Rungitom Journey: Banggi Island 2

Keywords: life story, journey, Banggi island, chapter 2

Work still bugs me a lot this few weeks; but I still manage to find space to write about my journey. And also extensively searching for a new blog design to give my blog a new fresh look.

Lets continue on, shall we?

Chapter 2: The Endless Sea

1:30PM

Our ship departs from Kudat jetty, minutes after the passenger ferry(just beside us) to Banggi Island departs. But before going on, the captain stop by at Kudat Marina area to pick up the compass.

”Tiada GPS tidak apa, tapi jangan saja tiada kompas ” he said. Yep, reason behind this is that a compass could navigate a ship through a misty early morning trip in the seas.

The GPS was busted so the compass was the captain’s only hope for navigation.While waiting, me and my friends chatted about various things spotted in the sea..

“Tengok, taik besar” one of my friend, AP said
“tu, taik dia lurus” I said pointing a mangrove seedling.

Another friend, Khiong went to try to pull the boat parked beside our own, well… testing his awesome strength of course.

Few minutes later, the captain is back with his compass.

The ship move on to the original destination; because the ship is not build for speed, the journey will take approximately 3 hours to reach Banggi Island. I took my time enjoying the strong breeze, view of the sea waters and taking some pictures.

I usually do not get seasick, my body will automatically set to sleep mode whenever I’m feeling like one. Later on I joined my friends on a long nap in the captain’s cabin; my nap was disturbed by sea water that splashed into the captains cabin through the side door.

Not much of a splash but enough to get annoyed by it, so the captain closed the door and I continued my interrupted nap.

About 3:15 PM
bump bump bump*

I woke up by the strong sea waves hitting our ship, so I woke up and went out looking around while finishing another pack of Dentyne chewing gum. Spotted the passenger ferry that left before us,

it was but not long until the ferry went out of sight again. I took out my camera and took some pictures of small islands around. I reminisce the times when a tragedy happened in these waters; on Hari Raya Qurban last year, the overturned boat that took many lives with two of them was missing and never to be found again.

The waters here is pretty wild and dangerous especially in monsoon season, strong winds and bad weather; the waves make small ships to overturned and ships that are not in the safe route prone to danger, even the passenger ferry will not set off of there are reports of bad weather incoming. One small mistake will not only cost them their lives but also other people’s lives as well.

 

It was not long when Karakit jetty is now in sights view, our ship slows down and made way to park near the jetty. I hopped on the jetty and feel the strong breeze, looking around; this is the second time I’ve ever been here and now I will be staying longer than the previous trip…

 

 

 

 

 

“One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon-instead of enjoying the roses blooming outside our windows today.” – Dale Carnegie, American lecturer, author, 1888-1955