malaysia – Sea Gypsy Stories

March 2021, No. 4

Missed the blog deadline again, sorry. However, this time it’s because I don’t quite know how to undertake writing about 1994. To quote Mr. Dickens: “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times”, the best being the birth of our darling daughter Jade and the worst being Daniel’s untimely and tragic demise. I appear to have two main methods of dealing with what the universe throws at me; firstly I have developed an irreverent sense of humour and secondly I use what I call the ostrich method of life, that is I bury my head in the sand and simply carry on regardless with apparent stoicism and scant regard for finance. When I talk about the tragic events of that year my listeners can see the reality behind my eyes, my humour or flippant story telling can be seen to be what it is, a cover for the enduring pain and emotional devastation caused by the loss. The same words on a page cannot convey that but I do not apologise for keeping this blog light, it is meant to be fun, and let’s face it, some of the best comedy ever is gallows humour!

In rereading 1993 I realise I completely forgot to relate the fact that Daniel decided he hated the resort business. I believe it was in the April or May that he sat me down in the restaurant and very seriously told me that he was awfully sorry but this resort malarkey really wasn’t for him. Essentially this life was the stuff that young single chaps dreams are made of and that now, as father with a second child on the way, this was not what he should be doing or where we should be living.

A quick aside here for all of you that are thinking Sea Gypsy is a perfectly acceptable place for a couple with pre school children… it is NOW. In 1993 we were still trying to clean up a filthy cockroach, rat, snake and mosquito infested piece of land with wild dogs running all over the place. With no reliable communication and only a 40hp boat to get us to the mainland in all weather conditions living with babies in that environment can also be worrisome.

I controlled my natural instinct to beat him about the head screaming “I told you so!” and asked him what he thought he might like to do now? He had absolutely no idea but would “start looking seriously”. If I’m honest I didn’t pay an enormous amount of attention to all the ideas and possibilities, as long as it meant moving off an island to somewhere with infrastructure (oh to have mains electricity, air conditioning and running hot water!) I didn’t care. Daniel was a grafter, he was always the first up and would happily labour outside till sundown and then carry on working inside until bedtime. A qualified commercial diver as well as scuba diving instructor, he was an underwater photographer, a paramedic and, believe it or not, a potter. He was handsome, charming and well educated and finding work would not be a problem, I trusted him absolutely. Nancy’s fun companionship and baby whispering skills meant I didn’t mind his absences during the week in order to find whatever it was he wanted to do.

Fast forward to 27^th January 1994 and Jade Victoria Hali Wills entered the world twenty minutes after we arrived at the hospital in the middle of the night. You will probably (not) remember that Richard was born at 8.20 p.m., a sensible time as one can then have a jolly good nights rest and leave hospital the following day. In fact Richard was always an easy baby, from seven weeks old he slept from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m., as long as you fed him all day he slept all night. He rarely cried and was generally happy and smiley. I remember Nancy asking me when I got pregnant again so quickly: “But what if you have a normal baby this time?” I was blissfully unaware of what she spoke.

By March 1994 we were back on Pulau Sibu but without Nancy, who had gone back to her London life, nannying for the rich and famous. I was learning what it was like to have a baby that thought being awake during the night was great fun and if you didn’t want to join her… well what else were we given a good pair of lungs for? The battle lines were drawn! My darling girl never changed, she never understood why it was ok for adults to tell her what to do. That is until, ironically, she started nannying & tutoring in London whilst at university, heaven forbid she would ever let a child not listen to her.

Having two babies back to back at the age of 40 would be pretty tiring at the best of times but add to that contending with nature on a daily basis, plus helping to get a fledgling resort up and running, and I required some help. Whereas I needed Nancy the year before as a teacher, now all I needed was an extra pair of hands occasionally. Luckily our lovely house keepers Pai and Mai adored the children and loved helping to look after them, as did our boat driver’s wife Azi, who fell in love with Jadie baby and constantly wandered off with her. However, at some point a lovely Finish girl named Paivi came to be the children’s nanny. I’ve been wracking my brain to think how, why and exactly when, since I already had help and we weren’t that busy, but I cannot for the life of me remember. Apparently the gods knew that we would be in need of her and so she came into our lives.

Talking about contending with nature made me think of a story that happened in 1993 but I don’t care, I shall digress. Richard was sitting on the floor in our house when I saw him put at millipede in his mouth, or a songololo as we used to call them thanks to our South African partner. Horrified I told Nancy to take it out. Even more horrified she told me I didn’t pay her enough money to take it out. I pointed out that she had shorter nails so she should do it, and so it went on as we both stood looking at Richard, who was too young to understand the words “spit it out”. Before either of us did anything he swallowed it and carried on playing. I recall looking at each other, shrugging and then ignoring the whole thing. As I mentioned before, the ostrich method of life, jolly handy in situations of that sort.

While Daniel was still on the search for a new (ad)venture, for marketing purposes he was still very much in touch with old contacts from the Maldives, bringing us two large groups of divers that year, one from Germany and one from Italy, and his network of friends in the area of his youth, Malaysia & Singapore. One of those friends was the current Sultan of Johor, or TMJ as we knew him in 1994. They often went diving together as he owned a very snazzy kelong (traditionally a fish farm on stilts in the sea) off the coast of Pulau Tinggi, visible from our beach. Out of the blue Daniel announced that they were going into business to run the kelong as an exclusive getaway. OK, but how would that get me and the children off the island, all it would do is add to Daniel’s work load. I assume you can hear the echo of my nagging even now? Well, after much preparation and an expensive photo shoot for the brochure (no drones for aerial shots in those days), where the male model didn’t turn up and Daniel had to step in, the project was dropped and the bookings cancelled. I do know why but I have no intention of sharing that with you here, however you can see the nice brochure I kept as a souvenir.

