Hello, I blog!

So, I’m finally back – albeit a much darker version of my former self.

We’ve had bright sunshine, sand and sea, as well as loads of strong winds and sea breezes over the past three days at Pulau Sibu. The water was mostly turquoise-green, whereas it was completely clear and blue at one of the smaller islands (Pulau Kukus) that we were brought to.

I’m going to launch into a long grandmother’s story about the trip itself – so feel free to filter out whichever parts you’re more interested in reading. Alternatively, you can let the photos do the talking.

10 simple facts about the Pulau Sibu Trip
1) Five people were stung by jellyfish during snorkeling. (No, I wasn’t one of them – wasn’t snorkeling either because I can’t swim to save my life.)

At the beach near Sea Gypsy Resort.

2) We went to a total of four beaches – scattered around various parts of the island. Three with reasonably clear water, and one with clear blue water which I couldn’t bear to leave. Oh, and one of them beaches wasn’t the usual sandy ones we have – instead, there was smooth marble and limestones in various shapes and forms making up the shoreline.)

3) While all my friends have received plentiful of sandfly bites, I’ve received less than five – all thanks to the extremely effective insecticide brought by a friend. (Although it boggles the mind why THAT friend was the worst hit among all of us when it came to insect bites.)

4) We’ve eaten enough crabs, prawns, sotongs (cuttlefish) and fish to last us a lifetime.

5) All of us agreed unanimously that we hated the toilets at the resort.

There were four toilets/bathrooms that had to be shared among all the rooms on the ground floor – and they were often sandy, smelly, dark, brimming with dirty footprints and mosquitoes.

Plus, there was always some joker who would blatantly refuse to flush the damn toilet. Grr.

6) Four of us are horrendously sunburnt now – and I happen to be one of them. (Around the shoulders and the back of my neck – ooooh, ouch.)

7) I’ve been on enough boat rides to last me a lifetime either – with me tying on my lifejacket as tightly as I can, and clinging on to the side (or any available handlebars) on the boat with my dear life because … I can’t swim, remember?

8) Watching the tides going up and down proved to be an extremely interesting experience.

When we first reached the resort – it was high tide to the point that the disembarking area of the jetty was flooded, so everyone had to walk in the water.

However, at 6 in the morning, the sea had gone all the way out that even the jetty was moored in the middle of nowhere with nothing but sand all around it.

And take note – the jetty was a considerable distance away from the shoreline! (About 200m.)

9) I held a live fish for the first time during fishing – it was wet and slimy, and the scales were falling off all over my hands. Was pretty much amused at how the fish was still its usual silvery grey colour when it was first caught while it loses all its colouring (through the shedding of its scales, perhaps?) once it dies to an extent that it becomes transparent, revealing all its insides.

Our resort’s sign at the jetty.

10) The resort we stayed at was Sibu Coconut Village Resort.

A pretty run-down place with dark and musty rooms, and inconsistent bedsheet colours. Basically, don’t expect any form of cleanliness when you reside here. Also, the power generators went down three times.

Unfortunately, this was already one of the better resorts they have on the island and we didn’t spend that much time within the resort premises anyway.

Fishing
Our virgin fishing attempts yielded a couple of small fish, so at least we have something to boast about. However, in the process of doing so, we’ve encountered quite a few mishaps.

One of us knew she had caught something since her rod suddenly felt heavy. As she reeled in her line, we saw something large and grey floating towards the surface and all of us immediately came to the conclusion that she must have caught a stingray, and imagine the excitement on the jetty at that time.

When the ‘thing’ finally came to surface, it wasn’t a stingray but … a murky plastic bag.

Le sigh, so much for stingray barbecue.

Anyhoo, apart from that plastic bag, we caught several inanimate objects such as a really large branch – which was actually part of the jetty’s structure and I have no idea how Regina managed to get her line caught in it. And it took nearly half an hour to get the line loose.

Oh, and we caught a boat as well. (And we had to cut the line to set ourselves free.)

The next day, we trooped back to the jetty for fishing all over again, promising ourselves that we’d catch more fish this time and not get ourselves into any tangles. Five minutes after that promise was made, we literally caught the entire jetty with our rod. (The hook was tangled in one of its supporting structures.)

My Favourite Beach
Definitely, the beach at Pulau Kukus will win hands down.

Part of the sand bank becomes completely submerged in water when the tide comes in, resulting in shallow water all around. Plus, the water there is bright blue and crystal clear, and I am a huge sucker for such waters since the beaches we have in Singapore are often brown, murky and laced with off-shore oil spills. (Ack.)

No longer Pulau Kukus. This is MY beach. (Hehehehe.)

The shoreline was lined with seashells and dead corals of all sorts too, so I managed to bring home a souvenir – a bag of seashells in all shapes and sizes.

The only downfall was that the deeper waters surrounding the beach were infested with jellyfish. But my friend’s uncle did mention that this period if jellyfish season so … oh, well. Keep to the shallow water and you should be fine.

Quite a few of my friends joined the group for snorkeling and the corals (and fishes) they spotted there were amazing. (Although not the bright, colourful corals you see in Australia’s Gold Coast – the corals here were mostly white or brown, but still beautiful nonetheless.)

I’d love to go back again – not Pulau Sibu, but that beach at Pulau Kukus.

Yes, us. (:

Ending the entry off with a group photo. Would really miss those two nights of endless chatter, Reg’s antics (I’ve a good mind to post some videos of her up here but she might kill me so, I’d better stick to the safe side. Hehe.), good food (and seafood), rounds of Taboo! (the card game) with Stef’s little brother (who had mighty trouble guessing the words).

Toodles!