Date: 11th July -12th July 2008
Sibu Kelong has been a good fishing spot for my fishing gang and all of us were pretty satisfied with the fishing and food served during most of our trip. Since there are 4 Kelong at Sibu and we have been patronizing Ah Fatt and Ah Ngan Kelong, Richard, our fishing team leader suggested to give HB Kelong a try.
Driving to Sedilli before Sunrise
FYI, HB Kelong, was a well-known Sibu Kelong for Singaporean as the management is run by a few Singaporean and it was well-advertised in the Fishing forum as well as other websites. However, if you are making a booking from Singapore, the prices will be slightly different from what Malaysian is paying. The best way to save some money is to book your trip through a Malaysian friend.
Recently, in a Fishing forum, forumers informed that the service from HB had deteriorated and many anglers had since decided to switch their holiday to other better Kelongs. Despite of believing what was being circulating in the forum, it will be best to judge the Kelong standard by ourselves since all of us strongly believed that how badly can it be if it’s still being managed by Singaporean.
Lately, the infamous Custom jam at the checkpoint has becoming worst and most drivers were cursing and swearing for waiting almost 3 hours to clear the Singapore custom due to the tight security check. In order to avoid the jam, our meeting time was push forward to 5am early in the morning. To my surprised, we are able to clear the custom within half an hour and eventually, we have indeed hell lots of time to kill. Well, i'm damn sure Richard will be cursing me for meeting at such wee hours and moreover scarifying his precious sleeping time......So sorry for my poor judgement guys!
Our usual Breakfast spot was closed for renovation and luckily, we are able to find another coffeeshop with good Penang Style Fried noodle. After our breakfast at Johore, the 5 of us setoff to Tanjung Leman at 0630am, which we were expected to reach our destination at around 8am which is an approximately 1.5 hour early from our boarding time. The journey to Tanjung Leman was not much of slow traffic causing by the slowing moving trucks as it was still early. At roughly 0830am, we reached our familiar Ferry terminal and without any delay, i called up the Kelong in-charge telling him that we had arrived earlier and whether we are able to go up the Kelong earlier. The replied from the in-charged was way too good to be true as he said that the boat will be reaching the Jetty in a short while.
Our "Barang"Hearing that the boat is coming to pick us up soon, all of us were eagered to board the boat and began to move our item to the security point. However, we were told that the ferry was share among the Kelong and will only set off when the customer of the other Kelong arrived which ended up waiting almost for 2 hours or so at the Jetty. Hmmm....we were too naïve!
While waiting for the boat arrival, Richard and Darren decided to have some childhood game in catching fighting spider.....and soon, 2 male spiders were caught for some battle but the fight was neither interesting nor thrilling. The 2 fighter was not in the mood to fight at all. It was indeed fun catching and playing with these insect and it really does kill our time while waiting for the ferry.
The Battle between the spiders
Kar Seng....what are you looking at???
Still have to wait for how long for the boat?
The familiar Kelong fishing gang
Eventually, at roughly 1030am we are on the HB Kelong. Our first impression was the place was clean and luckily not many people on board. Without further a do, we setup our gears and went to the kitchen area immediately to catch some rabbit fish but the fun was not for long as the rabbit fish we had caught are those “XS” size and in the end, all of us venture for other species. After catching a few Rabbit fish, Darren approached the Kelong asisstant for some ice to fill up our icebox in order to freeze our fish,bait and also our cold drinks. However, the replied from the Kelong asisstant was "NO ICE" and hence, our catch and baits had turned bad within a few hours.
Its Rabbit fish time
Rabbit on Treble hook
Darren with his Rabbit fish landed
Fishing was a disaster at the Kelong and all of us had no luck either on the fishing or squid jigging although there was an Uncle landed a few piece of green-eyed squid right in front of us.....What a day for a bunch of cats!!!
Does the lunch looks appealing to you?
C'mom..dun complaint..just eat it!In the afternoon, a bunch of 20 overs Singaporean teens came to HB and they were just in time for the lunch. The ladies was a distraction to Richard, who can't really help to look over every once a while. The lunch was utterly not to my liking as this Kelong was known to have food below average standard....anyway...we are here for fishing rather than eating and that's the reason why we came to HB. Our fishing after lunch was not as good as before and after couple of hours of fruitless fishing, I finally gave up and went straight to my bed for some afternoon nap while Richard and Kar Seng went for some thrilling Todak action.
"Master...u know how to fish todak?"
"I'm the todak killer..BEWARE!!!"
"Look master...i caught a todak" Kar Seng happily fishing todak
"Guys.....stop pretending fishing"Dinner was a boring affair and after the 9:30pm supper, Richard and i retired to our bed for some good sleep as we have totally gave up fishing at this Kelong. Seriously, it was totally unbelievable as we are here to sleep rather than fishing.
Sunset at Sibu
The only Squid caught by Richard
Surecatch Squid jig is effective
We woke up the next morning and informed the helper of our intention to get out of this place at the earliest possible boat without taking our lunch; we were absolutely disappointed with the catch and the so called "Below Average"meals they served.
What a sad trip
On the way back to Singapore, we stopped over at the infamous Sedilli Bak Gu Teh stall to have a better or decent meal. In fact, Its was the best meal i had within the 24hrs of outing. After the 1.5hours of jam at the Custom, I finally reach home.
While i'm at the Kelong, i'm feeling more depressing rather than relaxing and all in my mind is "OMG, How I wish I’m at home rather than at this Kelong". Urrh..anyway,...this boy is not that "HOT" after all....."Believe it or not, it will be my very first and last visit to HB Kelong".
