So, I survived at OBS :D
After 5 days of theories at BTN, we went to OBS for 7 days, from 23rd to 29th of June. Before this, I have never heard of OBS until I got to know that Petronas will be sending their scholars there. Outward Bound School, a place to train and challenge people at different age, mentally and physically. Since primary school, I enjoy camping and participating in outdoor activities, mostly on land. This camp had given me different kind of exposure and of course, it would be the once in our life time, for all 57 Petronas scholars who went.
During first few days, we had to change our programme accordingly due to the high air pollution index. Initially, we should be going for land and sea expedition, jungle trekking up and down 3 peaks at Pangkor Island and kayaking around the Pangkor Island. Unfortunately, the haze was not gone until it rained on the third day, we only had enough time for one and they have chosen the sea expedition. When the API was still high, Petronas did ask us to vote whether we would like to stay there or go home. I personally voted to stay, as it would have been wasted if we chose to go home when we haven't even complete the programme. At the end of the day, majority won, and we stayed, I'm glad that we have made the right choice :)
On the first day, all our food, books and electronic gadgets were kept by instructors. Then, it was some introduction session to enable us to know each other better. I was in the group Yong Belar, "Yong" is actually mountain in Orang Asli's language, so my group is Gunung Belar. We had 15 group members, our instructor was Mr Firdaus, After we had introduced ourselves, he shared with us about how did he come to become an instructor at OB Malaysia. We were quite surprised to hear that he graduated from a degree in culinary arts. Along the path in searching for the most suitable occupation, he worked in a hotel, as a customer service at Astro, attended an interview to become a fire fighter and at the end, an OB instructor. He also shared with us how he went through the test in becoming an instructor, where he capsized 3 times during kayaking, building the solo tent like a "kenduri" style etc, and still, he did not choose to give up. His determination in achieving success is something that we should learn.
Abang Firdaus, Me and Syn Yee
On the second and third day, we went for a small scale jungle trekking. We also learnt how to kayak, my partner was Harvard (yes, his name is Harvard and he will be studying in the US lol!). We were taught how to forward, backward, long turn, sharp turn as well as the thing that I dislike the most, capsize and what to do after that. Most of the people knows that I can't swim, I'm afraid of being in water and not touching the bottom -.- However, everyone had to do it and I did it as well, it was like counting 1, 2, 3 and capsized, and came out from the boat and swim up. Sounds simple? But I don't like lol!
Then, we had some indoor games, rope climbing and rock climbing. Nothing much about these, but I really want to compliment Syiqin for being so brave and not giving up. She is seriously afraid of height, she cried while she was halfway climbing up the rope, then our instructor had to let her down. During the rock climbing which was much more harder than the rope activity, she decided to give it a try. Halfway up the wall, she struggled and cried too, but this time she didn't let go. Together with the supports and cheers from instructors and participants, she made it to the top! Bravo Syiqin!
Besides, we had raft building too. All 4 groups were to build a raft that can support all the members and compete with each other on the sea to reach the destination. It was not too hard for our group, we had some people who knew how to tie a knot and a bunch of guys who contributed their strength. On the way moving forward, our group was the second, then we made a quick and nice sharp turn to go back to the starting point which made us the champion :P It was fun sitting on the raft that we built ourselves, shouting One Two, One Two and kicking water at the same time haha.
Yong Belar with our raft! ^.^ v
On the fourth day, we could finally see Pangkor Island from Lumut after the big rain, it was very beautiful. This day, we started our 3 days 2 nights sea expedition. We departed after we packed everything and had our lunch. Everyone seemed to be very excited, normally we do kayak at lake or river, and now we were going to kayak at the sea! We went on to the kayak by pairs except Rheza, we had odd number of participants and he became the one who kayak alone~ First day of kayaking was not bad, except that I was hoping not to capsize along the way especially when the waves were strong. We took around 2 hours to reach the campsite.
Look, they are excited, aren't they? :)
There were a lot of monkeys at the campsite and the toilet area was scary lol! We built tents, set up fire to cook and there gone our first night. The next morning, we woke up around 5am to prepare breakfast and pack everything. Around 7.30am, we left the campsite and moved on. The real challenge has begun -- kayaking around the Pangkor Island. We did have a great start as the sea was peaceful. Instructors told us that we were fast, if nothing goes wrong, we would probably reach the second campsite in the afternoon.
A few hours have gone, most of us were feeling tired especially under the hot sun. We are just normal human being, going slower and slower when we knew that we were near to the destination. While we were taking our time, the sky started to become dark. I was just telling Harvard to move faster, then the storm came. The wind was blowing so strong, together with the waves, we couldn't get our way straight. From far, we could see that all boats were no longer in the formation, we were going further from each other.