When it came to religion Daniel and I were 180⁰ diametrically opposed as with most things in our lives, in our case the old adage that opposites attract was certainly true. I didn’t get my religious beliefs from my parents, rather from being sent to a High Church of England primary school and a Church of England grammar school thus quite naturally making it part of my every day life. Not to mention the fact that from a very young age until teen years I had been packed off to church every Sunday morning with my brother and my cousins. It never occurred to us it was a simple way for the parents to have some piece and quiet on a Sunday morning. Besides, we enjoyed the social side of church and were all cubs, brownies, scouts & guides and the youth club was the only mixed socialising we got to do as we all went to same sex schools. The only thing Daniel believed in was nature but he said if he had to be anything he’d probably be Buddhist. Having been married by a registrar in Sri Lanka the question of religious ceremonies had not come up before. However, I felt strongly about having any children christened and, since the subject was firmly categorised by Daniel as not worth arguing over, we serendipitously decided to take the choice of godparents very seriously.

I’ve just remembered more strange but true stories (the first being the fire and the sea witches, keep up!) so more digression. Strolling along Kurumba jetty in the Maldives to go and play tennis with my friend Julia she asked who Richard’s godparents would be. Julia was British but we’d met in the Maldives and as far as I knew we didn’t have any mutual friends in the UK. I told her a school friend of Daniel’s and a school friend of mine, both of whom were British. She then inanely asked their names, I asked why, was she expecting to know them and we burst out laughing but I told her anyway, James and Margaret. She used to hang out with the godfather’s older brothers when growing up! Seriously what are the odds? We chose an Australian friend of Daniel’s, Peter, to be Jade’s godfather, and a lovely girl Daniel knew from growing up in Singapore, Francesca, who we’d reconnected with in the Maldives, to be the godmother. Standing on the driveway at Francesca’s parent’s home in Singapore as Peter’s taxi arrived, her mother, Michelle, started laughing. I had never met Peter before but as he got out of the car he was also laughing. I watched, amazed and confused, as they fell into each others arms greeting each other effusively. I heard Michelle ask after Peter’s mother only to find out that they were such good friends the families had often spent time together when the children were younger and that Peter and Francesca had grown up together. Daniel and I had absolutely no idea they even knew each other… freaky or what?!

In April 1994 I headed to Singapore to make arrangements for the christening, choosing St. George’s. It’s a lovely church I’d come across when walking as it’s near the British Embassy and the Botanic Gardens. I was incensed when the vicar refused to christen Richard & Jade on the grounds we were not regular church goers. How could we be when we had been living on islands in Muslim countries for the last 9 years? Did the fact I listened to the BBC world service church service every week count for nothing? What happened to “suffer the little children” and surely the whole point was to welcome children into the church even if their parents should happen to be philistines? The chap would not budge and I returned home extremely vexed, which absolutely galvanised Daniel into action. He wasn’t having some vicar refuse to christen his children and upset his wife, he would sort it! True to his word he found a lovely vicar at St. Christopher’s Anglican Church in Johor Bahru who actually agreed to come to Pulau Sibu and conduct the ceremony. We set a date for the end of September and sent invitations out all over the world, deciding to close the resort to guests for a few days. Family and friends would all come to see our new home, meet the babies and party. I was so excited, it was all going to be such fun!

Finally in June Daniel got a job offer he did want, the Manager, water side, of a new multi million dollar project in Desaru called Sebana Cove Marina. It incorporated so many things he enjoyed, was well paid and came with a house on the golf course, a car and expenses. It was close enough to Pulau Sibu for us to be able to retain an interest in Sea Gypsy but allowed for us to have a proper family life. I also loved that it was right next to Tanjung Belungkor and the Changi car ferry, therefore easy access to Singapore, family and friends. My only condition was that during the transition period Daniel must come back to the island at weekends to be with us, this was non negotiable. He promised me he would, since the Marina still wasn’t open it shouldn’t be a problem, and agreed to start in the July.

The very first weekend he popped home for a day, I was not thrilled. The following weekend he did come home but was distracted and I knew he wanted to be at work (probably needed to be at work but I didn’t want to hear that). The third weekend he told me he had to work and I was extremely cross with him. Remember, no mobile phones with FaceTime, WhatsApp, etc. and no email to fire off angry missives. So when our partner Russell strolled up to me on the beach around 2.30 p.m. on Sunday afternoon and told me that I was not to worry but “Daniel had come off a jet ski and cut his nose and chin” I was absolutely furious. If he had time to go out jet skiing he had time to come home to his family! Serves him right if he fell off!! What was he doing on a jet ski anyway, he hated the damn noisy things? I continued playing with the children on the beach, seething with righteous indignation that he had not come home. I calmed myself down by acknowledging that on the other hand my darling husband had made me supremely happy and I finally had it all. An incredibly loving marriage to a wonderful man, who now had a job that would allow me to be a stay at home mum for our two gorgeous children, living in a super new house in a beautiful setting at the Marina. Life simply didn’t get any better, yes, I certainly had it all. I softened, smiled and continued playing happily with my babies, blissfully unaware that my long awaited dream life had actually been shattered at 2.30 p.m. that very afternoon.

An hour or so later Russell came and told me that Daniel had been taken to a clinic because they thought he might have “cracked a rib”. I still wasn’t too concerned, he was after all superman, a great big strapping chap, it would take more than a few cuts, bruises and a cracked rib to stop him.

At about 6 p.m. another call came in to say that they “thought he might need an operation so they were on their way to Kota Tinggi Hospital”. That was the point at which the alarm bells went off in my head, not the least because Kota Tinggi Hospital is a complete misnomer. I called SOS in Singapore immediately, told them about the accident and gave them contact details. I asked Paivi to take charge of the children, grabbed an overnight bag and the car keys and jumped on the 40hp. I remember arriving at Daniel’s bedside and being shocked at the pain he was in and the size of his swelling girth. He kept begging me to puncture his stomach as he felt it was going to explode, stupidly I wondered if that was a thing, since I knew they did it to cows. Long story short SOS was sending an ambulance to take Daniel to the Johor Specialist Hospital in Johor Bahru where they had a surgeon standing by. I wanted to take him straight to Singapore but they assured me that the Specialist Hospital was “on their list of approved hospitals” and inanely I agreed.

