalu with Robert Cheng in his modified Range Rover, joining a convoy of suitably macho vehicles from the 4 x 4 Adventure Club of Kuala Lumpur.  The sponsors included Land Rover and Malaysian Airlines.  My brother and Andreas in the latter’s short-wheelbase Land Rover made up the other half of the Singapore contingent.  I’m still glad that I couldn’t take part in one of their preparatory expeditions, where continuous rainfall at Gua Musang had created so much mud, my brother recalls seeing a steep mountainside where wild elephants had slid helplessly downslope.

Traversing a mountain range towards the end of the Trans Borneo expedition, we were separated from the rest of the convoy by thick fog near Kota Kinabalu.  In the middle of the night, with me at the wheel, the Range Rover’s brakes failed.  Robert’s eerie calm contrasted with my white knuckles as he talked me down the mountain, guiding my efforts at pumping the brake pedal while manically working the gears and steering by the dim reflectors embedded in the middle of the road.  We lived to tell the tale and enjoy another adventure some time later when Robert brought Victor, Richard, my brother and I, in his Jeep Grand Cherokee to the coastal township of Kudat, after we serendipitously read about a mud volcano that had surfaced off the Sabah coast in the wake of a minor undersea quake.

Through Robert’s machinations, we chartered a fishing boat moored in Kudat and captained by a colourful local character named Sotong (“squid” in Malay).  Our plan was to check into a small hotel for the night, then wake early and set off in Captain Sotong’s boat before sunrise, so that we would arrive at the newly created island in mid-morning.   We paid the hotel bill in advance and woke around 0400hrs the next day, only to find ourselves locked inside the building.

We learnt later from townsfolk that Kudat always locked itself up at night because it was frequently raided by pirates from the Philippines.  Neither wishing to waste more time nor wake the entire town by shouting for the hotel’s gate to be opened, we crawled out of an upper storey window and managed to find a ladder.

We scurried aboard Captain Sotong’s boat just as it began to rain.  Soon, it escalated into a storm.  The cabin was too small for us to take cover in because Captain Sotong had invited his girlfriend to join the expedition, unbeknownst to us, and the two of them occupied all the available cabin space.   He was more conniving than his moniker had led us to believe.   We squeezed into whatever dank space we could individually find in the small vessel.  Our trip took far longer than the five hours we had originally been told to expect.  It was mid-day by the time we arrived at the nameless island.  The post-storm conditions were beautiful, however.  The sun shone brightly in a pale blue sky dotted with white cotton-puff clouds.  Augmented by a slight breeze, the deep-blue sea melded into a lovely turquoise band around the low, football field-sized island. Gentle swells washed its perimeter, belying our storm-tossed passage.  We were the only people in sight.

Instead of the barren, oozing, mud volcano I had visualized in my mind, the island was teeming with marine organisms.  Corals, lobsters, crabs, anemones and fish lay unmoving everywhere.  What had not been asphyxiated upon exposure to the atmosphere by the sudden up-thrust had been bleached to death by the sun.  The white, perfectly formed coral heads contrasted with the pinkish carapaces of shellfish and dessicated bodies of coral fish.  Interestingly, there was no odour of decay.

We explored the island on foot and eventually departed in Captain Sotong’s boat when the heat became uncomfortable.  The return journey to Kudat was uneventful.  Some time later, we read in a newspaper that another minor undersea quake had caused the island to subside beneath the waves.

With my lifestyle suddenly more sedate, it hadn’t occurred to me that the absence of a boat co-owner to marry off might result in my walking to the altar, instead.  So, in a private ceremony at the Registry of Marriages, my bride and I wed.   Three days later, with our visas in hand, we arrived in California, where I was to work for the next four years.   New spouse, new job, new home, new country…I recall reading somewhere that each of these events counts among the most stressful periods in a person’s life – and we had somehow chosen to do them all at once.