As one of the boats that were at the middle, we were quite far away from the front. We tried to catch up with them but we failed, it was just to hard to pedal. Looking back, there were a lot of people far behind us. There were no one around us, the speedboat went behind to pick up some of them who were too far away from the group, one at a time using the speedboat. For once, I asked Harvard, before anything happened, should we just blow the whistle and ask for help, or should we just land at the beach nearby? He took a while and replied, let's move on :)
So, we moved on. We didn't have the strength to continue, the waves kept pushing my pedal to the back and it hit Harvard's pedal. Both of us were panic, but I knew I shouldn't stop, it won't get us anywhere but we would just capsize. And if the boat capsize, with the strong waves, I knew that I couldn't stay calm and wait for the instructor to come, I would struggle and it might cost my life even though I had a life jacket. At that point of time, I had only one thought --- I couldn't afford to capsize. We had to keep on doing sharp turn to get our direction straight, it ended up where I became the one who gave the command and Harvard contributed his strength lol. I knew it was hard for him, especially that it took a lot of strength to make a sharp turn to go against the flow.
After struggling for so long, we finally reached the destination. We saw a lot of people cried, the first round of headcount had only 30+ people out of 57, there were almost half of us who had not make their way here. Speedboats went around to pick them up and we prayed for the safety of all. Thank God at the end of the day, all of us arrived safely. It was challenging and we would probably experience it only once in our lifetime. Harvard and I were grateful to have each other along the way, I taught him how to determine the direction to go against the wave and he used off all his strength to get us to the destination.
During the sharing session at night, some of us shared our experience. Rheza, the one who kayak alone shared that during the storm, he felt extremely helpless. He was too tired to pedal against the strong waves and there was no one to help him, he had to make it to the destination himself. At that point of time, he was telling his God to just let him die, he just couldn't continue anymore. Out of a sudden, he felt the strength in him, then he kayak to the beach nearby, landed there and asked for help. Throughout the journey, he was saved by the speedboat for 3 times lol! Another pair, Ayuni and her partner, their boat capsized after hitting by the waves. They came out from the boat and tried to get the support from the boat to float, then the boat capsized and they were brought down into the seawater again, it happened 3 times until they could stay still and blow the whistle. Both of them were really panic and if it was not the whistle, instructors wouldn't find them.
I was glad that instructors have chosen the sea expedition for us instead of the land. It might not be something that I would like to do, but if it was not OBS, I wouldn't get to experience it in my lifetime. I wouldn't expect that one like me, who don't know how to swim and afraid of water, to actually kayak on the sea for more than 5 hours, with the storm, and survived. The instructor was right, we were not expected to remember how to pedal, how to built up a tent, how to set up fire etc in the future, but there will always be something that we will not forget, how hard we have tried to survive, to overcome our fear in life, how we have been holding our friends tight to go through all these together. Are we still going to be like this in the future? Will all of us remember the moments that we have went through together as a Petronas family? God knows :)
Not forgetting to mention about the second campsite, there was no washroom there and we had to settle our "business" at "anywhere" :X Then, we used the well water for shower. I wouldn't call it a shower, the water was grey in colour, it made my body and hair smelled like the drain water lol! Well, we called it back to basic, so couldn't really care much about it, at least we have some water there. On the next morning, we went back to the OBS place and ended our 3 days 2 nights sea expedition, with around 10 hours of kayaking.
After cleaning boats and unpacking all the things, we went back for a nice shower before we started to prepare for the BBQ night. As usual, we were required to perform. During the night, it was performance and food together with instructors, participants and our Petronas officers who came all the way from KL. On the last day, we had our quick and short closing ceremony, certificates were given out together with our group photo on the first day. And so, 57 of us, officially "graduated" from the Outward Bound School :)
Got a certificate and a badge hehe~
Hmmm..... a lot to say about this. A big thanks to our instructors, specifically to my watch's instructor, Mr Firdaus as well as Yong Belar people. Generally, girls are really good in cooking and guys contributed their strength in everything. In life, people around us are the Ankle and Belayer while we are the Climber. A lot of times, they give us their full support in order for us to achieve what we want. Thank you Petronas for spending so much on us for this OBS programme, it was a great one! I wouldn't have the chance to experience these if I did not go to OBS, the sea expedition really did challenge me to the maximum. I would also like to say that all our juniors are awesome, they are good in their own way and the bonding between them are really strong :)
我也看见了红月 :)
After this camp,
I tell myself,
I must learn how to swim -.-
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