Track the miracles

 

So I realised how important it is for me to document this journey and it’s up and downs that have helped me to grow so much thus far. I went to a seminar recently where the speaker shared about the good in problems because they lead to solutions in business. To take it a step further, I think the problems that surface for me every once in a while are constantly training me to have a limitless instead of a limiting a mind. It’s really through the many breakdowns when new problems crop up do I realise just how panicky and weak I really actually am, to cave in easily instead of seeking, asking and being open to impossible ideas. But I realised the problems tend to push me too. It’s amazing how much I have grown and continue to grow, as a person and more amazing how I am meeting countless amazing people in this path of life, that has veered so far from the one I loved but was perhaps too comfortable in. Letting go of inhibitions, acquiring new skills to keep afloat, seeing the good in everyone and every situation, broadening my perspectives on situations, being sincere and helping others as far as possible in spite of own circumstances…truly enriching and fulfilling that even the current financial loss seems worth the sacrifice.

I saw a quote by Anais Nin recently on a friend’s Facebook status on which his friend commented, “I think I must a mermaid, Rango. I have no fear of depth and a great fear of shallow living.” and I fell in love with it instantly. How the challenges of trying to start something new comes with deep anguish and deep fulfilment at different stages of the journey continually and I relish in it.

On the recent Easter break Lombok trip in April. I had a most amazing group of people on the boat trip and I know if I don’t blog about it, it would be unfair to my life to lose the memory of the magic that came with it. Thanks to a really awesome underwater photographer (bless his blue heart and love for the oceans) I met at a TEDx youth talk I attended some months back (save for how unimpressed I am by the curator, of which that topic really deserves a whole new blog post of its own), Andrew Lim, who relentlessly offered help in documenting the marine life on the boat trip we go on and who kept on encouraging and reassuring me to believe that everything will fall into place in spite of the financial and logistical odds (and they magically did!). Right from arranging for a dive master and dive gear to be transported from Kuta to Tanjung Luar (thank you Discovery Divers for helping to make the impossible possible by agreeing to my crazy requests) to ensuring that Andrew managed to get to Lombok given the short window of time he had before his major leg operation and amidst limited leaves from work left for him then, I think it was really a miracle that everything aligned and we pulled it off. I just can’t wait to see and show off the lovely underwater photos Andrew took while diving in the snorkel sites we frequent. The boy is truly talented and I would love to see him take this passion in underwater photography to greater heights and for greater oceanic good.

I even had the honour of having a once National Geographic photographer on this trip as well, coming along to document the trip as part of his independent film project on shark fin and Indonesia, titled Findonesia. He was all heart and I had the most hearteningly deep and soulful conversations with him about how depressing and disheartening it can sometimes be, being burdened by the ills of the world upon the environment and the oceans, yet pressing on in faith of the goodness of mankind to make positivie change with increasing awareness of problems. I believe awareness should be empowering and not disillusioning. Thank you for the sincere and heartfelt review on Tripadvisor you gave for The Dorsal Effect, I have been greatly humbled and encouraged by my encounter with you.

All the amazing fishermen I have met at Tanjung Luar who now call me kawan; Sidik, Abdul Karim, Suhardi, Ophi. I long to transform Tanjung Luar into a place with sustainable income options through marine conservation educational ecotourism and sustainable fishing options for you. Where only live and not dead sharks are seen in the waters off the fish market. I don’t know how exactly to get there yet but as Xander, suggested, I think I should hazard asking Richard Branson for a hand? 😉 Because really, nothing is truly impossible as long as the mind can conceive, right?

For the many moments I have felt so helpless, I must remember too the countless moments where the stars aligned, real life angels appeared to give a lift and miracles happened.