How did we enjoy California?  Ah, there are so many answers depending on how I look at the experience:  shortly after we took up residence in our apartment, the Northridge Earthquake jolted us awake.  It registered a magnitude of 6.7 and had one of the highest ground accelerations ever recorded in North America.   We also lived through the OJ Simpson trial, witnessed the massive mudslides in Malibu, the almost-annual wildfires surrounding Los Angeles, and enjoyed a welcome stream of friends and family who stayed with us not just because we were walking distance from Rodeo Drive.  Living in an apartment for the first time initially gave me cabin fever; either that or I was reacting adversely to reports that the Certificate of Entitlement for buying a new car in Singapore had exceeded S$100,000.  When the US economic recovery from the Saving and Loans crisis exhibited over-vigorous signs of life, Alan Greenspan raised interest rates seven times between 1994 and 1995; the Mexican peso and stockmarket went through a crisis; Asian asset values suffered.  There was never a boring day at work.   What were referred to as “over-extended borrowers” then were reincarnated as “sub-prime borrowers” about 15 years later.  Sadly, some lessons seem not to have been learnt.

Meanwhile, the new owner of “It’ll do II” happily brought her back to Europe when he left Singapore.

My wife and I test-sailed a trimaran – I think it was a Corsair F-31 – at Marina del Rey, scuba dived in California’s offshore kelp forests and went sea-kayaking off the Baja peninsula but ultimately decided that we were physiologically suited for tropical seasports, notwithstanding our affinity for the Southern California weather.  Our land-based activities grew more adventurous:  walking the numerous canyons around Los Angeles, we became skilled at identifying rattlesnakes hidden in the scrub; in Joshua Tree National Park, we went rock-climbing with Bob Gaines, a stout and amazingly sure-footed instructor, who doubled as Captain Kirk climbing Yosemite’s El Capitan in “Star Trek V”.  When the opportunity arose, we sold our Volvo stationwagon and leased a Land Rover Discovery Series 2.  Driving on-road at up to 140mph in the California desert was tempered by excursions to Idyllwild, the Angeles National Forest and Death Valley.  The latter offered off-roading (made easy with automatic transmission) in ice, snow and desert sand, all in the same winter day.

Visiting Medford en route to Crater Lake, in Oregon, we were bemused to learn that no-one locked their cars or homes because the level of communal trust and law-abiding behaviour is so high that it was deemed unnecessary.  This was indeed very different from my early TV- and movie- influenced impressions of the USA.  Living in Los Angeles, however, was a very different reality from Medford:  the morning news regularly featured disturbing stories of random violence and gang warfare.  Walking to the office one morning, I was shocked to see a trail of fresh bloodstains on the pavement; apparently, someone had been shot during an attempted heist of a Brink’s armoured truck.  Yet, we were fortunate never to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time throughout our stay.

The restaurants in our in neighbourhood and beyond offered a huge variety of cuisines, including Iranian, Tibetan, Uzbek, Indonesian, Argentine, Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese, French, Russian, Italian, Mexican, Peruvian, Brazilan; and the pan-Asian supermarkets featured a greater variety of products than we’d ever seen in Singapore.   Clearly, we ate well…even if there was no equal to Singapore laksa or Hainanese chicken rice

We were repatriated to Singapore in time to experience the onslaught of the terrible haze from Indonesia and the Asian Crisis which began in Thailand.  The Russian Financial Crisis and collapse of Long Term Capital Management soon followed.  It seemed a good time to seek some relief at Singapore’s Best Kept Secret and I asked Scott and Alice to find me another mail order bride (subsequently referred to as “mistress” by my spouse).  The Club had undergone some changes in my absence:  it boasted a nice, sandy beachfront, which my professor in Public Finance would have described as an “externality”, courtesy of reclamation works at Pasir Ris, but many of the moorings beyond the beach stood empty, and the membership roster had shrunk.  The financial turmoil that roiled the world had touched the Club, too.

My new catamaran was christened “tall grass”.  An Inter 17 Tomahawk with winged mast, high-aspect ratio mylar mainsail and deep daggerblades, she looked aggressive in and out of the water, and proved to be the opposite of “It’ll do II”.  Fast, yet unpredictable when pushed to the limit, she was a vixen.  Victor and I probably capsized three out of every five times we sailed her, frequently at sufficient speed that we were airborne for a while, like kids clumsily emulating Superman, before splashing into the sea.  Eventually, Fear became an unwanted crewmember every time we flew a hull.

