Mussel Farm Kelong

Sunday morning and we decided at the last minute to go to the hubbys friend's kelong. After a quick call to confirm the time, we headed for Jalan Kayu to buy otak, bread and some yutiao for our lunch. We arrived at the run-down jetty at about 11am and waited for his friend.

It was low tide and we could see many mudskippers, snails, tiny liitle crabs and hermit crabs crawling all over the beach. It was fun. We even caught 2 hermit crabs which we thought we can rear at home.

At 11.30, hubby's friend arrived with his son and we hopped into a speedboat and off we went. The trip lasted no more than 5 minutes and the kids were absolutely thrilled!

The kelong is a mussel farm and I found out from the uncle there that they just let down the ropes and the mussels and barnacles will attach themselves to it and they will then harvest it after a few months. Then they have to dry the ropes again before they let it down, otherwise the eggs will not be able to attach itself to the ropes.

The kelong is quite a fruit haven. There were rose apple tree (above), orange tree, lime tree and chiku tree and many others that I do not recognise. According to an auntie, they even grew vegetables but for some reason, they stopped. There was also a chicken coop that Kyle and Meryl were happily scaring the chickens and sending them flapping all over the place.

The hubby couldn't wait to start fishing and dumped the kids with me. They explored the place with me running after them lest they fall into the water. Meryl was busy feeding the fish with bread while Kyle was ALL over. In the end, I couldn't care less and let them be.

They had otak(no chilli) with bread for their lunch and I even did some marking whilst I was there. Then I tried to get the kids to sleep on a foldable chair but they ended up fighting with each other over it. By this time, I was also busy fishing and couldn't be bothered. Luckily they were able to self-entertain each other. Kyle played mostly with Patrick Kor kor and Meryl was happy just on her own.

There were heaps of bread (all expired and mouldy) given by confectionary to be fed to the fish at a nearby kelong. The workers were busy removing them from their wrappers and Meryl happily took the bread to feed 'her' fish. We used the mussels as bait for the fish and I managed to catch about 3 but 2 of which were catfish.

Patrick caught this fish and we also managed to catch quite a few of this towards the early evening. Patrick's dad went hunting for fish literally with gun and arrows. He also managed to catch quite a few fish. I was worried for a while when I did not see him surface after a long time.

We only left at about 6 and my 2 kids did not nap at all. Meryl got punished for getting into the speedboat without waiting for us. Once we were in the car, she knocked out almost immediately followed by Kyle. Picked up helper on route to fil's place.