On the flight to Lombok yesterday, I realised I have been on budget flights so much I haven’t seen a TV screen in front of me for a plane ride in such a long while that I kinda wanted to cry, thankful in my heart to Bill O Donnell for sharing about the Voucherlicious cheap flights deal for Qatar Airways, Singapore to Bali, on his Facebook wall a month back. I chose to watch the movie, Mandela, because I needed to be inspired and reminded of the importance of patience and biding one’s time. Thank you for having shaped my life since reading your book Long Walk to Freedom back when I was 15, Mr Nelson Mandela, you’re my long standing hero whose spirit I want to emulate and bring greater good in the world.

So here I am back in Lombok right now with the DDB team who are helping Our Better World on their first collaborative project of a video on The Dorsal Effect, I am truly blessed that they chose to give us a hoist by filming the project, and eventually sharing the story. There are many many more good things to come too, a TV crew in June and even possibly Blackfish movie screenings on the Sharksavers side for World Oceans Month. Soldiering on!

 

 

Sunsets and sunrise

 

The sunsets in Lombok are always spectacular if it’s not the rainy season, and on days of dusk as this, I like to be able to find little pockets of time to get behind the computer to reflect in serenity a little, with the beautiful sunset hues in the background.

So the last few weeks has seen a lot more ups and downs recently again. With a successful dating coach entrepreneur giving the lowdown that if my business is not successful and my bank account is depleting, I am not being responsible to the fishermen, it hit hard but what she said made a lot of sense and I am really lost sometimes too, about just how to get the demand going on a regular enough basis to lure the shark fishermen towards the alternative. I had a good presentation in front of the NTU Earthlink committee the weekend before departing for Lombok again on this trip and it really fuelled me up to see a enrapt audience with a quick buy in and swift follow ups on how they could help and be involved. That to me was an encouraging success. I got my first piece of paid writing up on Our Better World’s website (http://ourbetterworld.org/story/keeping-faith), which, if nothing else, was at least a personal milestone for me.

Yet deep down, I know I have so many so many more battles and demons within to battle with. Being back here in Lombok, I am updated about a supposed large fishing vessel out in the middle of the Indian Ocean, close to the Australian borders, where fishing and shark boats can go to trade their sharks or other seafood caught. or even approach to restock or refuel their supplies so they could stay out at sea for longer. No one seems to know or dare to share enough information about this vessel. Not where it’s from nor who it belongs to, but everyone knows of its existence there, and about 100 shark boats have been seen trading on it than at Tanjung Luar. Suddenly it seemed the problem wasn’t localised for me anymore. Perhaps shark fishing could be stopped in Tanjung Luar, but who’s to say it cannot still happen someplace else, worse if in the the middle of the ocean where there is no territorial borders. It again feels like I’ve hit a brickwall.

So I tried to keep spirits up going to check out a local elementary school in Kuta for possibilities of doing exchange with schools in Singapore or the likes, as part of a community involvement and marine conservation package to Lombok. At least get the locals involved in and be a part of ocean sustainability and the need to keep the oceans clean, with the help of students from other parts of the world, so the idea that we are all interconnected and that the oceans are shared, can be passed on to the local community here.

I guess I can try to keep my heads up and try and stay positive, but as long as I am not getting my numbers for the boat trip constant enough and going, ecotourism is not going to be a viable alternative for the shark fishermen here anytime soon. As long as my my bank account dwindles with the shark populations, I find hope a more and more distant apparition to hold on to. I know I am trying to put up a brave front with the publicity and encouraging posts on The Dorsal Effect’s Facebook page but let’s be honest, the fear in my gets greater and greater and I don’t know at which point (if any at all), do I decide that giving up is even an option. Is there any other way around this? I feel bad for the countless angels who have supported me on this journey thus far, but still, I’m really looking for a light amidst my constant struggles as I wonder if I even have the skill sets and capabilities to save sharks as I want.

Building on the dream for 2014

It has been slightly more than a year since I first came into contact with Lombok and Tanjung Luar fish market and as I look back on the year, I find it important to take stock as well as look ahead with even more focus.