Taking a respite from sailing in mid-1998, I joined twenty-nine other bicyclists in the BikeAid charity ride from Singapore to Hatyai, a distance of 1,047km to be covered in six days.  The start was not auspicious.  I hadn’t ridden a bicycle for twenty-seven years and the activities my wife and I enjoyed in California had been largely non-aerobic.  The first leg of the ride from Singapore was mercifully made cooler by a mid-afternoon downpour and I finally conquered the undulating roads to catch up with the rest of the riders in Mersing.  Policemen helpfully directed traffic so we could proceed unimpeded to our hotel for the night.

Waking at 0400hrs, a routine was quickly established for the next five days:  a hurried morning shower would be followed by a simple breakfast before mounting our bicycles and setting off in the pre-dawn darkness.  Riding as the sun rose, we would continue through the mid-day heat with a brief lunch break, then aim to reach the next stop before nightfall.

Cheng Swee, who had persuaded me to join him in this adventure and was twin-sharing accommodations with me, initially proved to be an elusive riding buddy.  We would rise together each morning but his superior level of fitness would have him bathed and changed at the next destination by 1500hrs while I continued to struggle on the road.  Altruistically, he slowed his pace to keep me company.  Luckily, I was getting fitter by the day, notwithstanding excruciating saddle sores, headwinds, rainstorms, sunburn and multiple tyre punctures.

Thirty kilometers short of Hatyai, both tyres punctured again as I sped over the jagged gravel of a road being resurfaced through a small town.  Cheng Swee and I had drafted at up to 38kph with Raja and his incredible team of riders until headwinds separated me from them.   I was crestfallen and waited at the roadside for assistance as Cheng Swee continued on.

Jeffrey and his wife soon picked me up, mounting my bike on the rack secured to the rear of their car.  Maybe things weren’t so bad, after all.  Jeff had bought his Mercedes Benz E200 only a year ago.  It still smelled new, which made me very conscious of my pungent, perspiration-soaked condition.  I shared the roomy and comfortable rear passenger compartment with their nephew.  The climate-controlled air-conditioning soon dried me.  I thankfully recalled the commitment with which all our volunteer supporters kept us going:  rushing ahead to direct traffic at junctions, searching out bottled water for us at every opportunity, separating into different groups to keep up with riders going at divergent speeds, plying us with fresh bananas. They were always helping and sincere, yet self-deprecating in their generosity.  I should wish to meet such people throughout my life.

What else do I remember?  Apart from braving extremes in tropical heat and humidity, we had to compete for road space with cars, buses, lorries and motorcyclists in urban areas where we were often at the bottom of the road-users hierarchy.  Conversely, we also bicycled through pretty countryside with padi fields flanking both sides of the road, tropical rainforest and plantations of oil palm and rubber trees.  Other times, we gave way to itinerant cows, goats, skinny sheep, kampung chickens and herds of mud-covered water buffalo along lonely stretches of road.  The best part of the ride was in the cool, early mornings when roads were empty and we could savour the hooting calls of gibbons through the forest or catch glimpses of monkeys, large monitor lizards and other fauna as the day warmed.  Unfortunately, there was ample opportunity to identify these same animals in the form of roadkill, thanks to habitat destruction driving them into the path of oncoming traffic.

“While mental and physical preparation make all the difference between enjoying the ride and suffering through it, there is no avoiding pain and numbness in the nether regions…”, I recall Cheng Swee telling me.  He also added reassuringly, “But the most exciting part comes after the ride, when feeling returns again.”  Most rewarding was the fact that despite the Asian Crisis, generous donors helped us to raise S$110,000 for the Kidney Dialysis Foundation.

A month later, with my saddle sores a fading memory, a small group of us decided to drive to Kahang, Johor, then ride our bicycles into Endau-Rompin, and spend three days exploring the rainforest before riding back out.   Weekend Warriors’ James and Jerry Tay arranged everything for us, including accommodations at Kampung Peta, an Orang Asli village.

