OOPSII AND OUR TRIP TO THE FISH FARM (15 AUG 2009)

Since Daddy got his new toy, Oopsii, he'd been obsessed with taking Oopsii out. He goes fishing a lot, and as a result, our chest freezer is now constantly filled to the brim with his prized catches - Stingrays, Snappers, Golden Travelly, etc. One night, Daddy even fished 3 human beings from the sea! Don't worry... they're NOT in our chest freezer.

On that fateful night, Oopsii was chartered by a group of men who wanted to go night fishing. Daddy was their skipper. The night started beautifully, but about 2 hours into the charter, they spotted a storm coming towards them fast. Oopsii raced to seek shelter at a yacht club. After the storm passed, Daddy steered the group back to Punggol Marina and everyone went home, except Daddy who stayed back to clean Oopsii. During that time, Daddy picked up an SOS message on the radar. It was in the dead of the night, and no one else was at the Marina. Courageously, Daddy went off alone to search for the people who'd sent out the SOS message.

Daddy found 2 men clinging precariously to a capsized boat, and a third man who was unconscious drifting away. Daddy pulled the 3 men up onto Oopsii and drove at top speed back to the Marina. Enroute, he was stopped by the coastguard, who didn't even pick up the SOS message (!) and questioned Daddy for going so fast. When Daddy explained the situation to the coastguard and they saw the comatose man on the boat, they escorted Oopsii back to the Marina. An ambulance whisked the 3 men away.

The next day, a newspaper reporter picked up the lead and wanted to interview Daddy, but Daddy declined.

On 15 August 2009, Daddy suggested taking the family out on Oopsii to visit his friend's fish farm. The farm was out at sea, near Punggol Marina. The fish farm isn't open to the public, so we were lucky to be able to visit it. Gwen's family joined us that afternoon.


When we got to the fish farm, the caretaker handed us a big bucket of small fish for us to feed the fishes and showed us around. The farm reared many different types of fishes in pools of seawater segregated by nets. It was similar to the kelong we visited in Kukup, except this farm was bigger, cleaner and much more professional. They even had 2 monster grouper in one of the pools, but we didn't get to see them during our visit.

At first glance, the deep pools of seawater didn't appear to contain any fishes, but the moment we tossed a small fish into the pool, the reared fishes would appear at lightning speed to eat up the small fish. The caretaker showed us where they reared Tilapia, and that was the most fascinating of all the pools. There were thousands of Tilapia. When we tossed the small fish into the Tilapia's pool, the Tilapia jumped, thrashed about and fought so hard for the small fish that the pool looked like it was boiling. It was fascinating.

By the end of our visit, our hands were all bloody from handling the dead, small fish and I had fish bits on my face and in my hair. Yucks! I really really stank.

On the way back, rain came splashing down. As Oopsii zipped through the water, the raindrops felt like bullets when they struck our faces. Ouch!!!

We were dirty, smelly, and in pain, but the trip was well worth it. :)