Rakit trouble

It had been a long long while since I had gone in Malaysia for anything, not to mention fishing. But there was a sudden window of opportunity this labour day, and it was timely for some rest and relaxation.

Jess and Shawn had asked me a few times to go Rakit, since Shawn's sudden craze for fishing. Fortunately, everyone seemed to be free that day. So some quick coordination, and off we went for the Rakit.

We met at the usual Danga and after a hearty breakfast, left for Rakit around 8am. Shawn brought along a friend, Alvin, who just started out fishing as well. This hobby is indeed contagious. :).

Hole that Jess's car got stuck on


We had to park here


Reaching there, we were shocked to find the entire parking grounds, jammed packed with cars. We made the mistake of driving down the undulating narrow and sloping sandy road full of potholes. Some other cars needed to get out, and the only way for us to allow that was to reverse our 2 cars back up the difficult terrain. Jess ran into some problems when her wheels got stuck in one of the many potholes. Some folks came over to help push the car to enable it to come unstuck. I too had to manoveur the car carefully to avoid doing the same mistake. It was certainly an advanced driving challenge. We finally managed to come out of the messy spot and decided to just park along the main road.

Jess draw first blood


This fellow was a good fisherman too


Too much flying can be tiring. Need a rest here


Is this a prawn or a lobster?


The rakit we were going to was the most comfortable one at Salleh. D was excited to be seeing her cats again. Reaching there, we setup and started fishing. From the water surface, we could see many glassfish, and we went on to collect them for baits.

Playful cat


That's the way to hold a cat


Alvin with his biggest catch


But other than glassfish, the fishing was very disappointing. No todaks, no tambans. But Alvin was having a good time, as even catching glass fish was something for a newbie. He got lucky and somehow managed to catch a Scat without using any bait.

My small tengirri


Shawn with his not easy to catch Selar


I did toss out some drifting rig with glassfish, with which we had such great success with Eric in some previous trip. But for this trip, it was totally useless. I did some bottom as well with glassfish, but it didn't help too. Desperate, I rigged up an apollo with small hooks and used prawn meat. Even that wasn't too effective. The best I did was to score a smaller Scat, and then a tiny tenggiri. Shawn was doing rather well with some good catches of Selar and Mackerals. He certainly has a good fishing touch. The afternoon was burning hot, and we were all drained and sapped of our energy under the scorching sun.

Sudden commotion!


A child had fallen through this hole


He is alive and gurgling out water


Safe in mother's arms


Around 2pm, there was a sudden commotion. At the far end, there was suddenly a lot of shouting, and people running around. All curious, we walked over to see what it was all about. To our horrors, we found that a little boy (around 2) had fallen into the water under a small opening. The trouble is, once under water, the entire stretch was covered up by some structure, and it wasn't accessible. The mother was wailing and crying away, while some boys were frantically trying to find where the boy was drifting to under the strong current. Some of them jumped into the water to try to get hold of the boy. After some 1 or 2 minute, they finally found the boy and pulled him out of the water. He was clearly alive and conscious. Thank God that all turned out alright. The owner of the rakit was also visibly relieved that the boy was ok.

That certainly taught D a valuable lesson as she was always running around and being out of sight. One should learn to be careful with children around the water.