The Island

A tale before sailing....

The year 1999, almost the turn of the millenium and we were still cloistered in the doldrums of studying. Boredom, hopelessness, and the specter of our minds was of aimless goals and pointless thoughts ; Life at that time seemed bombarded with utter chaos, but as we look back memories, those were the best days of our lifes.

Mid afternoon, lunch through our meager budjet was the usual visit to Habie's. Mere pittance it was , but miraculous, through some divine soul searching underneath the rubber mats of the car, we always managed to cough up enough for a pack of Dunhill 10s. My wheels, Nissan 130Y, classic to this date, it may not be the most sleek of cars to look at, but one can be resassured it was the most economical, both in terms of consumption and maintainance. Possum was with me, and we needed the ciggies, Pulau Melaka was still not under the threat from lovers, drug addicts, tourist and police. 2 years after the great slump, development over the island was at a snail's pace. Developers and Contrators had gone bust, and in typical Malaysian style, "we" had no contingencies to aid our ailing pockets.

So here we were two monkeys galavanting the streets in a trusty Nissan 130Y without a care in the world. Possum had his STPM, and I had tutorials to do. But no!! we were more adamant to find ourselves a snooker centre and just before that a good hideout to puff away. There were no guards as usual to reprimand our illegal entry into the island, even if there was one, we would have just acknowledge them by waving, thus making them to beleive we were some how involved in the development of the island.

Similiar to a desert, we would make Nissan scream for help through our driving skills. Thinking that we were Karamjit's apprentice, we had no fear whatsoever but to take the sandy banks at full speed, even if we had misjudged our corners, collosion would have been subsued through the cushioning of the sand , unless of course if we had landed in the sea, which would have been a different story all together.

Our plot in the Island was a slightly augmented piece of land which overlooked the Straits. The shores seemed soo much cleaner than that of the mainland, murky but not too muddy (relative to the settlement), the waters during certain periods of the day was infested with jellyfish. This time we were contented just to stay in the car, it was Hitz radio, our anthem station, windows down, took out our precious Dunhills, and the first puff after a heavily spiced meal was nothing less than rapture. Our dreamy eyes just gazed the sea, which was quite a strain due to the mid day heat. We just ranted away on our many puzzlements of life, for example... Why were we constantly broke?

What were we thinking, absolutely sweet nothing!!

As our thoughts drifted to adventure, a tiny island with a tiny buoy *Flashing Red every 6 secs* (You can't tell during the day ) Possum looked at me and said "The island looks very near ah...." With that simplest of sentences, it sparked of an adventure we would never forget.

.... if you can fill the unforgiving minute with 60 seconds worth the distance run,
yours is the earth and everything that is in it, which is more you'll be a man my Son...
R.Kiplings