As a child, the sea provided me with an endless source of fun. By day, I could splash in its cool green waters or play by the water’s edge, allowing breaking waves to come crashing on me. I often longed for the feel of salt on my skin, dried by the soothing warmth of the sun. When the tide went out, the sea provided a different kind of fun … the shallow waters off Changi Beach particularly offering access to the wealth of fascinating creatures that lived amongst the sea grass: crabs, sea urchins, giant starfish, sea cucumber, hermit crabs, horseshoe crabs, fiddler crabs, sand dollars, sea snails and even shrimps which I could catch a glimpse of by looking for the two black eyes that stood out in contrast to the sandy bottom. Armed with a butterfly net, I could catch a harvest of edible flower crabs, sea snails (what we sometimes refer to as gong gong in Singapore), and shrimp, which could be cooked over an open fire once I got back to the beach. By night, the sea was another prospect altogether, and with the help of a companion shinning a light which attracted fish to it, there was a lot that I could catch from the sea with the same butterfly net. The sea off Sembawang near the Mata Jetty was particularly enjoyable, as we could catch a variety of small puffer fish which would inflate every time I managed to catch one.
The shallow waters during low tide off Changi Beach provided hours of endless fun with the creatures that lived amongst the sea grass. A fiddler crab is seen here.
The giant red Knobbly Sea Star was also a common sight.
With all that fun to be had by the sea, holidays taken by the sea became a natural choice I guess, my parents opting to take them at the holiday bungalows in Tanah Merah, Mata Ikan and Changi, or often on the drives to Malaysia: Prot Dickson on the West Coast and Kemaman on the East Coast was a popular choice for them. It was on one of these holidays in Malaysia, this time closer to home, at Masai close to the Pasir Gudang area on the Malaysian side of the Straits of Johor, that, where in previous instances we had been oblivious to some of the hazards that the sea posed to us, that we became more careful whenever we went into the sea. I was perhaps about eight then and we were in Masai with a group of my parents’ friends, mostly teachers, which included a few children around of my age group, staying at some rather run down chalets by the beach. We had our usual dose of fun splashing in the gentle waves, and playing on the beach. Evenings were spent around an open fire on the beach exchanging stories about pontianaks, hantu galas, hantu momoks and all kinds of hantus (hantu is Malay for ghost). On the beach, with a torch in hand, someone had noticed the abundance of anchovies that darted around the water, attracted by the light and it was then that the adults decided to wade into the shallow waters to see if we could catch any, with nets fashioned from the shirts and singlets that the men wore. The children of course did not need an invitation to follow the adults, following a few paces behind as screams of glee accompanied the sight of the silvery harvest jumping as shirts was lifted from the water.
A banded Sea Krait, similar to the one I encountered in Masai (photo credit: Craig D)
Fifteen, perhaps twenty minutes into the excited frenzy, a scream of panic burst through the shouts of excitement – “Snake, snake!” came a cry which was followed with silence before pandemonium broke as everyone made for the safety of the beach. Boys, being boys, we somehow had fun in the process, adding to the commotion with screams of “kalang-kabut, cabut” (kalang-kabut is a colloquial term that I guess can be roughly translated as a chaotic frenzy, while cabut is in this context is to run away), not realising that in the midst of all that, one of my parents’ friends, had somehow run into the path of the escaping snake (sea snakes are usually not aggressive but they do possess some of the most potent venoms which can kill a person within half an hour). Safely ashore, we watched in silence as the dark complexioned friend emerged from the water, looking pale as if he had seen a ghost, followed by one of the older boys who had somehow managed to kill the snake with a wooden plank, with the trophy of the dead black and white banded snake. A closer inspection of the leg of the poor fellow revealed two fang marks near his ankle and he was attended to by another of my parents’ friend who was a nurse and sent to a nearby clinic. Fortunately, the victim survived, it turned out that no venom had been released into the bite and other than the two marks and a fright of his life, my parents’ friend was none the worse for the encounter. After the experience, we were a lot more careful about entering the water to catch fish at night … I suppose the fish that had been attracted by the lights had also attracted snakes as well … choosing usually not to go in … on the occasions that we did, we never ventured far out, choosing to stay close to shore … and often jumping at the sight of a slithering eel…
The Long and Winding Road 