I will never, ever forgive myself for agreeing. I knew that Singapore had the best medical care and we’d always agreed that if anything ever happened to any of us we would go straight there. Had we done that he would have survived. I’m not saying he would be alive today, he was rather like a cat using up his lives but he would have survived that accident.

We didn’t get to the hospital until midnight, so a crucial ten hours after the actual accident. Having done an x-ray and an ultrasound the surgeon informed me Daniel had ruptured his spleen and he’d operate immediately. I didn’t need to wait, he’d be fine. Of course I would wait! I sat down outside the operating theatre and not long afterwards the anesthetist came out and handed me Daniel’s signet ring. I held my hand out to take it but before he dropped the ring he looked me straight in the eyes and said; “this operation is going to be much more complicated than expected, it’s going to take some time”. He put the ring in my hand but I kept watching his face, he looked horrendously worried. I slipped Daniel’s ring on my wedding finger (I never wore my wedding ring on the island as it had a sapphire & diamonds and I was frightened of losing it in the sea). I promised myself I wouldn’t take the signet ring off until Daniel was wearing it again.

They finally finished at 5 a.m. The surgeon beamed at me and told me all was well and I should “go back to the island and my babies” Daniel would be fine. I went to the Pan Pacific, checked in, had a shower, made some phone calls and headed straight back to the hospital. Daniel was alone in a side ward, he was awake and he was still groaning with pain, I was horrified. I asked for the surgeon to be called, I wanted to speak to him. He eventually came, lifted and looked at a tube coming from Daniel’s side, said it was fine, not to worry, I should go home. I asked if he couldn’t be given something for the pain, he acquiesced and called the anesthetist to come and give him an epidural pain killer, since the nurses on this ward weren’t trained to do it, then left. The same Singaporean anesthetist from the operation came (did these chaps never sleep?) and immediately apologised that there wasn’t a bed in intensive care as that’s where Daniel should be. Why? The surgeon has just told me he was going to be fine, I could go home. I will never forget his answer: “Surgeons can be very… erm very… well… simplistic. You have got to get him out of here, now.” It suddenly dawned on me what he was saying, if I didn’t get Daniel to Singapore he’d die. I called SOS immediately and informed them we had to transfer Daniel to Singapore.

“We’ve just spoken to the surgeon, he says Daniel is fine.”

“Well he isn’t, I have the anesthetist with me and he says he’ll die if you leave him here.”

“We need to speak to him then.”

I held the phone out to the anesthetist but he shook his head; “I’m not allowed to say that.”

“Please, I’m begging you.”

He took the receiver and told them what needed to be said to get them to send an ambulance posthaste. He then decided to move heaven and earth to get Daniel into intensive care until they arrived, which he did. I have never known the gentleman’s name but he was a credit to his profession under very difficult circumstances.

Please forgive me if I stop here, I’ll finish 1994 in episode 5. If you have been, thanks for reading. x

Episode 3 – The Photos

The Wills family in front of what is now the dive base. You can see the bar in the back ground, still with the steps at the front and one of the dogs we inherited with the property, Riga. Look how much grass there was there in those days.

Another view of the pool, this time Nancy is there with Richard. Look how much land we used to have in front of the bar & dive base! The little patch of palm trees we planted behind Nancy are now hanging on for dear life on the edge of the beach. The land with the bench in the back ground is long gone.

A favourite place for Daniel & Richard’s afternoon nap. Sadly we can’t hang hammocks throughout the grounds any longer as we tend to get blamed when children load each other in them and use them as catapults!

Nancy & Richard. As long as you fed Richard from 7am to 7 pm he was happy to sleep from 7pm to 7am… seemed like a good deal to all concerned.

Richard with our darling Pai, from Kampung Duku, one of our first house keeping staff. Auntie Pai still works with us, as a cook now, and is very much part of our family.

If a handy lap or pair of arms weren’t available while Mummy was busy there was always the kitchen sink to play in and a handy spoon to play with.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is 1993-RW-helps-Rahim-build-the-house.jpg — Rahim and Richard helping to build our house, at the back of the property and surrounded by jungle. Poor Rahim, think the job took twice as long as Richard loved to ‘help’!

A happily pregnant Linda playing with Richard…

…. which was normally followed by a walk across the head to Rimba and back for exercise. As I said, it was a much more relaxed pace in those days and we had the opportunity to enjoy living in paradise.

January 2021, No. 3

Awfully sorry about the delay in Episode 3, having been allowed to open in December I can joyously report were full to bursting over Christmas and New Year and it was absolutely brilliant, amazing weather and best NY party I can ever remember. Of course, the fact it started raining at 7pm on 31^st December 2020, only stopped on the morning of the 4^th January 2021 (and when I say rain I mean torrential) and was accompanied by tropical storm winds and 2m waves did make it rather interesting. So much for “let’s get rid of 2020 ‘cus 2021 has to be better”…. one should never tempt the gods!

Since this blog is my story it consists of memories, anecdotes and, quite possibly, ramblings rather than any accurate account of the business. I would like to acknowledge that Daniel and I were not alone in the beginning. Our first partners were a lovely German couple, with two small children, that we knew from the Maldives. For various reasons they left and we subsequently had two more partners, a South African chap, who lived on Pulau Sibu, and an Englishman, who did not. It was only from 1999 that the Wills’ became sole owners of Winter Snow Sdn. Bhd., our rather perversely named company, which owns and operates Sea Gypsy Village.

The second I held Richard in my arms a dam of love, the like of which I had never felt before, burst and I knew instinctively I would kill anyone that tried to harm this treasure. I might not have wanted a baby but I really enjoyed pregnancy, breezed through child birth and adored our baby and our little family. I knew Daniel was also besotted because we frequently spent time simply looking at the baby sleeping for entertainment, we’d hold each other and smile, privately acknowledging how brilliant we were to have made this wonderful gift. That paragraph is an overload of treacle and just as sickening but absolutely true, we were horrendously happy and pleased with our family by November 1992.