I have seen, experienced and learnt much from the countless times at the Tanjung Luar fish market, and come into contact with several conservationists along the way, while trying to keep my emotions in check and getting to know the community and the fishermen there as well. I’ve learnt the importance of building relationships and staying on the path over the course of 2013, even at times when I just don’t know what to do. Several people have come to the fish market to photograph the shark catch at Tanjung Luar and posted them on social media platforms to spark outrage yet what does an outcry on the internet do, albeit viral? The visitations are one off and merely a snapshot of the bigger picture of the whole situation in Indonesia itself yet I have fallen victim to posting at an emotional high when I first visited the fish market, and sporadically still at times. In my recent trip, I was truly heartened to have met the Wildlife Conservation Society guys photographing and documenting the shark catches there for a period of 4 months to put in place a proposal for the fishery department in Indonesia and it is always heartening to see local Indonesians working on it. Was also heartened to learn that they have heard about what I am doing and are also planning on capturing the angle from the fishermen’s perspective in their documenting as well.

I guess for what I am doing in Tanjung Luar, maybe it is time to put emotions aside and really focus on making the dreams for action a reality and as the year winds down and we go about making resolutions again, I want to remind myself to dream big and be bold as I write down the realities I want to see happening in Tanjung Luar through The Dorsal Effect:

1) steady stream of boat trip tourists from around the world, such that all the shark fishermen from Tanjung Luar will get a chance to rotate around in taking the tourists out on their shark boats and have equitable income among all.

2) steady stream of corporates and schools coming for the boat trip to raise the awareness and educational value of marine conservation and to experience the beauty of open oceans.

3) Development of responsible and environment conscious travelling culture in Lombok.

4) Legislation in place to prevent shark fishermen from the surrounding islands from hulling in their shark catches for trading at Tanjung Luar fish market.

5) Development of eco friendly resorts and shark and marine conservation materials and merchandise for sale at a transformed and converted Tanjung Luar.

It’s a great end to the year to have caught The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and learn the lessons of the need to fight hard and long unseen for the things we believe in. Also, as we live in a world where job hopping is common and company motto unknown or nonexistent anymore unlike Life magazine’s powerful “To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, draw closer,to find each other and to feel. That is the purpose of life.”, I shall move on with the motto that shall keep me going too “to live in a world where our children and our children’s children can still sharks alive and swim free with them in the oceans”. I’d like to believe that company culture and motto is still important in today’s day and age and are still the things that keep us up and going each day at work as mine fuels me on.

Let’s go, 2014, it’s going to be a blast.

Swimming upstream

Our fifth ever boat excursion the day before did not start off very well at all, we walked around the fish market and I saw a horrific number of sharks caught this morning. A row of about 20 juvenile ones and about 6 full grown, 2 of which were looked like the Great hammerheads…

I realised that the people in the shark abattoir seemed unfamiliar to me this time, not the usual fishermen I use to see or talk to, and I found out from Agus later that they were not fishermen from Lombok, possibly fishermen from the neighbouring islands. Tanjung Luar is still such a main trading centre for fish and sharks and suddenly the problem seemed so much bigger to me at that instance. I felt lost and a little crushed and my guests were horrified at the sight of the shark carcasses. Is this my battle to fight or a lost cause as I seem to be swimming upstream all the time. I try to build relationships slowly, I understand the needs and pains of some of the fishermen living in Tanjung Luar, and then I see this for myself and wonder if I am approaching this the wrong way. You can see dead sharks constantly but the the fact of the ongoing deaths still pierced at the heart as I broke down in a corner after we walked away. Wasn’t it just the day before that I received an update from Shark Savers that shark prices in Tanjung Luar has gone down by 80%? It is not lucrative and just too much work, surely they have to see the value of the tourist dollar? And it hit me that perhaps targetting the fishermen in Tanjung Luar wasn’t going to work, I needed the help of legislation and enforcement, but who could I approach or who do I know? I want shark fishing to be stopped here and I wanted the Lombok government to see that ecotourism is really the sustainable and long term answer to a country whose shores are so rich with reefs and marine life like no other, but is quickly being decimated. The irony of tourists wanting to seek out pristine beaches and reefs to visit yet the local population are looting and plundering their own resources without realizing that preserving these assets can bring them so much more in the long run. Legislation, education and incentive.

