Personal - Coast Cleanup Day

Good morning Blog,

Yawning... It was 530am... I woke up early because of one event - Project Island-A-Hand program from Outward Bound Singapore, introduced from my ex-students, Ed and Eu.

To give some support to Ed and Eu, I decided to join this program.

This is the poster from Outward Bound Singapore. It is their yearly major event and I have not taken part in such program before, so I am quite excited for it.

6am... The sun hasn't woken yet.

But I already did.

My first time took a LRT to Punggol Point Station which is nearer Outward Bound Singapore.

Ooooo It seemed like I was too early for registration.

I know no one here and everyone is young and energetic, except me... 

I decided to find a spot to wait for Ed and Eu.

Sometimes how I wish I can stay youthful, strong and promising as those youngsters.

Too bad time is a cruel reality, I better stop dreaming.

Registration started and It was awkward when I don't ever get any confirmation email from them... Like I am an old man there among the youngsters.

Eu was the one who introduced this event to me, and I got no detail about the whole program, in the end, I learned that Eu emailed to the wrong email address. I supposed to bring my own lunchbox and identity card. Oh well... Eu claimed he will look after me. :)

Got some free gift upon successful registration.

Hmmm... what is this...

They divided us into three groups - Red, Green and Brown. I was in brown group.

We were assigned a VL (voluntary leader) to gather us to assigned tasks on the island.

One exciting moment was when I got to take a ferry from Punggol Jetty to West side of Pulau Ubin where we can't access to that side of the island!

Everyone was in pair and like my meetup session - I am always alone.

OOOOOO! OUTWARD BOUND SINGAPORE AT PULAU UBIN! YIPPEE!

What a youthful place!

I almost ran toward to explore this ship but I can't and stay near the group.

Where was I when I was young...

Interesting directional arrow of countries :)

We waited for a while and VL told us that we are going to Kekek frontline. Kekek? You meant Kekek Quarry?

And we took a speedboat to Kekek Frontline (I wondered where it is)

Bye Outward Bound for the moment.

The look at the sky, It is confirmed it is a sunny day.

We were approaching the North West side coastal side of Ubin.

And there are fench to avoid any illegal immigrant.

Around North side of Ubin, there is a small jetty.

OOO we were supposed to enter from here.

Based on my knowledge of Quarry location, this is near Kekek Quarry.

Abandon Jetty

We will walk in through the wood.

I am right, it is Kekek Quarry.

We had our briefing session at Kekek Quarry.

We were to clean up Kekek Quarry - pick up non-nature litter and Beach area.

We were given a pair of gloves to prevent injuries.

We found nearly 300 glass bottles buried in the ground! They were having a party many years ago!

Some of the youths were busy cleaning up the beach, there were a lot of trashes.

Picking and loading.

It was great to see everyone was playing their part to clean up the area.

We had tried to clean up the beach and quarry area, there are still many trash on the beach.

Sea loach climbed my hand and thanks everyone :)

Even though I know no one here, when we work as a group, our heart inlined as one.

Wash up the dirty gloves

After our lunching, everyone gathered to the hall area to...

attend a briefing session and we had gathered nearly 680kg of trash! :D

I was so tired already and after the group photo...

I quickly took the first ferry back to Singapore.

AH! Finally found Ed and Eu (they were in different team), voluntary leaders and I am proud of them - contributed back to society.

My first Outward Bound Tee :)

Reflection:
While cleaning the coast, I have been wondering why the coast got litter... It is due to human irresponsible activity. Just one day, we can gather 600+ kg litter and we can't finish clearing all at all. So it is advisable we handle our own litter at a right place than the sea.

This event has one thing which makes a deep impression, which is that we have to bring our own lumchbox because it actually cut down the amount of plate trash. I must say it is very environmental-friendly approach which I hope to promote. :)

Will it be my last voluntary? I will say... I will do it again if my time allowed. Along the way, I got to know some working adults at least and hope we will meet again to contribute back to society.

Jeff