If only I could have said the same about my home. Our new family moved permanently to Pulau Sibu in January 1993 and the fact it was still monsoon didn’t help. We lived in what is now the dive base, so basically a wooden shack exposed to howling wind coming off the sea, being bombarded with torrential rain, in what was still a filthy piece of land. Consequently, everything was damp and covered with a residue of salt, which will happily destroy everything unless constantly cleaned. I was still battling cock roaches, rats and eagles. Yes, I did say eagles. Sea eagles to be precise, one of which particularly drove me nuts as it used to fly through the restaurant leaving an eagle sized trail of poop across the tables. Quite apart from that, whilst building the resort Daniel had taken a series of photos of a sea eagle swooping down to catch and then eat a baby shark. Happily showing off said photos on arrival in Florida he didn’t notice the look of consternation on my face amid all the oohs and aahs. I doubted very much whether a hungry sea eagle could differentiate between a baby shark and a wriggling 7lb baby when it came to a satisfying meal. Get rid of it was my firm directive to a disappointed Daniel, even before I knew about the disgusting pooh situation! He did, by luring it over to Rimba Resort, with their permission I hasten to add, but I have no idea how.

I had two luxuries, one was my short-wave radio, which had been my constant companion since I started traveling at the age of 17, and the other was my electric kettle. The kettle wasn’t so much about making tea, as I’m nothing if not incredibly fussy about tea and didn’t have either the right tea leaves or milk, but about sterilising baby things and having some hot water for baby’s bath. I was desperately trying to be upbeat about my current life style but certainly remember feeling as though that blasted lease was a ten year prison sentence and so far Daniel seemed to be enjoying himself. To be fair business to date had been his friends coming up at weekends from Singapore, so it was like a constant party. Hardly surprising since our advertising had been Daniel going to the Tanglin Club, Raffles Marina and the Cricket Club and telling everyone that he was “back” and on Pulau Sibu. I was still praying for him to hate being an hotelier so we could leave. We had a very small generator at the time, the one that had come with the lease, suffice to say it was not in the greatest of shape. One morning Daniel popped his head into our room and told me I could no longer use the electric kettle and was about to make his exit.

Everyone knows I shout. Well, explode actually. I don’t particularly shout at any individual, I frequently just shout to the gods. Those that know me largely ignore it since outbursts are short and sharp and once over, I’m perfectly affable again. My intimate circle, and particularly my children, will tell you it’s when I go quiet you really need to watch out. Daniel turned back because I hadn’t replied and, taking one look at my demeanor, correctly decided that a lengthy explanation about the generator problem was probably not the best way to go at that precise moment. Very, very quietly I said, “Bad enough every time I pick up a baby grow it’s covered in gecko pooh, bad enough that the rats constantly gnaw holes in the plastic top of the formula to lick the remnants of milk powder, bad enough the toilet is constantly blocking, bad enough every time I walk down the beach a pack of wild dogs run out and try to attack, now you’re telling me I have to walk to the kitchen and boil a kettle every time I want some hot water? Fix it!” The proverbial straw, ref the camel’s back. He was out that door like a greyhound that had spotted the rabbit and did not return for a very long time. However, he eventually returned and informed me that I could use my kettle. Poor chap, to this day I don’t know how he managed it since you can hardly pop to the shop for a spare part. I didn’t care. I rather think I may have packed up and left if he hadn’t have given me back my electric kettle and I rather think he thought the same. That night, snuggling down in bed, I did thank him and I did apologise, as I may have been a tad OTT. After which my darling man seriously replied, “I could put you in a palace and you’d complain.”
“Try me!”

One beautiful evening I found Daniel and a couple of other staff sitting on the steps of the bar facing the sea and asked what they were doing.

“Watching an enormous fire.”

I sat down with them and indeed there was an enormous fire, it appeared to be burning on one of the two islands we refer to as Dolly. It was mesmerising in its intensity and then suddenly it leapt to the second island and both of them were on fire. By now all six of our live in staff were there and we sat and watched whilst chatting, not drinking any alcohol i hasten to add, and we were all witness to the fire. The rest of our small staff walked over from the village daily. In those days Kampung Duku was a very traditionally built, sleepy fishing village and there was no TV, no international radio (other than my shortwave that picked up the BBC World Service for two hours in the morning and four hours in the evening), no devises holding hundreds of games and films, no instant communication with the outside world completely free of charge. Consequently news of events like this fire were newsworthy and interesting. So the following day Daniel and the boat boys took the 40hp and shot over to Dolly to find out what damage had been done. Nothing, absolutely nothing, they circumnavigated both islands, no sign of any fire whatsoever anywhere. At that time we didn’t own a large boat, we rented a local bum boat, its captain was Patlong. The next time he came ashore for fuel to do a trip for us by way of conversation and because we had found the event so interesting, we told him what we’d seen and asked him if he’d ever heard about such a thing before. His brown skin managed to turn grey, he looked terrified and breathed the words, “Sea witches,” as he turned tail and, old and creaky as he was, literally ran to get back to his boat and leave as fast as he could.

At that time there was a well established backpackers place at the end of the beach called O&H Kampung Huts run by a British woman called Helena. We loved the compact A frame huts nestled into the rocks behind the lovely garden and the ambience of the small lounge, bar, dining area. We especially loved Helena who was a fount of knowledge when it came to living on Sibu and all things Malaysian. Life still being at a very leisurely pace in those days Nancy, Richard and I would wander down the beach for a visit most afternoons. Helena’s partner Omar ran a backpackers hostel in Mersing and owned a bum boat called the “Black Sausage” that ran from Mersing to Pulau Sibu daily. Omar had a very successful knack of scooping up travelers arriving in Mersing and shipping them over to Pulau Sibu. Therefore, from Chinese New Year to Deepavali the hostel was full of interesting people from all over the world and we loved sitting chatting to them about their adventures.

