Digging for lala (clams) and tua tow (mussels) at Kranji Dam/Beach

Digging for lala at Kranji Dam has been an activity that I had always wanted to do although I always dismissed the activity with nothing but a little light hearted scorn. As I walked by Kranji Dam after my freshwater fishing exercises, I would see families with their spades, shovels and pails wading out during low tide to exposed mud flats to dig for the shellfish. I would then label them as crazy and nothing better to do...

But on this day, I was the one being crazy as I did exactly that! It was a last minute trip and I brought R and mum on the trip. The goal was to do something different from the usual boring things singaporeans do... Armed with pink mini shovels and a single pail, we ventured down to the mud flats from the Kranji battle site!

Secret weapon - pink mini shovels from Daiso!

The amount of sandworms that were crawling around at low tide around the swamp area was freaky! They were all over the place and only went away when the tide was completely low!

Apparently we were the first ones there and we didn't really know how to go about it until fellow diggers started streaming in and we followed along with them or rather copied them! Eventually, we waded out in ankle deep water to the exposed sand banks where there were supposedly more shellfish!

As we dug and dug, we eventually got the hang of it... We slowly gathered our loot under the hot burning sun!



me and R

it looks like a heart doesn't it?

out at the mudflats!

our loot!

Thankfully, there was a toilet nearby and we could do all our washing up there!

Here's how to get there if you are a newbie! You can take bus 925 on weekdays/sat or 925# on sundays! Free parking is available at Kranji Reservoir Carpark B!

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Let me put together a few more trips so I can advise the readers and wannabe diggers here on some tips on digging for the lala at Kranji! Or if any readers are keen, Email me and we can setup a trip together!

Anyway, here's what happened to the clams later on.... Tomato pasta!

After soaking in seawater

boiled lightly in ginger to get rid of sand and dirt

tomato pasta!

 

Scuba Diving at Pulau Dayang

After not diving for almost a year, the itch to get back into the water to view the world beneath the waves beckoned. I did the Advanced Open Water Dive with Blue Reef Diving this time round since Apache Divers were no longer doing dive courses. I was by myself on this trip as most of my diving friends had already completed their AOW Course but not to worry - I found that a main attraction of diving was to go alone and not to worry about your friends/family or life. Going alone for such trips may seem "emo" or "lone ranger" but I found it to be refreshing since you're in thoughts with most of yourself and at the same time, you make yourself approachable to other groups since you're alone. That was true as the strangers from the trips turned into friends (and Facebook friends)!

I was a little disappointed that it was not a Live On Board (LOB) dive but when I reached Pulau Dayang, a little part of that disappointment faded away as I saw why divers frequented this place. It was an island which shouted "DIVERS ONLY!" and all around the island were excited divers heading out for trips, returning from trips, lazing around, filling up their dive logs, eating the scrumptious buffet style food there or simply having a cool beer!

The arrangement for the dives were also comfortable. A typical day would include meals at the island after returning from the boat dives was important to us divers because whenever we're not diving, we're hungry! This arrangement was great for sea sick prone divers as well as you spend minimal time on the boat!

Visibility was bad on this trip and only about 6 - 8 metres due to the bad weather but divers did not complain about bad dives! Every dive was an adventure and I'd never seen a bored diver before! I had the GoPro Hero 2 with me this time so I could try out some micro management with cameras during the course. The pictures were not so good but the videos were awesome! I'm saving a special video towards the end of this post!

The course itself wasn't tough and it was more of an "add on" rather than the Open Water Certification. We were shown skills such as navigation, drift dives, deep dives etc... I particularly loved the effortless drift dive!

Anyway, here are the pictures I took during the trip ;)

rain dive!



fellow divers! Strangers turned friends! Divers are spontaneous people!

as excited as always lol

strangers turned friends too

The whole stranger turned friends crew

let's go diving!

relevant to me... litter bugs during fishing!