I have not been fishing since 2004. I always missed the fishing trips organized by my faculty's hardcore fishermen - Arshad, Wijay and Adnan (the Three Musketeers?) due to work obligations. Therefore it was a surprise for me to join them for the fishing trip to P. Tioman and P. Pemanggil from 17 to 20 April 2008. Five others joined us this time, Mat Hussin Yunnan, Aidee of CEPP, Tholudin of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering (FKM), Awaluddin also of FKM but now rthe Director of BATC and Rosliza of UIAM (his name kept us confused for a while).
We met at Adnan's house in Bandar Putra, Kulai around 6 pm. His wife cooked some nice kuih and laksa Penang. It was pretty good as our 'gourmand' Wijay finished a couple of bowls of the laksa! We drove to Mersing in two cars - Mat Hussin's Proton Waja and Adnan's Toyota Unser. Ate dinner at the seafood restaurant not far from the jetty. Aidee was already there after a lecture in Mersing earlier in the day. Awaluddin and Rosliza arrived about 30 minutes later, driving from Kuala Lumpur via Kluang and FELDA Nitar.
We did our solat obligations at the surau of the Mersing Jetty Complex and later we load up our luggage, fishing gear and food supply on Abang Daud's boat. We set out of the Sg. Mersing estuary around 1030 pm. The sea was relatively smooth but we observed lightnings in the distance and later there were drizzles. Some of us slept in the "sleeping quarters" but it was limited to 5 to 6 people. So, I slept at the rear of the boat, waking when the drizzle got a bit heavy.
Some of the hardcore fishermen tried fishing at night close to Kg. Mukut of Pulau Tioman, so I moved to the "sleeping quarters". The roll of the boat made me seasick even though I took a motion sickness tablet before we set out. It got worse that I could not sat up to do the Subuh prayers. Therefore, the boatman tried to dock at Mukut's jetty but failed due to strong waves. He moved the boat to another jetty south of Mukut. The jetty is only for tourists going to the waterfalls - there were no houses here.
There was a nice small stream nearby that we eagerly used to bathe our grime and seasickness away. After a quick breakfast of bread, kaya and jam plus coffee, we set out to one of the "unjam" to start our fishing