We often found ourselves almost alone on the property at the beginning and although mostly romantic it could also, sometimes, feel a little creepy. In the middle of one night there was a sudden banging on our door along with incoherent sounds. We lay quietly, pretty much hoping it would go away or we were imagining it but it was persistent. Daniel got up and gingerly opened the door a crack, more incoherent mumbling, then he turned and explained there had been some kind of accident and he had to go, he was a trained paramedic. Some chaps down at O&H had got extremely merry on local alcohol, which is cheap but lethal. Playing a silly game jumping from the rocks to the beach one chap had shattered his leg, one of the horrid ones where the jagged bone sticks out. Daniel did his best to sort it out and the chap was eventually taken to the General Hospital in Johor Bahru. However, here’s where the story gets interesting (if it’s true, I cannot verify it). Apparently there were complications with the leg and things were looking bad. The chap was broke so the obvious and best thing to do would have been to contact the British Consul and get him flown back to the UK. The problem was he was a wanted criminal and if he went back he’d go to prison. What to do lah? Stay and have your leg amputated or go home and end up in jail? If anyone from O&H in 1993 is reading this can you enlighten us, we’ve always wondered.

We’d already decided that I was going to try and get pregnant again immediately, so I stopped breast feeding Richard at exactly three months (since the old wife’s tale says one can’t get pregnant when breast feeding) and by the time Richard was four months old I was indeed pregnant again. Joy, another monsoon baby, being due beginning of January 94. I started planning my return to Florida end October. Meanwhile I was still having trouble with that blasted blocked toilet so there was only one thing to do, lift the lid off the cesspit to find out what was what. Have I mentioned before I’m completely snake phobic? I cannot stand them, or even the thought of them. A completely irrational fear, I am well aware of that, so I just tried desperately to ignore their existence. Due to the vast number of rats around the place we obviously had a lot of snakes so I made a great deal of noise if I had to go into the jungle. When we lifted the cesspit lid a 2 metre python was revealed and, although it was released deep into the jungle, I became irrationally terrified of sitting on the toilet, lest a snake should pop up and bite me in the bottom. Two articles appeared in the newspapers in rapid succession after that (and if you’re reading this Nancy I appeal to you to verify it in the comments). First, that a man in India had died after a snake came up out of the toilet and bit him in the bottom. Second, was an amazing photo, taken in Malaysia I believe, of the most enormous snake (we’re talking anaconda here) with a human’s legs sticking out of its mouth. Not sure whether the poor human died from the snake trying to swallow him or the fact the locals had shot the snake with something like an AK47 and had got hit in the process. I swear I am not making this up. Needless to say my snake phobia remained and was not helped when a couple of months later we moved into the house that Daniel built for us, nestled into the jungle at the back of the resort.

Speaking of our rat population at that time, it isn’t really conducive to enjoyable dinning to have rats running around the restaurant rafters every night. Keeping the lighting dim helped, crossing all digits and hoping people wouldn’t look up was another option. However, one night there were a few more rats than usual and we happened to have a KLM crew on stopover staying with us. I noticed one of the young ladies glancing up, nudging her neighbour and then both staring up at the fury shapes. I had to say something before they had a chance to scream, “Rats!”

“That’s the lesser known White Crested Jungle Vole, they’re very rare,” I explained, looking at them interestingly. “You should try to get a photo.”

I have no idea whether they believed me but to this day our rather cute little rats, that always have white chests, are known as the lesser known White Crested Jungle Vole. More to the point, they are rare nowadays, thanks to nearly 30 years of cleaning!

One grey afternoon Nancy, Richard and I were sitting in the O&H lounge area having a cuppa with Helena. We were contemplating walking home as it smelled like rain when Helena suddenly jumped up, ran outside, turned and looked up and over the top of the lounge having apparently heard an ominous creaking. “Get out and run!” she screamed. Her voice left us in no doubt, we weren’t about to stop to ask why, I lumbered up, Nancy grabbed Richard and we shot out and kept running. Within seconds we heard an almighty crash and turned in time to see a tree demolish the lounge, bar, restaurant building, where we had been sitting only moments before. We also saw the fastest moving, not to mention biggest, storm we’d ever seen. Within minutes the torrential rain was falling, the thunder was continuous and lighting was hitting all around. In those days there were many more coconut trees. Aesthetically pleasing as this might be, coconuts come down like missiles in a tropical storm and are extremely dangerous. Consequently we had to run back up the beach but at the same time whole palm trees were coming down like skittles along the beach front and with the tide up and the sea now raging it didn’t leave much wiggle room. By now the storm was overhead, I had never seen so many lightning strikes anywhere on my travels. Being of an age all my fillings are metal and my mouth was literally tingling from all the electricity in the air! We finally reached the safety of our restaurant, which was the sturdiest structure we had and by far the best place to wait out the storm. Once we’d calmed down and caught our breath, we needed to ascertain that our small staff was safe, most having had the sense to come to the restaurant, but where was Daniel? We then realised that we could hear the sound of a buzz saw coming from across the garden. Squinting through the downpour I could just about discern my husband sawing up a tree that had come down, slightly damaging V6 and blocking the path to the back of the property. Completely insane and quite simply, why?

Sadly, due to so much logging over the years by the land owners between Sea Gypsy and what was O&H, the land it was on has all disappeared into the sea and the hostel no longer exists.

Ah, writing V6 above another FAQ springs to mind, what does the V stand for? When I first saw the accommodation that Daniel had built (I was not involved in the design) there was a discussion about what to call them when marketing, e.g. rooms, chalets, etc. I facetiously suggested villas and wandered off. Unbelievably the word stuck and for years our chalets were referred to as villas, hence the V. The family chalets have an H because the plot of land they are on was called Hillside by the owner. I doubt I need to explain the A in front of the A frames.

