Today, I’ll share about our first Kelong trip! We decided at the very last minute to organise a Kelong trip for family! The group consists of me, my dad and mum, Raymond, his dad and mum, Susu, Susu’s die hard buddy In**, In**’s sister and mum, and lastly, Terence the awesome Delifrance ambassador! A group of 11 person in total! And because it was our first time, we didn’t want to ask friends along in case the experience turns out to be unpleasant, then end up having a bad time with them. We wanted to experience first hand, so that we can share the information with our friends and go together for the next trip!! 😀
Because my dad loves fishing and has his bunch of fishing kakis, they often visit places like Labrador Park, the kelong in Sibu, and also Sisters Island. Like all fishing enthusiasts, he has his collection of jigs and reels and rods and hook and what nots, and one of his favourite food is fish. If you’re looking for a fishing kaki, feel free to approach my dad cos Saturdays and Public Holidays are his self declared fishing day! 🙂
As for Raymond and myself, we got addicted to fishing when we went to Brisbane and tried their normal river fishing. That was when I caught my first fish and in my excitement, I broke the line and let the fish swam away laughing at me cos I’m a stupid idiot for reeling back the lines too quickly. Next, we tried deep sea fishing where the waters were really deep and choppy!! I experienced my first motion sickness mid way out at sea, but luckily I did not puke. Just very, very dizzy. I guess that’s when Raymond got addicted to fishing when he caught his first giant fish too! 🙂

The official first fish I caught after the one which managed to escape. Too small, gotta release back. Protect the environment!

Raymond’s try at the Yabbies pumping?

Raymond’s Brother-in-Law’s fight with the enormous stingray!

Raymond’s first catch @ deep sea fishing!

Raymond’s dad first catch @ deep sea fishing!

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Susu’s dad is a pro when it comes to fishing, and sometimes Susu will tag along to disturb her dad. He has all the equipment for catching any kind of fishies, so for the trip, Susu brought along some of her dad’s equipment to use. The most interesting one I call it the flashing bulb. It’s actually a jig to catch squids, but it blings and flashes non stop (er… to attract the squid??).
The 3 mums have never tried their hands at fishing before, and they wanted to tag along and experience the Kelong “life”. As for the rest of the “kids”, well, they just wana have fun! 😀

L-R in clockwise: My dad in grey with waist pouch,  my mum, In**’s sister, In**, raymond’s mum, Raymond, Terence, Susu, In**’s mum.

Susu’s expression looks like the black and white freaky monster in the Scream movie. I like the expression on Raymond’s mummy’s (first lady from the right with finger pointing) face. Must be nagging at him to stop eating so much meat or stop drinking cold water in the morning or something else! :p

Here’s the group of 11-1 people having breakfast after clearing the immigration and customs. We actually booked a small bus (maximum seating capacity of 12) to bring us all the way to the ferry terminal. Everyone had to gather at the bus stop infront of Ten Mile Junction in the super duper early morning at about 4am or 5am (I can’t remember the exact time) to board the bus. The driver who was a malay lady drove like F1 racer!! The ride was bumpy with some mean and steep corners, but she drove the bus like she was driving on a normal straight road. Power!! Susu and I were joking about having to shift our body weight at the corners in case the bus overturns, which really felt like it was going to happen any minute!

Raymond gone mad.

Right after breakfast, we went across the street and bought some snacks + drinks and continued with our journey to the ferry terminal.

Finally reached the terminal, paid the “toll” for the ferry and board the little “boat” to our Kelong!

All pictures taken with my dummy camera, which is officially kidnapped by my mum.

I wonder what are they thinking……………..

Finally arrived!!!!!! A few of us are good swimmers, some of us can’t swim. We had to thread on this narrow path of the boat to the front, climb up the bamboo stilts and then climb further up the steep steps to the kelong! The boat was a little rocky especially with so many people standing on the same side. End up In**’s sister fell into the sea!!!!!!! She cannot swim, but luckily for her, she was calm and agile enough to grab hold of the sides of the boat, and the Kelong Man pulled her up quickly!! PHEW!! Thank goodness nothing bad happened to her!

Checking out our bunk. It’s an open bunk concept, 2 person to share one bed. The beds are clean and not as bad as I pictured it to be cos my dad asked us to bring unwanted pillow case to cover cos some of the people fish overnight without bathing, and they “bed hop” from bed to bed.

That’s my mum!

While the mothers are slowly taking their own sweet time to unload their stuffs, choosing their beds and snapping pictures, we rushed out to check the water and find our spots to fish!!

This kelong (Ah Yew kelong/Ah You kelong) is actually located the most far out in the Sibu sea, unlike the others like Ah Fatt Kelong, Hot Boys kelong etc, and they have recently expanded the area. I should have snapped a good picture of the entire place including the toilet for everyone to see, but sorry, too excited to fish! Hehehehehehe!

Luckily my mum went around snapping, but she didn’t snap the toilet. The toilet is interesting cos it has a hole and all your pees and poos actually goes right into the sea! Sometimes you can see pieces of poo floating past right infront of your eyes when you’re fishing. Pretty amusing to us, but to the regulars, I guess they’re already used to it.

Look at the fishes in the water!!

Because I always see my dad wearing long sleeves whenever he goes fishing, I decided to wear a long seeve top too! That’s my first catch of the day using the equipment my dad brought for me!! 3 little fishes all up, using the special “feather” hook, without any bait.