Five kilometres from Kahang, the pockmarked dirt road winds gradually uphill through 30km of oil palm plantations before reaching the forest-line.  From there, our route would continue along an abandoned logging road, undulating another 26km through steep foothills, before terminating at Kampung Peta and the Johor Park Headquarters of Endau-Rompin.  We set off under the incredulous gaze of lorry drivers headed inland to collect their cargoes of oil palm fruits.  They would slow down long enough to ensure we were not figments of their imagination before roaring past in clouds of dust.

Pedalling strongly, our deceptively quick pace on the wide dirt road soon slowed as we gained altitude in the oppressive mid-day heat.  Stops to catch our breath and drink water became more frequent as we paid the price for starting too late in the morning.  We separated into smaller groups.  Cheng Swee powered far ahead, trailed by Looney and Vincent.  I was alone in the middle, with Ridah and Bernard somewhere behind. The three Land Rovers split up to support us.

After pedaling for 30km, I reached a fork in the road.  Overjoyed to find a shady downhill section, I took it without glancing at the sign which pointed to Kampung Peta in the opposite direction.  Ten kilometres later, on an uphill stretch, I realised I was lost.  As Istarted backtracking downhill, James turned up in his Land Rover with trailer in tow.  He was searching for me because my sister, who was driving the third Land Rover, had alerted him to my disappearance.

I gratefully accepted James’ offer of a ride. He stopped and climbed onto the roof of his vehicle, ready to secure my bike which I lifted overhead to him.  Suddenly, the Land Rover began reversing downhill with James still standing on the roof. It began to gather speed as the weight of the trailer dragged it backwards.  “Brake!  Brake!” shouted James from the roof.  I clamped my gaping mouth shut and dropped my bike to the ground. “Ouch! That’s $$$…”, I remember thinking as I simultaneously sprinted to the driver’s door, grabbed the handle, wrenched downwards and pulled.  It wouldn’t open.  Struggling with the door, I tried to visualise myself squeezing through the window but I knew the opening was too small.  James’ shouting was getting louder and more urgent.

I shuffled faster alongside the 4WD.  Desperately, I jerked upwards on the handle. The door flew open. I dove into the Land Rover and stomped on the brake pedal. It stopped. The fat, five-and-a-half-foot long monitor lizard that witnessed all this as it lazily waddled across the track must have been giggling at us…

Giddy with relief, we decided to leave my bicycle sitting on the spare tyre atop the Land Rover’s bonnet.  When we caught up with Ridah, Vincent and Bernard mid-way up a steep incline, Looney was standing astride his mountain bike.  “Help, I’m stuck”, he gasped, “my legs are cramped.”  He couldn’t bend his knees.

Shaking unsteadily with laughter and exhaustion, we managed to rescue Looney by leaning him sideways until he was balanced on one leg so we could slide his bike out from under him.  Gulping water and gorging on bananas, we rested long enough to get back our sense of adventure before reuniting with Cheng Swee and the remaining Land Rover. We drove the rest of the way to Kampung Peta and quickly made ourselves comfortable in the two huts that had been reserved for us.

The next two days were spent trekking through forest trails and a long-deserted logging track littered with scattered mounds of cannonball-sized elephant dung, some only a day- or two- old.  Fording narrow streams, climbing over/under fallen tree trunks and slipping on leaf litter, we trekked in single-file and kept a lookout for leeches on the damp forest floor.

The Upeh Guling waterfall is a ruggedly beautiful series of cascades, strewn with car-sized boulders, loose rocks and huge logs arranged randomly like matchsticks.  Resting among the boulders with our bungkus lunches unpacked, wet clothes draped in the sun to dry and cameras unslung, we enjoyed the unmistakable call of a large Rhinocerous hornbill as it landed in a treetop across the river and began preening.  The river roared around us.  We dipped into the cold, rushing water and found that the best spot was a small hollow under an overhang, which made for the perfect natural jacuzzi.  Ah, what pleasure!

Back at work, increasing responsibilities meant that my weekly sail became monthly.  Then, monthly became “maybe”.  But I stubbornly refused to give up “tall grass” because boat ownership allowed me to cling to the fiction that I could go sailing any time I wanted to.