I had managed to stay pretty fit during my pregnancy but did get tired so when Daniel suggested an end of season party and wanted to invite the entire Kampung I wasn’t thrilled. Catering for all those people and then having to host them all till heaven knows what time. He seemed sublimely unconcerned and told me I wouldn’t need to worry about all that, by which I assumed he’d be the party planner. Having put Richard to bed, taken a shower and made myself party ready I headed down to the restaurant, admittedly slightly late. I couldn’t understand it, the majority of place settings had already disappeared and the restaurant was almost empty except for some our staff, most of whom had already moved to the bar. Daniel grinned at my reaction to my first Malaysian party; arrive, say hello, eat and leave. It’s taken me a very long time to get used to it and I would like to report that we have slowly managed to get our local guests to stay a little longer nowadays and enjoy each others company as well as eat.

If you have been, thanks for reading. x

November 2020, No. 2

I realise the last paragraph of episode 1 of this blog says I will explain why I decided to stay on Pulau Sibu, however I’ve changed my mind and decided to give a little background to us setting up home at Sea Gypsy. Probably procrastination because the sudden and unexpected death of one’s spouse, especially one so young, is a tough subject to make fun reading, which is what I’d like this blog to be. I promise I will get to it but let’s go back to 1992 and work our way there in chronological order.

Just rereading episode 1 and notice I didn’t actually mention at the beginning that I was pregnant when Daniel went on his jolly to Malaysia. I had never wanted children, ever. I was completely lacking in any type of biological clock or maternal instinct and avoided anything to do with children like the plague. Daniel was like the Pied Piper and wherever he went any children about would follow (for those of you that know our son Richard you will be well aware that he has inherited this trait from his father). Of course the fact that Daniel (and Richard for that matter) are both Peter Panesque (so to speak) has a great deal to do with it!

Upon discovering that Daniel regularly stopped off at a neighbour’s house on his way home from work in order to visit the new born baby (the mother was extolling his virtues as a helper because he didn’t just pop in to see the baby, he actually bathed her and looked after, whilst entertaining her older sister so that the mother could take a shower or relax for a while) I realised I had to allow the poor chap needed to be a father. He had said that he would rather be with me without children than with someone else with children, and we could always adopt if I changed my mind later and was too old.

Why is it that an older man with a younger woman doesn’t raise an eyebrow but an older woman with a younger man does? I suppose times have changed but 30 years ago it was shocking. Not that the age difference showed particularly, not at that point in time. However I must admit it did occur to me that when I was 50 he would only just turning 39 and it would be very easy for him to dump me and marry a younger woman to have children. I know, I know, you’ve already decided he was marvelous and loved me and he wouldn’t do that and so had I but I’m nothing if not a realist! Banking on the fact he was a commercial diver and sperm can be affected by pressure, plus the fact I’d been on the pill virtually continuously since I was 17, I took the risk of coming off the pill to get pregnant. Nothing happened, yay! I had taken the high road and done the right thing by my lovely husband, it wasn’t my fault if nothing happened. My idyllic self absorbed life with my darling man could continue just as I loved it. After nearly two years, in March 1992 to be precise, I went to the doctor with a suspected kidney infection, which he confirmed, and then continued with “and you’re pregnant”. I was absolutely horrified. I slapped on a fake smile and leapt up and down with my deliriously happy husband. What on earth had I done? Especially as two months later Daniel went to Malaysia and by July 1992 he was living on Pulau Sibu, leaving me alone on Male’ to wind up our businesses.

I stood staring at my own personal Survivor Island in the South China Sea and contemplated the 10 years I was being sentenced to, rather than the usual 42 days of the Survivor Island contestants. At 39 years of age and 5 months pregnant I was quite sure this scenario was not included in my childhood dreams. It was 15^th July and we had just signed the agreement with the landlord in Johor Bahru. I had refused to go to Pulau Sibu before we signed for fear of chickening out if I actually saw what we were undertaking.

“Remind me why we’re here.”

“Because it’s so beautiful and because it’s Malaysia!” beauty obviously being in the eye of the beholder, in this case my husband. “Here” was an extremely dirty mainland beach, alive with sand flies, looking out at an island that I thought probably resembled a craggy outcrop somewhere in a remote part of Scotland on a bad day. The sea was full of white caps and it looked like rain was imminent. I had been assured that July is the middle of the high season with bright blue skies, nothing but the gentlest of breezes and a sea like a duck pond.

The small speedboat we were about to board looked none too safe. Not that we had to go far on the small speedboat, just out to a rather disreputable looking bumboat that was bobbing up and down belching foul black smoke from it’s rear end. The prospect of getting out of the speedboat and into the bumboat was not appealing. As previously stated, I do not consider myself an outdoors sort of person and certainly not an adventurous sort of person. The fact that I had spent the last seven years of my life in the Maldive Islands in bare feet with no makeup and was now condemning myself to another ten years of island life was just one of God’s little jokes. I therefore would not feel happy about the next hour of this journey even under normal circumstances but these were not normal circumstances because I was pregnant with my first child. The two hour road trip from Johor Bahru to Tanjung Leman bouncing through plantations in an old mini bus type thing with lousy suspension and worse air conditioning had not agreed with me. Furthermore my legs and feet were starting to resemble something the Michelin Man could be proud of and I was not feeling terribly agile. I was calculating the odds of having the life crushed out of me and baby between the two boats when a grinning Daniel asked, “Are you ready darling?” hugely enjoying the whole thing. I slapped on my best gung ho smile, not for nothing all that air hostess training! “Of course, how exciting.” Having reached the bum boat and before I realised what was what, my husband, a strong chap used to lifting heavy weights, simply threw me onto the bumboat “to be on the safe side”, can’t think why I had been worried, I should have known he’d have a plan.

The trip had just gone from bad to worse as far as I was concerned. The bumboat smelt of oil and diesel fumes and certainly hadn’t been cleaned since it was built, somewhere before the last war by the look of it.

