Fish Farm visit

Starting the day early on a fish farm is just another day for Messers Ah Poh and Maung. Along with two marmalade-colored mongrels, Char-bor and New New, they guard the farm against maurauders... and pirates! Pirates in the form of Brahminy Kites who occasionally swoop down into the glistening sea and into the floating fish enclosures for an easy catch. There are juvenile tilapia and snappers, ready-for-market mangrove jacks, lobsters and prawns. Clusters of fat green mussles cling onto the ropes, nets, barrels and everything that hung in the water.

Today's maurauders were of the two-legged kind, gingerly balancing on wooden rafters and floating drums, peering into the twenty or so fish pens. As we sheltered from the sun under the zinc-roofed shed, we watched anglers on small boats and kayakers bobbing in the sea. Hugging the outer tidal islands are clusters of mangrove trees which provide food and shelter for fingerlings, mud-skippers and little critters. It is so nice to be able to sit and observe quietly, away from the maddening crowd of city living. Bliss.

Hey..What's missing are some ice-cold spritzer.

By noon with the sun at its strongest, activities on the farm started to slow down. The fishes have been fed, bird nettings cast over the fish pens, aeration for the juvenile fish pens monitored and time for the workers to retreat into the shade. It was also time for the mauraders to leave with their haul of large sea prawns all nicely iced and bagged. As we climbed into the motor boat, we waved goodbye to our newly formed friends, both on two and four-legged, and chugged our way back to the jetty.