See?! Hoarder. I’m pretty sure she was a magpie in a past life. LOL.

Life on an island makes you do strange things.

6-foot tall Sarah was always hungry. At one point during work, I was covered in sawdust – and she lurched over and told me that I looked like a biscuit. I was very scared.

Michelle had a close encounter with one of the island’s most notorious creatures; heard strange munching noises outside her tent one night, poked her head out – and found herself looking at a very surprised cow. Hee.

Boys gone wild!

Will gets jiggy with a pole.

Daniele wants to be a monkey.

David A…just wants to be…pretty.

I was the camp klutz, getting whacked on the head by a piece of driftwood and tripping over myself on several occasions at work. Aida was probably on Orange Alert whenever I stepped onto site. Being so accident-prone annoyed me immensely cos I’m usually awesome and stuff.

Apart from me and the one-time that Zee whacked his thumb with a hammer whilst fixing the roof, there were no occurrences of mishaps on-site as we adhered to the general safety guidelines that the camp facilitators had established before work commenced.

Plus, we were well protected.

Yellow hardhats – courtesy of Arkitrek!<

But after more than a week of doing hard labour, it was clear that the Arkitrekkers needed to have a proper break from work – to chill out and revel in the fact that we were on a beautiful island in the South China Sea.

Daniele and Sarah made us all take a half-day break. The boys grabbed their flippers and went swimming out to nearby Linggisan island while I rented a kayak and roped in gapper Jack to go kayaking with me. The plan was to meet the boys on the island.

However, neither Jack nor I had ever kayaked before around Mantanani – and as you might expect, the two of us found ourselves stuck in the middle of a maze of coral reefs as we tried to paddle to Linggisan island! Crap!

Also, we also discovered that our kayak was taking in water. The imbalance in the kayak’s hull threatening to throw both of us – and all our stuff – into the water. By some miracle, we managed to pry ourselves out of the treacherous labyrinth of dead corals and make our way to Linggisan island.

Bare footprints in the sand told us that the boys had gone exploring the island. Gingerly, Jack and I traced their steps across a series of sharp rocks – where hoards of small, cockroach-like shrimp creatures scattered away each time we walked past. Creepy buggers.

We finally found the boys – and Pui Cheng – outside the entrance of the big cave at Linggisan Island. It was the most beautiful cave I have ever seen- an almost perfectly symmetrical grotto carved out from coral rock that made up most of Linggisan’s geological features. Above the cave – suspended in mid-air – were shady trees that gripped precariously to the bits of jagged rocks. The cave on Linggisan island was home to an endangered species of frigate birds and a colony of bats. The island was breathtaking. Spooky, but magical.

[The birds in the cave are German’s Nest Swiftlets. The Frigate Birds roost in the trees on top of the island. Ed]

The sun was going down. Jack and I decided to head back to the beach on our kayak; we would meet the others at the rendezvous point on Mantanani at the abandoned resort facing Linggisan island. In order to stabilize the water-addled kayak, I jumped into the sea and clung onto the rear end of the craft while Jack valiantly paddled us to shore. We only learned later that we didn’t plug the kayak properly, hence the reason why we were sinking the entire time. Noobs.

Judging from the insanely low tide occurring in the day, I had a feeling that there would be a full moon on Mantanani that night. And lo behold, as we reached the shoreline, a huge, yellowish full moon was peeking out from behind the island’s silhouette of trees.

Sarah and the girls had prepared a nice campfire on the beach. Zee was lying in the sand, admiring his abs. Pui Cheng took a while to let go of her driftwood-hoarding obsession; we caught her piling up sausages in a plate and leaving them by the fire, uneaten. Daniele and I played the ukelele and sang a hundred songs with the chords of C Am F G. Our usually soft-spoken Michelle was a laugh riot – and shall forever be remembered for describing our dinner as “tast(ing) like potato salad from home, but defferent”. The two Davids (A & B) were spiking Coca-cola with Gay Rum and passing them around while Aida and Tina took our now-buoyant kayak out for a spin.  Of course, it started to rain and everyone ran back to camp, leaving Aida and Tina floating on the sea. LOL.

Of course, we all made it home safely.

It was a wonderful evening, full of adventures, good company – and of course, potato salad (but different, from home).

I’ll post up the last part of the Arkitrek Camp – Mantanani 2011 tomorrow.

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