“Isn’t this wonderful?”

“Absolutely!” My jaws were beginning to hurt from the effort of smiling. All I can say is it’s a shame my Lord and Master didn’t have a plan for getting me off the bumboat at the other side. Having spent a delightful hour or so ploughing through the waves over to Pulau Sibu we were greeted by the sight of a spindly wooden structure swaying its way out from the shore. It occurred to me that in a fight between this structure, otherwise known as the jetty, and the bumboat, the jetty would lose. This did not deter our gallant captain from heading straight for it. I was stationed at the side of the bumboat and told to standby. The bumboat was now alongside the jetty and smacking up against it as the breakers were rolling into the shore. I eyed the poles of round jungle wood that one was supposed to climb to the top of the jetty. They looked suspiciously slimy and treacherously slippery to me. Luckily I had worn boat shoes, knowing myself to be notoriously klutzy when it comes to boats I wasn’t taking any chances.

“OK, go.”

I stepped off the boat and onto the nearest pole, my hands grabbing another pole further up. At the same instant the boat was pulled away from the jetty by another wave, my feet slipped off the pole and I was left hanging. I turned my head slightly and realized the boat was just about to come back and do the crushing job I had been worried about earlier. My beloved’s face was looking somewhat horrified but he was bellowing in what I took to be Malay. I hadn’t heard him speak Bahasa Melayu before but he obviously had not lost his command of the language because at that instant I felt several pairs of hands grabbing my wrists. Having been fairly small chested all my life my swelling breasts had become a thing of fascination to me and I was looking forward to breast feeding. I was also enjoying having a cleavage for the first time in my life. I suddenly wished I were as flat as a board as I was heaved over each pole and then finally over the splintered wood that comprised the planking on the top of the jetty. I lay there like a beached whale wondering if my boobs were still in one piece or, if I dared to look, I’d find them torn into the bloody shreds they now felt. I finally rolled over onto my back and looked into the inquisitive faces of my rescuers. Five pairs of bemused eyes all seemed to reflect the same, possibly contemptuous, thought, ‘so this must be the new boss’s wife’.

I’m popping in this brochure as it was the one that the landlord used to advertise Sea Gypsy pre the Wills’. It doesn’t look terrible and people actually paid to come and stay. I decided they must have used it as a camp site (time proved me right as all our first guests came loaded with pillows, sheets, towels, food & drink, etc.). There was general consternation when I asked for a towel, they finally found me one that looked like a dirty tea towel, when I asked about linen stock they looked confused. I threw the pillows out of the shack we’d been allocated as they were alive and piled all the clothes we had with us on the mattresses so that they wouldn’t touch our bodies. For some strange reason there were fences everywhere and I wondered if it was to keep people in rather than out? I couldn’t try the food as it was too spicy and apparently the only thing to drink was Tiger (naturally), luckily the water was drinkable (as it still is). The kitchen fascinated me, not only because of the very low asbestos roof, making enough noise to wake the dead when it rained, and stifling heat but because the staff seemed to use it as a lounge, with chairs, guitar and of course smoking. The sink didn’t appear to be plumbed in so all that went into it was routed outside via an open gutter. Rubbish was left open and then, when enough, was burned pretty much anywhere at random. Consequently there were rats everywhere and cockroaches spilled out of any cupboard opened. Health and safety would have shut them down in a heartbeat, I felt like burning the place down and running for the hills (or in my case the flat land since the Maldives doesn’t actually have any hills).

Daniel assured me that by the time I returned to Malaysia he’d have the resort built and everything organised. I could have cared less, I had already made my mind up that what he really wanted to do was build the place but that he would HATE being a hotelier. I left for the Maldives feeling that my sojourn on Pulau Sibu would be short lived, meanwhile I had more important things to think about, like what on earth I was meant to do with a baby? How often and at what time does a nappy need changing? How often and at what time do you feed it? I knew the very person to ask.

I had the great good fortune to meet a very highly qualified nanny in the Maldives. She was working for a friend of mine who owned four resorts there and had a baby boy. Nancy, Daniel and I became great friends and on her days off she would come down to ‘town’ and stay with us. One mile long and half a mile wide with unpaved streets, 80 mosques and no building taller than the tallest palm tree, Male’, the big city, was not atypical of a capital city. However, when you live on an island that takes ten minutes to walk around it’s a veritable metropolis. I remember on one visit Nancy and I were terribly excited to go to the opening of the first supermarket and got even more excited when we found out they actually had trolleys. I also remember my prize purchase was a tin of John West Kipper Fillets (talk about coals to Newcastle!).

I sat Nancy down at our kitchen table, got out a pen and paper, told her I was pregnant and then demanded she gave me a list of what I needed to buy and the answer to my questions, reference nappies, feed, etc. So horrified that I would actually kill the baby she immediately told me she would come to Pulau Sibu (knowing the islands from previous travel) at the beginning of 1993 to teach me what to do and thus save the child. I cannot begin to tell you of my relief and finally relaxed.

It’s hard to remember what life was like pre cellular phones and free video calling but in 1992 being apart meant practically no communication. Although at that time Sea Gypsy had a perfect radio phone line for international calls the cost was prohibitive. I missed Daniel so much and was dying to see him for what I thought would be a two week romantic stay in our newly rebuilt resort before we headed off to my mother’s home in Florida for the baby’s birth and a lovely Christmas. From the (infrequent) phone calls I gathered things were going well and he was obviously enjoying himself enormously, despite missing the great love of his life… no, not me, scuba diving, he had no compressor as yet!

Daniel met me in Singapore and we had a wonderful couple of days, however I felt all might not be well in paradise. As we arrived on the island I instantly understood this would be no romantic idyll, what I did not know was that I (singular, as in not part of a couple) would spend the next two weeks trawling around Johor Bahru looking for linen, cutlery, crockery, etc. or that my toe rag of husband had changed his ticket and would not be flying to Florida with me (where’s the angry swearing emoji when you need it?). Not only was the resort still a building site, when I asked about mundane matters like taking reservations, menus, laundry, etc., etc. Daniel brushed it off as though it was nothing because it wasn’t “his department”, except marketing, I wasn’t to worry about that.