It was during one of the increasingly rare outings on “tall grass” late in the decade that Justin, Vic and I capsized between Frog Island and Changi Beach.  Insofar as capsizes go, it was not spectacular enough to merit being “named” and we quickly righted her.  While scrambling onto the trampoline, however, we realized that the mast, sails and rigging were still lying in the water:  “tall grass” had been dismasted.  It was our first such experience so a short discussion ensued to formulate our action plan.  Two of us would try to retrieve the sails and secure them on the trampoline to reduce drag while the third person would be on the lookout for help as well as warn the others if we drifted into the path of a large ship. Luckily, our predicament had been spotted by some people in an inflatable dinghy who promptly interrupted their water sports to motor over and offer assistance.   They good humouredly towed us towards the Club and handed our tow rope to the rescue boat that the Club sent out.  We returned to the safety of Singapore’s Best Kept Secret under tow and spent the rest of the afternoon disassembling the rigging while making enquires about replacement parts.  I also began preparing an insurance claim.

It was an unexpected end to the decade.  Not only was “tall grass” a vixen, she was surprisingly delicate!

I hope you all watched ‘Shout Box’ on terror-vision last week? It was debating the sense of history that older dwellers seem to think the younger generation has no time nor interest in! It’s an age-old debate that is handed from generation to generation so that they can be the torch bearers for the next seasons debate! Well, CSC must have preempted the whole situation! Kelvin digs through our archives and finds out that we had an annual Round Ubin Race that was traditionally run at the peak of the Monsoon. So at this point we’d have to say that there was a period in our history when tradition was overlooked! But it is an easy fix!

Dust of the archives, find a trophy and ask some old codger if he could remember what it was like!

On the 6th February 2011, a re-enactment of the Round Ubin commenced. Just as it had in the past, starts from the traditional line in front of CSC, heads east, beats up between Ubin and Tekong to round the Safewater Mark then turns west to head for Punggol before returning to the Club. It’s a journey of 15nm through some of the most ankle slapping-ly treacherous water around! NOT! The fleet was a great mix of big boats and beach cats although not sharing the same start. Conditions were ideal with the NE Monsoon blowing.

The 2011 Round Ubin Race is one of the races of the new eight part series of a new drama called, the Sunday Series just so that no one can forget on which day it is run! But this Sunday Series is sweeter than all the rest and comprises a mix of short course work and the odd ‘long’ course variety.

The challenge of the Round Ubin is to squeeze through ‘the narrows’ that separate Johore from Singapore. At its narrowest point it seems barely wider than 1 km. With the NE wind filtering through the leafy mangrove on Johore’s shoreline it creates rather “all or nothing” sailing conditions. Nothing on that front has changed for eons.

A quick look at the fleet though does reveal some changes. A hot boat in the 2011 event sported foils whereas 20 plus years ago, it was ‘technology’ just to have a daggerboard! Well almost!

The fetch out of the Club is always nice with the NE in force. Sails slightly eased, boat speeds are up then you crank on hard after round Changi Buoy and head for Safewater Mark where the tides are most ferocious. From there its ease the sheets again and head towards the Malaysian coast before popping the kite and running the narrows. Behind Ubin ‘fortunes’ are won and lost. Clive and Amy surged into the lead after a great work up to Safewater. In the narrows they were gunned down by some team who slipped over the windward side of a ship.

Meanwhile further back, Nico and Justin had suffered a bad work to Safewater Mark and so decided to pop the kite early and ‘twin-string it” (two on trapeze) with the spinnaker pulling the Viper along in a fit! And so Nico and Justin went from back to front in one hit!

The development that has taken place in platforms over the last 20 years has been rather astonishing. The modern hi-performance cat creates in effect, its own wind! Techniques onboard for controlling this require the boats heading to be altered to adjust for the varying wind angles that are a by-product of  “apparent wind”. The faster you travel, the further forward the wind swings… High-performance platforms can virtually double the windspeed. Got it?

