Kapas Marang International Swimathon

Saturday 17-Apr 2010

So I foolishly tagged along a weekend trip to Kapas where my friends were taking part in an international swimathon, and which I foolishly registered for in the end. 6.5km open sea swim from Kapas island back to the main coastal shores of Terengganu. Fabulous. Because the cost of being a supporter was almost the same as signing up as a participant. And there was always the option of bailing out on a jet ski along the way. A prospect that looked inviting given my meagre swimming talent.

We arrived at Kapas on Saturday morning after a 10h coach ride from Singapore on Friday night. The island was one of many dotting the state of Terengganu. In fact, our bus driver mistakenly thought that we were on a dive trip to popular Redang, and almost dropped us off at Merang jetty instead of Marang! Kapas island had beautiful clear waters and a nice sandy beach. But the weather was relentless, and the tiny wooden huts we stayed at were, at best, minimally functional. At least the air-conditioning worked and there was free wifi in the dining hall. Malay cuisine was not my cuppa tea so I was not very taken to the goreng-everything food drenched in heart-clogging chilli padi and oil.

It was a lazy afternoon, with absolutely nothing to do until race briefing at 4pm. And then nothingness until dinner at 730pm. And then bedtime. In between, I had 3 showers to escape the heat, in vain.


Sunday 18-Apr 2010 Race Day

The race was 7:30am. We woke around 6am and went for breakfast, body-marking and deposited our luggage. Our bags would be ferried to the end point, while the owners attempted to swim their way across. Yip came over and gave me some pointers on where to sight, what to expect and so on. I was surprisingly calm, maybe because it was not a race for me. I was simply there to try to swim as much as I could. I had a pack of power gel with me but nowhere to keep it. So in the end I stuffed it into my sports bra swim top and hoped it would not give me abrasions.

The swimmers were flagged off. I stayed at the back pack. There were sea bugs in the water and I felt sudden bursts of numbing stings everywhere - mouth, arms, legs, body. It was very difficult to sight. I alternated between breast stroke and front crawl. Breast stroke allowed me to see where I was headed, but gave me motion sickness. Front crawl allowed me to 'relax' and conserve energy, but I ended up in all directions. A few times, I wondered if I had actually spun around and headed backwards! Until I saw the safety kayaks in front of me. The mountain peak that everyone said to keep in sight seemed to shift all the time. Sometimes, it was to my right, then my left, then ahead. Argh.... Then I tried to spot the line of white tents along the beach near the finishing point, even those kept moving from my right to left...

I did not see many swimmers around me. Sometimes another lone orange cap bobbed up nearby. The slower swimmers like us had many kayaks following alongside, very so often shouting out instructions to go straight, or right, or left. It was tiring work sighting. The sea was choppy as we headed further out. It was like Desaru, and we were being tossed around, up and down. Along the way, my power gel threatened to float out of my sports bra, and I had to keep stuffing it back.

I peeped at my watch, and it was only 1:30h. Darn, it already felt like an eternity but no end in sight. Why did we have to sight, why not have a row of guiding buoys to help us go straight? I was getting tired more from the sighting than the swimming. I caught a glimpse of an orange balloon floating in the middle of nowhere far far away. It was about the size of a ping pong ball from where I was. I guessed that must be the end point. The ping-pong never seemed to get any bigger or closer.

Pretty soon, I was sea-sick. Argh... I thought I could continue, but no, I was about to puke. In that spilt instant, I tried to figure out how might one swim and puke at the same time. Eeeeuiks. So I hung on to a safety kayak and rested. But that sick feeling did not go away. I decided to climb up the kayak and bail out. 1:46h. That was another story in itself. I tried climbing and hauling myself aboard from all angles, and finally did after 3 attempts. Seated in the kayak, I thought I might feel better. But no, the guy was not going anywhere either. He passed me a precious bottle of mineral water and continued monitoring other swimmers. Another kayak pulled along, and the guy said something about cold or cool. I finally made it out that he commented I was cold because my face looked white. Really? After all that sun and a crispy nose, and I could look white...??

That tossing on the kayak made me sicker, and I finally puked. Sort of. It was very unglam. Sigh. But I felt so much better after that. No more churning in the stomach. We rowed beside a big-sized swimmer, #556, who was using very heavy breast stroke pulls. He splashed water into our kayak with every kick, but seemed to remain in the same spot after 3 pulls.

Finally, my kayak rower asked if I would like to be on a jet ski instead and waved to one to come over. It was a police jet-ski! I managed to climb over without toppling any of them and plonked myself behind Mr. Policeman. Yoohoo! From that vantage point, I could see the choppiness of the waves, and the very off-course routes that swimmers were taking. If the end-point was a dot, swimmers were fanning out like a V-shaped radar sweep. Mr. Policeman pointed out some swimmers to our far left, and said they were easily 2km horizontally off from the finishing line. We patrolled the waters and I could see swimmers held almost stationary by the waves. We zig-zagged the waters, and I realised it was rather difficult to spot swimmers over the waves. One moment, an orange cap. The next moment, gone. We had to take care not to speed up and ride the waves, lest we hit an unsuspecting swimmer hidden by the crests of the waves!

We rode to near the shore, but had problems getting the ski inland due to the large waves. Mr. Policeman asked if I was ok to swim myself back to shore, and I jumped. Ahh, I had gotten my RM80 worth of swim, kayak and a police jet ski! Haha. But even that distance back was tough. It was like Desaru where the waves and undercurrents kept sweeping me off my feet, even though I was already almost on the beach.

I trotted back to the finishing line, mindful not to be confused with the actual finishers coming in. However, the organizers insisted on recording and accounting for all swimmers, and still gave me the finisher tee and medal. Well, ok, for modesty's sake, they had to make sure all the swimmers, especially females, were properly covered before we left the finishing line. So they literally tugged and pulled the t-shirt over me.

I waited at the beach for more of our swimmers to return before we went to wash up. The organizers had a few chalet rooms for people to change, but there was no water supply in those rooms. So shower involved an unglam group of swimmers mass-hosing ourselves openly using piped water from a giant water truck. The water looked murky, and no amount of hosing would dislodge the sand that was trapped in our swim suits, thanks to the tossing at the beach. I would leave out the intricacies, but suffice to say, it was kampong style shower.

Cleaned and changed, we went back to the prize award area where a post-race buffet was in progress. Rice, liquified curry chicken and cut oranges. The heat and humidity was in full blast and very soon, we were all dripping with sweat again. For someone like me who did not perspire much, seeing droplets of perspiration sticking to my limbs said much about the weather. Our bus finally came to the rescue at 1:30pm with much awaited air-con relief. The sea-stung eyes, heat and tiredness lulled everyone into a nice afternoon siesta, until we reached MacDonalds. Not everyone had a chance to lunch earlier, and Mac was like mecca to refugees. We raided the hot-fudge ice-cream and lunch-hour value meals. Raided, literally.

The rest of the 10h bus ride home was non-eventful, with everyone getting a well-deserved rest along the way. I did not swim as much, yet was eating as much as the rest. Oops. Would I return next year? Hmmm..... I had better work on that sighting and sea-sickness tossing!