Monday, May 28, 2007
I feel troubled. I feel lost. I feel like I'm missing something but I don't know what it is. I feel like running away but I don't know what I'm running from. This path of uncertainty is messing up my mind. No, I must get my thoughts straight. Perhaps its time for me to do another soul searching.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
The long anticipated day for the field trip to Ma Daerah Turtle Sanctuary located in Kemaman, Terrenganu, finally came on the May 11th ‘ 07. With a group size of 30, we departed on a 5 hour long journey to the beach at late noon. Half the group appeared tired, each seemed to be settling down to sleep, even though its been barely an hour since the bus departed from the campus. While half the group people was in each of their own dreams, the rest of the group were actively chatting away and playing pranks on each other. For me, the trip wasn’t a good start since I was down with slight fever, a sore throat and some cold. Have been trying to get well ASAP by taking in an assorted overdose of pills. *Don’t try this kids!*
 On The Beach |  For Sunrise |  Dawn . |  Sunrise . |  Turtle Landing |  Sand Bath |
The day was already quite late when we arrived, thanks to the bad traffic conditions and being lost for a moment. We were so tired and hungry by the time we arrived, we immediately devoured on the already long prepared food without properly checking into our rooms first. After the late dinner, a briefing on the activities was supposed to be carried out but was cancelled due to an exciting news of a turtle landing. We immediately hurried off the lodge in an attempt to catch the egg laying process of the turtle. We took a long walk along the beach in the darkness to the nesting site. The use of torches was discouraged since it may scare the turtle and cause it to abort its attempt to lay eggs. As of that, we only relied on our night vision capability to navigate in the darkness. Along the beach were little specks of glowing blue light, coming off from bioluminescence organisms. By the time we reached the nest, the turtle was already done with laying the eggs, getting ready to leave the beach. Since flash photography is also discouraged, a few of us attempted to take photos of the turtle with long exposure, only to produce disappointing results. After the turtle had left for sea, we returned to the nesting site to count and collect the eggs to be brought back to the nursery. One of us (Ding Ding) had the golden opportunity of doing so. We got back to the nursery to learn the process of placing the eggs in designated sites within the nursery in an attempt to hatch those fresh turtle eggs. It was already quite late at night by then, so we each retuned to our rooms to have a good nights rest.
 Geronimo! . |  Incoming! . |  Stealing Pants |  Trail . |  View . |  My Pants! |
The accommodation provided in the lodge was very basic, equipped with only lights fan and twin beds. Most people within the group were lucky to have everything functioning in their rooms. Only us guys were lucky enough to choose a room with a non functioning fan. Since the temperature in the room was so hot, we took the adventurous idea of sleeping on the beach instead. We were joined by 2 adventurous girls for the night, Beatrice and Chien Wen. Off we went to the beach to set up our little camp under the star filled open sky. Darren brought a stove so we had a little cooking going on before settling down. Sleeping on the beach was quite a nice experience if it wasn’t for those irritating sandflies biting on our feet. Had to steal back my sleeping bag from Chis who was using it as his pillow throughout the night. The sleeping bag immediately solved my troubles with the sandflies. Other than that, there wasn’t much trouble besides the gals claiming that the morning was cold even I thought the temperature was just nice.
 Hermit Crab |  A UFO! |  Prankster Attacks! |  Yvonne Kim & I |  & 'Starfish Patrick' |  On The Rock |
We woke up early the next day in an attempt to catch the sunrise. It was a little disappointing since there was cloud cover on the horizon, so it wasn’t much of a sunrise. For the more active group f us (Beatrice, Chris, Darren, Kate, Kim, Yvonne & I) , we spent the rest of the morning hanging around the beach, swimming and playing silly acts and pranks. I wasn’t too sure on what the rest of the other groups did for the whole morning. Returned to the lodge for lunch and rest before heading out to the beach once more for another dip with another group. Entertained ourselves by playing a game of monkey using the pants of one of the guys. We spent quite sometime in the water before returning to the lodge for rest and dinner before we attended the long delayed briefing.
 Human Tower |  SPLASH!! . |  A Big Wave |  At Work |  Lodge . |  Exhibition Hall |
After the briefing, we were divided into 2 groups to conduct a beach patrol for turtle landings. While the 1st group was away, we spent our time trying to sing whatever songs we could come up with and attending a little bday party for one of us (Li hua). It took quite a while for the 1st group to return and all they gave us was the disappointing news of them spotting a turtle and accidentally scaring it away from landing. Nevertheless, the 2nd group left for patrol hoping that the scared turtle would return again for another egg laying attempt. We spent quite a while walking along the coastline in the darkness without results. Most of the people in the 2nd group were already tired by then and I guess were quite eager to get back to the lodge. While on the way back, us few who stayed out the previous night were planning to stay out another time for the night. We were a little disappointed when we got back to find that most people from the 1st group had already colonized the beach site. Having felling a little disappointed, we were wondering if we should continue with our plan when we decided to give it a go. It wasn’t too long after we started to settle down on our site b4 people from the 1st group started to return to the lodge due to attack of the sandflies. Only a few tough ones remained. Once again we had a little cooking session before settling in for sleep. While I was settling down, I overheard from the radio of one of the rangers of what sounded to be a possible turtle landing. However no notice was given for the group to catch the landing process. I waited a while for news but accidentally fell asleep.
 Beach Site |  Main Entrance |  New People |  Pass Time |  Photo Shooting |  Being Silly |
2am. “Anyone want to watch turtle landing?” Immediatly jumped up from my sleep when I heard that and bugged Beatrice to wake the rest of the group. Word was given out the wake the others and we have to hurry as the turtle was already in the final stages of its egg laying process and the nesting site was really close to where we were sleeping. What really surprised me was that only 4 of us managed to wake up. The rest were either too tired or amazingly lazy to wake up. Since we afford to cant wait any longer, the 4 of us together with the guide rushed off to catch the egg laying process. The walk to the nesting site was only less than 5 mins from where we slept! Those who didn’t tag along sure did missed a lot! We were lucky enough to catch the turtle in the midst of its egg laying. We were even overjoyed when the guide allowed us to take flash photography since the group was really small! Off went the flashes like machine gun fire. Each of us was feeling happy having taken photos with the turtle. Once again, Ding was given the golden task of collecting the eggs. After the job was done, the guide left us in the dark with the turtle. We stayed with the turtle for a while until we felt raindrops and had to rush back. When we got back to the beach site, the rest of the people who were sleeping on the beach had already disappeared. All thats left were our things and we hurriedly gathered them and headed back to the lodge b4 it started pouting. It turned out to be a short drizzle and we were too lazy to set up the camp again so we decided to head back to the lodge instead. We got back with some trouble getting a place to rest so we just slept on the porch.
 Briefing . |  Session . |  Are The Turtles?! |  Laying Eggs |  From The Oven! |  Green Turtle |
The morning air was filled with disappointment when the rest of the group learnt that they missed a spectacular event. Well, whats gone is gone and theres nothing that can be done. We spent the morning pacing up and having one last beach walk before leaving the sanctuary for home. I was sure glad that I went along for the trip since it took me weeks of indecisive ness if I should go for it as I had to pay as much as RM250 for it! Turns out, that I still haven’t paid anything and my boss Dr Cathy, never asked for it. Lets hope she forgets! =P
 Lucky Few |  Hornbill Flying |  Moments . |  By The Beach |  Group Photo |  Ma Daerah! |