As we set out on our boat excursion, I saw something I hadn’t seen before at my favourite snorkel site just off pink beach too. Yes the waters were still crystal clear and there was still an array of teeming marine life, but I noticed there was some bleaching that was happening to the corals now that I hadn’t noticed before too. Are the oceans becoming warmer that the effects pervade to these calm inner reefs now, or did something happen here that was a result my of bringing tourists here. I am left disturbed and very conflicted indeed.

At the end of the excursion as we came back ashore, the fishermen led Agus to his house which was a stone’s throw from the fish market and handed him some bags of rocks because he learnt that Agus was in the midst of building his house and was in need of materials he had that he could spare. I was really heartened by the gesture and truly, the Indonesians have a gotong royong community spirit to help one another, which is why building relationships with them is so crucial in what I set out to do. A community that works together for positive change in the world can be a powerful force when harnessed.

There are many questions and problems that keep coming up in this journey and there have been so many moments where I have felt so small and so alone in the choice to plough ahead, but with Agus’ brilliant mind and sincere belief that this will work and with the heartening replies from people I have never even met before, on the Facebook post I made the morning before, I know I gotta keep swimming and working with the angels I have continually been blessed to encounter.

Thank you, all of you, for echoing the cause and fighting alongside me as well so I never feel alone.

YSE final pitch and reflections

So the weekend went by in a whirl and I was pretty much still in shock by Monday at having been one of the winning teams for Singapore International Foundation’s Young Social Entrepreneur’s Programme 2013. For the days leading up to the final pitch, I was actually fraught with a bag of mixed emotions that ran the gamut from fear to uncertainty and even doubt. Even the weeks leading up to the pitch saw me still meeting people but having them share that they find me losing steam already. Perhaps the strain of financial instability and lack of interested tourists willing to come for a boat trip was taking its toll on me.

Being the extrovert that I am, I decided to just let loose and go for a retro themed networking party 2 days before final pitching day and meeting all these new people really got my energy level up as I learnt to let loose and share about The Dorsal Effect in a charming and playful rather than serious way, hoping that would be the lure for the excited traveler. What I was definitely not expecting, was to meet Nicholas Leong of Kenyan Riders (wasn’t he supposed to still be in Kenya?). Imagine my shock when I saw him and shouted his name out as if he was an old buddy when the only time I had ever met him was one-sidedly, on the TV screen, in a TV show that showcased Singaporeans abroad and the amazing things they were doing. Thank goodness he took to the star-struck me kindly and we ended up chatting heartily and soulfully about life, windows of opportunity for creatives, the Singapore expectations and being active vs reactive, most parts of the night. It was a much needed pick-me-up, to actually hear from a hero I look up to, about the uncharted path he had chosen to take and press on with, and he left me with a hearty bear hug and piles of encouragement by the end of the night.

So pitching day 12th October morning came and as I made my way up the Scape escalator to the pitching room, emotions flooded me over as I looked back upon this journey on The Dorsal Effect thus far…the conception, the trips to Lombok, the countless networking sessions I had put myself into, the many rejections from potential social venture capitalists and government start up grants, the competitions I had taken part in and failed to make it through subsequent rounds, the naysayers who admired my courage but said the idea was never gonna work, the not having a comfortable teacher salary to travel freely anymore…everything culminated and I just broke down before stepping into the room. But I eventually listened earnestly to each and every pitch before and after mine to truly be rejuvenated and reinstate believe in humanity in me again, truly heartened by all these efforts and amazing projects for change that I hope would come to fruition, seed funding or not, and when it was my turn, I think I really put my heart and soul into the pitch and ended with me choking up.