On the leg through the narrows this becomes a whole lot of fun as the gusty winds dictate some deft tiller work. One minute your ambling along looking at a stretch of a few kilometres. NExt thing, as a big puff  hits, the hull flys clear of the water and the apparent wind swing now has you aiming straight at the foreshores of Ubin which has been suitably clad in a big fence.

We last saw Nico and Justin running headlong at the fence but as they were competitors, no one worried too much about their safety! Besides the fence would stop them before they damaged the beach!!!

Meanwhile, the Kung Fu Pands were out for a maiden sail on the foil borne machine and encountered the same gusts that had driven the Viper towards the fence. Except this time the crew was catapulted forward, completed a complete arc round the Nacra that was now perched with both rudders completely clear of the water! Campbell lands on his feet on the leeward gunwhale, unhooks the trapeze, flings it back to the other side of the boat then strolls up the trampoline to catch the wayward trapeze, hooks on again and tells the skipper “let’s go!”! Not bad, all in a days work.

Compared to the action in the narrows, the rest of the race was just to straight forward!

But in the end, Michael Chia now holds the Round Ubin Record of 1 hour 23 minutes. So Michaels title reads “the oldest and fastest guy around Ubin” – hey Kelvin, that’s two trophies!!!

Freak weather in London!

Opps...

I just figured out what I left behind!!!

I think they’re supposed to be inside the aircraft too, are they not!?

Hope they’ll make it back to Changi International ok!.. au revoir

Departe'...

Well the Eurocat 2011 has come and gone. Sadly we have to say farewell to the village of Carnac… with a warning, we’ll be back next year!

Congratulations to Mischa Heemkerk for cleaning up the F18 Class. A superb job considering that was his second regatta onboard the Cirrus R machine – I am very impressed with the boat, it even looks wicked! Of course as Mischa said “it is still a sailing boat and you still have to sail in the right direction”… True. That he could fend off the likes of Darren Bundock and the others is full credit to Mischa, his crew and the team from Cirrus. Awesome, and great to watch!

The weather on the last day of racing was incredible. Winter in the morning, summer by mid afternoon and the doldrums in the evening! If you had seen the mroning you would never have believed it was the same day in the afternoon!

For us, it’s another early morning to say bye bye to Rosemary from the Hotel des Rochers our home away from home! Fantastic! So now its Lorient – Paris – London – Singapore… I can’t wait to have jet lag! As we jet across the charming French countryside we can dream whimsically of what we’ll do here next year F18 or F16?

I also wonder what I’ve left behind?.. Do you know that feeling? We had to pack up early as the taxi was waiting for us at 8am and not 8:30 as arranged… So what did I leave behind?? hmmm can’t imagine what but it will dawn on me later! Oh well…

This was another amazing ‘discovery’ in Carnac… the monoliths and menhirs. The Alignments date back some 6000 years and stretch for kilometres around Carnac. Come during non-peak periods and you’ll be able to wander amongst the structures. The biggest monolith is some 6 metres tall. For those of you into ancient civilisations, Carnac’s Prehistoric Museum has one of the best collections in Europe and was awarded the Best Prehistoric Museum in Europe a few years back.

Just another good reason to come to Carnac…

Hotel des Rochers

There’s nothing like a good stiff drink to help you get over a little disappointment!

Racing is unpredictable I guess that is why we enjoy it so much. Every cloud has its silver lining and inour case it has been the Hotel des Rochers or more correctly, Rosemary. What a wonderful lady. every day Rosemary would come and ask us how the Singapore Team got on. Today we had to disappoint Rosemary with our tale of swimming through the mainsail.

For Rosemary’s great hospitality, I exchanged a Singapore Sailing shirt and to my great surprise Rosemary came back with a bag full of goodies for Jen U, Peter and Ling Ying of Singapore Sailing! That was a wonderful surprise and we really want to stay here at the Hotel des Rochers next year – hint hint.

It has been a fabulous trip and a learning experience for all. Apart from today’s misadventure, we’ve all gained. I know I’m coming back next year… How about it CSC Cat Fleet?

Where did the nice weather go?

