The first two days sped by so quickly despite the lack of any activity- it's so amazing how time seems to speed up when you're enjoying yourself ( and by amazing I really mean completely, utterly unfair)
Finally a shot of the breakfast spread! Breakfast was the only meal that stayed fairly constant- there were always sausages, toast, eggs and fruits + a special dish. we could choose the type and number of eggs we wanted based on a menu: scrambled, fried ( and then you could choose whether you wanted your yolks hard or soft), or in an omelette form- stuffed with cheese, chilli and onions. I alternated between hard-yolk fried egg and the omelette for most of the days.
The third day's special dish was some thick and fluffy banana pancakes with french toast :-)
post-breakfast mainly consists of lazing around in various key locations around the boat: I liked the lounge for hotter days, as well as the second deck for the cooler ones.
briyani rice// beetroot curry (it looks utterly red and possibly gross but it still retains the curry taste- loved it)// cauliflower cheese casserole// sweet and sour fish ( which is super amazing) // fried okra slices
And then we went snorkelling post lunch! Bad quality photo because I took it from my dad's underwater camera.
We actually went to the drop-off point- the spot where the reef slopes off into the deep sea and snorkelled along there and it is quite scarily exhilarating, because although it is beautiful and the fish are amazingly colourful, you know that within beyond those blue waters lurk fish possibly larger than my dad. And that is not an encouraging thought at all. The corals were more lack-lustre than I imagined and also really sharp- my dad and brother got quite nasty cuts on their legs from mere scrapes from the corals.
curry fish chunks// tempura ( consisting of sweet potatoes and long beans)// potato salad// coleslaw salad
i loved the curry! it tasted so amazing with the fluffy white rice and had huge thick chunks of fresh fish. i used to love ladyfingers as a kid, then grew up to dislike it but i think this trip has revived my long-dead love for that vegetable :-)
And a sweet fruit-salad concoction for dessert! Tiny chunks of fresh tropical fruits such as papaya, banana, green apple, and pineapple all smothered in a sticky-sweet sauce and studded with raisins. after every meal there would always be various tropical fruits such as pineapples, papayas and watermelons which we could help ourselves to.
Night-fishing again! The waters are so clear that you can actually look down and see the shimmering silvery glint that the larger fish give off- and they move so fast it looks like a flash of flight. Woe to the person who falls into the water at night :(
Day 4:
the speciality of the day was homemade chapatti with fish curry! the kitchen crew were all Indian people so there was plenty of Indian influences in our food. no complaints there because i love indian food :-)
the chapattis are amazing- so thin yet so flavourful and they tasted awesome with curry. chapatti > prata any day.
After breakfast, we proceeded to visit an island which was close to where we docked!
LOOK AT THE WATER
Turquoise is officially my favourite colour.
Mom and I!
oh and fun fact: see that dark shadow in the waters behind my mom? It ain't seaweed or corals- its actually a MASSIVE school of sardines, packed tightly like....a can of sardines. *bah dum tssss*
The island was really tiny- as in you could finish walking around it in 10 minutes and they only have one tiny scantily stocked provision store in the whole of the island! and i thought Singapore was small and boring. the weather was really really hot, i walked minimally yet i was still sweating buckets by the end of it ( and i don't sweat easily).
the cool water at the shoreline was a welcome respite from the heat.
and i caught a hermit crab!!! Albeit a tiny one. it was my key source of entertainment throughout the course of the island tour and it was really funny to see it scuttle around. I put it on my mom's bare shoulder and she got such a fright hahaha.
Not willing to leave my hermit crab, i found a bottle and gave it its own personal beach, thinking that i could deposit it in the next island we visited. alas this never happened and in the end I had to throw my hermit crab into the sea, which is one of my greatest regrets this trip. Sorry hermit crab :-(
back to the Soleil for lunch! Fish porridge with various condiments brought all the way from singapore and the quintessential fried fish chunks and bittergourd omelette. ( no wonder the fridge was so fully stocked with the amount of veggies they brought onto the yacht)
This was so delicious; and it was a welcome break to have some good ole chinese food for once :-) i loved the broth for the porridge!!
sunsets never disappoint
Mom concentrating hard on scrabble- and look at the violet hues in the background!!!!
and on this evening, the next highlight of my trip came to light- SCRABBLE!!!! Turns out a few of the more elderly people on the trip were scrabble masters and we had a great time playing over the course of the next few days. i think i'm now addicted to scrabble.
thought this was funny
This trip really honed my scrabble skills, and I think its way more entertaining than handphone games actually :-)
herbal chicken soup// maggi noodles// sweet and sour fish// carrot + long beans// salad
The food is always delicious and I have run out of adjectives to describe it.
We had yellowfin tuna sashimi post dinner!!!
then more scrabble and leaking around before bedtime :-)
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