Fast forward to results announcement and prize presentation after the showcase to public session and when I heard “The Dorsal Effect” announced as the third winner, I was left in a state of shock that by the time I made it up on stage, tearing ceaselessly, I fell into the embrace of SIF’s dear ED, Ms Jean Tan. Even as I gave my 90 second pitch after the plaque presentation was I still choking up and fighting back tears, repeating phrases, truly the worst pitch ever…haha. Finally, beyond the seed funding amount, the win lent a lot more legitimacy and credibility to the business plan than ever before and that was truly a milestone.

So the last few days thereafter gave me moments to register and properly take in what had happened and look at things retrospectively again and I started again to see just how amazingly and magically beautiful life truly is and that everything really happens for a reason. Right from the point when I bumped into lifelong Irish band loves, Ash at the Bangkok airport after Sonic Bang which became a sign for meeting the most amazing Irish couple Elisha and Aidan (who happened to be travelling in Southeast Asia at that time! What were the amazing odds besides the stars being aligned??) on The Dorsal Effect’s first ever boat trip. And then I realized the Kenya link too, and how I really wanted to meet Nicholas Leong when I volunteered in Kenya earlier this year but didn’t get to because someone up there had a better time for me to meet him, at my lowest just before the YSE final pitch, to give me just the believe in me too and the boost I needed…wow personal heroes are truly special like that.

So yes, I had a panic attack yet again yesterday, thinking about my dwindling finances (the YSE $10,000 grant is meant to grow the business after all) but today I got white roses from dear Pam as a form of congratulations for the win and a reminder to always remain pure in my intentions and vision for The Dorsal Effect as I take it forward. As I plan for the upcoming return to Lombok hoping to make more headway and legitimatize the business amidst trying to actively get tourists already in Lombok to sign up for the boat trips and preparing for the upcoming talks at NUS, Ecosystems SG and Chaos Asia, I will go forth with believe as I look out for the signs and persist in the dream for the sharks, the beautiful giants of the deep whom I hope my grandchildren will still get a chance to swim freely with in the oceans. Stay pure in the dream, stay focused, keep walking on, and perhaps that is how the stars will decide to align again and help things fall into place. 🙂

Tanjung Luar day 2 on 23rd May 2013

We made our way back to Tanjung Luar fish market again the following morning with Peter this time and we were in for some shocking finds this time.

We got to the market at about 5.45am and saw the trucks unloading styrofoam ice boxes of catches from the day before, for sale. We stood at the harbour for a while waiting to see the catch for the day and it wasn’t before long that a handful of baby hammerhead sharks were brought it, much disturbing to see the local women holding them by their heads to be brought into the market though…

A boat with dolphin pictures painted on it caught my attention. It docked for a while but no crew was emerging from it, nor was anything being unloaded for the next half an hour or so. As I sat down with a fishermen to get information about his life as a boat crew for a shark boat, we started to see big black carcasses being removed from the hull of the dolphin boat but not being unloaded. Agus said it was dolphins that they had in their boat and I was horrified. I had heard about the stringent laws against catching of lumba-lumbas (dolphins) several times when I had come to Tanjung Luar before and had thought it was in place already yet today we saw the dead dolphins for ourselves, rising from a black market demand for them. The boat moved away from the harbour as they saw us nearing with our cameras and started unloading them unto a smaller boat discreetly from a distance. As the small boat docked behind the harbour and were being unloaded, we saw them trying to hide the 5 dolphin (Long Beaked Common Dolphin species) carcasses in between what looked like square furnaces extending from the ground. It was a grim moment for us all as we stood by to capture the images but with sinking hearts, no less.

More baby scalloped baby hammerhead sharks were also seen and looking at the increasingly smaller sizes of the sharks being caught at Tanjung Luar, it really feels like time is running out despite the CITES ruling against all species of hammerhead sharks being caught.

Trip 3 to Lombok, back to Tanjung Luar Day 1, May 22nd 2013

Things fall into place when you meet the face behind Aquatic Alliance, the Rays research and educational outreach guys from Lembongan Island whom I had been following on Facebook very closely for their awesome rays underwater shots, for a while now!