Overnight the weather had a big change. A nice thunderstorm brewed offshore and then passed over land at about 10pm last night. A splendid lightning show and heavy rain certainly changed the weather around. This morning, it was blowing about 12 – 15 knots, damp, cold and grey, but hey thi sis Brittany and it makes for a refreshing challenge.

Toda there were four races scheduled but unfortunately we didn’t get to run any of them!
After another nice start in some lumpy seas the Singapore duo were placed amongst the top ten when  a sudden gust jumped into the sails. There was some difficulty in getting the main uncleated and so the boat rolled over. That wasn’t the problem though! The real problem came when the air born bodies ended going through the sails! Sailing an unknown boat means we brought no such spares along and so it was an early and unfortunate retirement from racing. We came ashore but there were no spares either. Disappointing for sure but that’s racing we have to learn to deal with what ever comes along.

Apart from the chilly overcast weather, the wind was great!

I guess that’s it for EuroCat 2011 but lets view it in a positive way.
1. We came, we saw but we have not conquered – yet!
2. It has been an eye opening experience.
3. It is simply a fabulous place for a regatta.
4. To see most of the worlds best cat sailors in one location is amazing.
5. After this, we will organise a bigger Singapore contingent so start preparing now!

Day off in the sunshine...

It’s marathon day so the competitors involved in the 50 mile race will be on the water for a good few hours. Well some more than others as the Extreme 20′s should romp home in no time at all! For us, it is a day off as the Marathon doesn’t add to points for our division. Thankfully the clammy weather of yesterday gave way to a another gorgeous day in Carnac. Just perfect for being a tourist!

It was an interesting walk around the boat park this morning to check out the latest in developments in the F18 Fleet. It must be said, thing shave really moved onto a higher level in the past year. Platforms designed just 3 years ago look decidedly ‘old fashioned’ now. Two of the latest designs include the Phantom Project and the Cirrus R.

The Phantom Project is the LOOKER as the developers have paid a lot of attention to detail! Beautifully presented boat. The Cirrus R is striking in its form. The looks maybe not everyone’s cup of tea but I think its modern, aggressive and FAST! Especially with Micsha at the helm.

All of the new platforms exhibit the now-familiar flat bottomed shape. The Cirrus R has this same profile but differs in the rocker line with a much more forward rocker position which seems to lift the bows much more than the others. With more than 100 F18′s whizzing around with the cream of the worlds pilots, what will emerge is the best overall package.

What was particularly encouraging this morning is that Jen U and Peter are taking a greater interest in the F18 scene and have selected the Phantom as ‘the boat’. Both have said they’d like to come back and try Eurocat 2012 on a bigger platform – “me thinks this is a very good idea!”

I can imagine that next year we will have a much bigger Singapore contingent comprising privateers and National Sailors. This event has been really worthwhile, just to see what is happening in the rest of the world.

I can tell you…

From speaking to the heads of the sailing associations and bodies that are represented here, the whole world is clamoring to get onto cat programs! Seemingly, every sailing association in the world has undergone the familiar theme of monohulls ‘only’. Now that the world has shifted to multis in the Americas Cup, well there has been a massive vacum created that needs to be filled. I’m very thankful that Dr. Ben Tan and Wearn Haw were able to spot this trend early on and are trying their best to fill the gap in Singapore.

Given Singapore’s efficiency I’m sure we are going to see some great cat sailors emerge in the near future. Right now I’m really happy with the way Jen U and Peter apply themselves and cope with ‘fresh’ surroundings and a new platform. We’re not looking to break any world records, just get through and into the top third. So far, so good…

Now to go and be a tourist…

Honey I Shrunk the Cat...

Why are there so many great French multihull sailors?

Because not all of them learn in an Optimist!

This was truly great to see. Real kids in REAL catamarans, okay they are a lot smaller! Two to a cat and out they go! Carnac Yacht Club has an extensive sail training program and how many training cats I do not know. What I am sure of is that in the future we will see a lot of catamaran champions from this club. The kids coach was fantastic with them too working quietly and diligently all the while. Someone should tell him that he could be responsible for smashing the round-the-world record in the future.

I’m so inspired by watching all this activity… Awesomeness!