My Journey South: The Next Twelve Days

This is the post that prevented me from blogging for the whole semester. Just don't know where to start and just too many photos to put in! It took me several attempts to get this out. Anyway it has been a busy few months and time to catch up on what happened since July...

Still on the Whitsundays in July...One of those sunsets that we are blessed with at the end of each day's long paddle.

One of those rare opportunity to have lunch with my lecturer on Hamilton island...a good lunch I must say!

We usually sit by the beach after a day's paddle to prepare our dinner. Sometimes its also not easy to find a nice beach to land to take a break...the guys here are trying very hard to drag their boats up this steep pebble beach.

So the days go on with leaky kayaks which wasn't fun to paddle cos all the gear end up soaked! One or two of them kanna sea sick during one of the bigger rough sea crossings. We also got easier days where we got to the campsite early and the 'dugongs' just wanted to soak up the sun on Whitehaven beach. And there is always the temptation to do the tourist thing and get out for a break.

This is everyone on the trip except Dingers, my lecturer who is taking the shot. The background reminds me The Lord of The Rings's land of Mordor...can see the eye of Sauron.

Hmm...nice couple shot but something still very wrong with this picture...

How not to like kayaking in this sort of environment? I am still considered as studying and getting a grade for enjoying myself!

The catch of the day! The mangrove swamps are very much like home except the water is clear and you can see everything from huge rays and many snappers that swim by...tempting.

Testing out some underwater shots with my birthday present from my siblings...the then new Olympus 1030...the quality not too bad. But more importantly its because of the one who takes the shot.

Yup...and there are always the sharks around either when we are on shore or in our kayaks. Pretty harmless creatures...when far that is.

Some nice shots with my different paddle buddies during different days...they didn't allow me to paddle my single kayak throughout the trip so bo pian...

Thought them how to set up a sail during one of those days when we had tail wind...pretty good be able to do up to four knots an hour without lifting up our paddles. But of cause not everyone felt totally comfortable about not paddling...they ended up puking due the lack of activity and so prone to motion sickness. Guess who???

This got to be the highlight of the whole trip. The morning that I woke up without brushing my teeth nor having breakfast, jumping into a kayak with a flooded bow hatch to chase humpback whales into the open sea!

We were chasing after them for a good hour and these gentle giants will just disappear from the surface for a couple of minutes and then appear 100 meters somewhere else...until this happened. Its such a humbling encounter with a mammal that is the length of two buses surfacing ten meters in front of my tiny kayak.

After a week of paddling, the word got around the yacht owners that there are these bunch of crazy kayakers around the area. With our new found celebrity status, we tend to get special invitation on board their boats for free goodies or just to have some fun swinging off their boats.

Even the fishes wanted a piece of us...

We usually do other activities other than kayaking during our off days...like snorkeling...

...and catch lobsters for dinner...only one lah. The rest got away with fewer and shorter fillers.

Its not all the time that dinners are easy to catch...so just have to admire the rest lor.

They call him George, the five foot Mauri wrasse...I call him humphead parrot fish, our dinner. So tame that people can just touch him.

There tend to be some equipment failure on every long expedition and it happened to be my 'nut' tent this time. I tried fixing and coming up with alternatives to replace my snapped tent pole but I gave up and ended using my trusted tarp for the last couple of days instead.

I always waterproof my hatch very well...to prevent salt water from getting in but...you know lah...cannot trust packaging of other products like milk or ice peach tea. End up my clothes and sleeping stuff got either the smell of milk or ice peach tea! Then jacob's poor drybag that contains my day ration kanna attack by rats not once but twice! They even got to it when I hang it off a tree. Seems like they like bread a lot...the wholemeal kind.

You start to see the true identity of your classmates or their hidden self when you spend too much time together. I always knew Paul wanted to be a swimsuit model.

Voted the best sunset of the trip. Hmm...nice!

Close to the end of the trip, we were given an option to camp on our own and I thought its the best time to get away from all of them! While everyone else broke into smaller groups, I wanted to be all alone on my own island. Just to fulfil my childhood fantasy. It was quite an adventure for me...paddling with the dolphins on the way there...catching my dad's favorite fish for dinner...setting up camp.

This was when I just landed on the CID island...what a name. Got there when it was low tide and had to do a couple of 300 meter trips to bring all my gear to my campsite. I wish I had more time to explore the island and snorkel around on my own but the rest paddled over to my island the next day.

I did say I was alone on the island...so I just did whatever I want.

This was what we did when the kayaks were not ours...and when we were close to the end of the trip.

Our last group picture before our launch off from our final campsite.

We were back where we started after 15 days 21 hours 37 minutes and 28 seconds.

We finally had the dinner that we often talked about during meals on the trip...

A personal reward for myself after the expedition...actually I had it three times within a day! Say bye bye to the wash board abs that developed as a result of the expedition.