This is what we focus on catching in the night…

Meals are included for your stay – breakfast, lunch, dinner, and supper! All people on the kelong eat their meals together at the same fixed time, and it’s an interesting sight to see how they clean up after all the meals! The leftovers are thrown into the sea and you’ll see schools and schools of fishes swimming in to fight for the food!!!!

L-R clockwise: Susu with food in her mouth, In**, In**’s mum, In**’s sister, naked Terence, naked Raymond, Raymond’s mum

Plain water is provided, but not canned or packet drinks. You can either bring your own, or buy from them. The boys taking off their clothes cos it was seriously too hot and sunny!!

Susu and In** sneaking basket to put their catch.

Look what Susu caught!!!

A boxy looking puffer fish!

Raymond trying to unhook the poor fella, and poking to see if it’s soft or hard since it’s boxy. When we finally released it back to the sea by a light kick by someone *coughs*, the fishy looked like it couldn’t swim anymore!!! It just kept on floating and drifting and floating… 🙁

Raymond’s dad doing up the bait. The sun was seriously super duper burning scorching bright and hot! The 3 ladies chose to remain indoors (in fact they spent 90% of their time indoors!!) while we chose to be stupid, let the sun burn us like mad, hoping to catch some fish.

Our catch so far…

All these fishes were to be used as baits to catch the bigger fish.

But most of them became hard cos they were dried up by the sun.

Next up, In** caught a cute little puffer fish!!!

It looked like a ball of balloon, and I felt like pressing it to see whether it’ll spit lots of water out or not, but I didn’t.

We always leave the guys to unhook the fishies we caught – just to make the guys appear a little bit more MAN and useful. MUWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! :p

Look what Susu caught!! I call it the Shoe Sole Fish!!!

It’s damn long, sucky, and the head of it looks like the soles of a shoe!! Susu caught two of this, and we highly suspect it’s the same one since the second one came almost after she released the first one!

When it’s time for the sun to retire, the ladies come out to play…

My dad

So my mum went around snapping pictures!

It was time for dinner, and most of us were still excited cos we held high hopes that we’d be able to catch big fishes! So we gobbled up our dinner fast and furiously. When we were ready to leave, Raymond’s mum asked him to drink an extra bowl of Green bean soup. The soup was pretty burning hot, so he had to wait for it to cool down a while before drinking. Who knows during this period of time, a giant fish was also gobbling his bait!!! I think the giant fish must have felt a sharp pain so it swam all the way in (some fishes swims in, some out), far far in, and Raymond’s rod was pulled all the way down into the sea!!!!!!

Some of the guys witnessed the action and informed the Kelong Man. He had to use a super duper ultra long pole with giant hook to quickly fish up Raymond’s rod before it sinks too deep into the sea! We were told about it right after we finished our dinner and Raymond’s second bowl of green bean soup! DARN!! 🙁

And then…….. it’s time for SQUIDS!!! The Squids are highly dangerous creatures because when you catch them up to land, they’ll squirt their black ink far and high, and squirt until they empty their entire tank of reserves!! My white shirt has got tiny specks of the black ink from people standing pretty far from me!

Susu the Milk Pan from her super heavy sun burn!!

The Kelong will be super duper dark, almost 100% dark if not for the lights! You can’t even see what’s infront of you, and if not for the barrier, you can easily walk right into the sea at night and nobody can save you… super dangerous for those with sleep walking habits.

Now she looks like a ninja!

I actually framed Susu within Raymond’s arms and legs and body. Hahaha! I stopped fishing by the night cos I actually fished till my hand swell and it was pretty painful. Some people choose to leave their rod around and wait, but I held it in my hands almost 95% of the time. And maybe cos old already, all the stupid injuries and stuffs so the joints and muscles inflammed pretty easily. =_=”

Then I took a picture of the stars! I had no tripod, people were walking around, and this is what I go at the longest exposure and highest ISO on the dummy camera on complete darkness with a bit of light source from the Kelong. Blurry and noisy, but I kinda like it.

The folks showered, but the kids didn’t!! HEHEHEHEHE! So we had 2 days worth of fishy smell on us, all sticky and dirty! When I finally showered back at home, the water was dirty grey in color! Hahahahahahaha!!

L-R clockwise: Terence, Raymond, Raymond’s dad, Raymond’s mum, my mum, my head, susu’s head.

The lunch before we depart~

Journey back was a breeze. Nobody fell into the sea this time round, bus ride doesnt seem to be so bumpy anymore. We stopped by this place to buy all the local produce, and if you can see in this picture, In**’s tan marks were so visible, and Susu was caught SNACKING on don’t know what!!

Raymond brought his camera along, end up shot 1 or 2 image of his mum when we arrive at the kelong, and then the camera retired for the 2 days. =_=”

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It was a good trip, and a pity it wasn’t the right season when we went cos the fishes were all still in their puberty stage! Luckily we didn’t ask friends along, else they’d have been really disappointed like some of us were. My dad went again in July, and the fishes he caught were big ones! The tiny fishes we caught to be used as baits were big enough to be cooked and eaten, with lots of meat!! Now we’ll know what to expect and prepare for our next Kelong trip, and friends are more than welcome to join us!! Will let you guys know if we’re planning for another one! 🙂

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On a side note, my mum took a picture of this when the lens fogged up during her Batam trip the last weekend. I kinda like how the image turned out. Haha! I ought to hunt for a camera to replace the one which my mum has officially kidnapped soon! More on the next update! Cheers! 🙂
Lots of ♥,

– Angeline