So before we got to meeting Aquatic Alliance’s Peter with Gili Ecotrust’s Delphine Robbe in Senggigi today, it was back to Tanjung Luar fish market again for me this morning after a five month hiatus. Many things seemed to have changed since then though. There was a new jetty built with kelong style extension floating platforms, the abattoirs with wide open spaces where the sharks were usually laid out, examined by traders and butchered had repainted walls and new abattoirs in the process of being built, the sharks were brought in a lot earlier and were much MUCH younger. The officially sign which said there was to be no killing of thresher sharks and dolphins, which had been put up and half ripped out when I first came in September last year and ¾ ripped when I saw in December again now left not even a trance of its previous existence.

We saw a total of 4 piles of sharks, all no bigger than 1.5metres long maximum.

The first pile had 5 baby sharks, I am guessing only about 1-3 years old including ray sharks, reef sharks and black tip sharks.

The next pile we saw was in the shed were the sharks were usually laid out, a total of 12 sharks maybe slightly older than the first pile, about juveniles up to 2 metres long and which included white tip, black tip and hammerhead sharks.

Just as we were photographing the second pile, a stack of about 15 baby sharks (what looked like leopard sharks to us but we couldn’t be sure), still writhing about were brought in and as they gasped for breath and struggled in vain to get out from the cluster I found it extremely hard to hold back on emotions.

The subsequent pile we saw was out beside the trucks were they were usually loaded up after sale. It consisted of about 12 juvenile sharks, slightly smaller then the second pile ones in the shed, which included about 6 hammerhead sharks and 2 other shark species I was not able to identify.

Agus shared about how the government has plans to build a new shark market at Labuhan Lombok near the harbour for boats to Sumbawa and I found tat a most unsettling piece of news instead.

We found out that during a “good” season month where many sharks can be caught thanks to strong currents and colder waters, the monthly wage for shark fishermen was: Rp20million for captain, Rp20million divided out among the rest of the crew of about 4-5 boatmen (who were usually badly treated with unfair wages and made to cough out amounts from their already lower wages to pay for maintenance of boat facilities and repairs. On bad season months, fishermen could be expected to take home nothing. So that’s the wages I have to match without exploiting the fishermen.

The silver lining for the day, perhaps, was that it was good to hear the fishermen sharing about having heard rumours about Singapore already banning import of shark fin soup and how they felt the impact in Hong Kong that less restaurants are importing so they resort to exporting the dried fins to Surabaya instead, fetching lower prices than beforere.

Shark Savers Educational Outreach and me

So I realized that a very much bigger part of my life this year thus far has been Shark Savers and having the freedom and flexibility of time to be able to go around the schools giving assembly or CCA group shark conservation talls. Each one giving me more confidence and courage to fight on for the cause to save the sharks because of the encouraging responses. Children and youths are always my pet group to talk to, them with their impressionable ways that makes it easy to ignite a passion for sharks, when you first speak with fervour and passion as well.

Talking to little pre-schoolers at Between Two Trees and Little Skool Kent Vale was eye opening when I was reminded again about how the little brain has so much greater capacity to remember facts and figures. Most heartening indeed to hear the 5-7 year olds spewing shark facts and listing the species so enthusiastically, those moments were gold.

Going back alone to alma mater, Saint Andrew’s Junior College to speak to the Environmental Club students recently also proved fruitful, it’s always the spark in the eyes and the endless questions from the students, amidst the presentations, that always fires me up and I truly believe the power for change lies in the hands of our youth. Each successful presentation with heartening responses and fired up vows against eating shark fin soup or starting of a new initiative against shark fin soup on the students’ part for school projects and the likes, rouses me to want to reach out to as many schools in Singapore as I possibly can.

Time is running out for the sharks. Interior designer and property agent friends always ask me when would I start getting my dream home. There isn’t a thing as a dream home for me, just a shared world made beautiful because everyone else takes responsibility for being part of the share as well. I believe in a better world, I believe we can save the sharks, I believe the end of shark fin soup eating culture is going to happen in my lifetime and I truly believe my children and my children’s children can still see sharks alive. 🙂