At 17 I had gone to work in a hotel in Austria as a bar maid, that turned into a summer season as a skivvy in another hotel and a third season promoted to silver service waitress. In London I was assistant to the Food & Beverage Manager of a large casino, also moonlighting in the casino VIP lounges & bars for special events. In other words I had a background in F&B, plus I had worked in various offices and been an air hostess, all of which (apparently) made all things to do with the actual running of the resort “my department”, including the accounts.

The heck with it, I didn’t care, I’d do my part until he couldn’t stand it any more and we’d leave. In the meantime I waddled around JB in the heat to find what we needed, came up with some plans for admin and ticked off the days till I could fly out. We didn’t stand a hope in hell of opening in for Chinese New Year which was 23^rd January 1993 and I still hadn’t seen any sign of marketing from Daniel.

Daniel made it to Florida two days prior to Richard’s (quick and easy) birth on 18^th November 1992 and all too soon our amazing holiday and Christmas was over, we flew back to Malaysia on 2^nd January 1993 with our precious son.

It was then the reality of our situation hit me like a cartoon anvil flattening Wile E. Coyote and I felt just as dazed. It wasn’t standing once again on that dirty mainland beach looking at Pulau Sibu in pouring rain. It wasn’t that this time the monsoon seas were so rough we couldn’t land at the resort (well, we couldn’t even if it wasn’t rough as there was no longer a jetty, that spindly structure fell down annually). It wasn’t that my pathological fear of boats made me believe I was taking my precious six week old baby on a death trap or even having to climb another slippery bamboo jetty at Coconut Village to walk through to Sea Gypsy. It was the broken bridge over the mangroves which meant we had to wade through them knee deep in yuk, knowing all the while that the only thing waiting to greet us the other side was a wooden hut in a rat ridden, snake infested dump without any home comforts and not even the chance of decent milk to make a proper cup of tea!

Will I make Daniel’s life a living hell for inflicting this upon us or will learn to love the outdoor life? To be continued next month…

If you have been, thanks for reading x

October 2020, No. 1

“How did you end up here?” a constant question from guests at Sea Gypsy, a good one, I often wonder myself? Had anyone asked a teen Linda would you spend 28 years running a resort on a small tropical island in the South China Sea there would have been a categorical and resounding NO!

A favourite 1938 Punch cartoon entitled The British Character: Adaptability to Foreign Conditions would appear to sum me up. Another anomaly considering I was born in Norway and applied for British nationality at the age of 19, but that’s another story.

The story of why is really one about my husband Daniel Wills and not about me at all.

Daniel was born in Singapore, the son of a British expatriate planter whose father and grandfather had also been in Malaya, as it then was. The plantation was in the state of Johor and Daniel had grown up loving the country and the people. Like most children of expats he was packed off to boarding school at a very young age but spent the long holidays playing on and around the plantation. His first language was Bahasa Melayu and his heart was truly Malaysian. His upbringing was very Somerset Maughan and I used to love listening to the stories of his young days, like trekking through the jungle with his family in full evening dress carrying a trifle to the next planter’s house for Christmas dinner.

Daniel and I had met in the Maldives some years earlier. I had set up and was operating a flying ambulance service and he was running a large dive base. Our relationship was one of those strange things that are hard to fathom or explain. Quite apart from the fact he was eleven years younger than me, our beliefs were just about 180 degrees diametrically opposed on any given topic from religion to politics, from music to literature. Lively debate was a healthy feature in our household but not arguments. We each respected the other’s opinion and enjoyed our discussions. Daniel adored the sea, lived for it since learning to dive at the age of 12, and made his career out of being in it one way or another. Apart from being a very qualified commercial diver he was a sporty, swimming, sailing, rugby playing, jungle trekking sort of chap that couldn’t stand cities and got lost trying to find his way back to the car park after the cinema. He hated living in Europe with a passion and only ever wanted to live in Asia. I only ever wanted to live slap bang in the middle of Chelsea and wear evening clothes. If I ever felt the need to commune with nature I read National Geographic. That way you don’t get dirty or sweaty and it doesn’t smell. Why I was even living and working in the Maldives is a long story and not one for this blog. Suffice it to say I never quite plan my life, it just sort of happens to me and I go with the flow.

Daniel had always wanted to “go home”. We had a successful commercial diving business in the Maldive Islands when a friend asked if he’d like to visit an island in Malaysia with a view to starting a dive base at a resort that was under construction. Daniel jumped at the chance of perhaps opening a dive base at this new resort as a way of getting a foot back into the land he loved. I was completely happy with our life in the Maldives and didn’t see this new venture as much of a threat. I thought it would just mean owning and operating the dive base in Malaysia as part of our existing commercial dive business. Daniel could commute and we would stay put on Male.

So off went hubby on a jolly to look at putting a dive base in this Malaysian resort and came back a week later having taken a ten year lease on 5 acres of beachfront jungle property. He had fallen in love with the resort where he had stayed, or rather the piece of land the so called resort was situated on, and asked the owner if we could lease it (after quite a few Tiger beers in the early hours of the morning I imagine). The owner not being too slow to spot a complete idiot when he saw one (even if he was also full of Tiger beer) produced a draft lease in short order and was ecstatic at the thought of handing the place over. He was sick of running it after seven years, we really should have asked why.

Friends and family used to believe that I wore the pants in our house as I appear to be independent, am fairly loud, say what I think and had generated my own income rather than be an employee since the age of 27. And of course I was so much older than Daniel. In truth he ruled the roost but there was no fist of iron. He was simply so nice about everything, so loving and kind that I never had the heart to disagree with what really made him happy. Also he was an exceedingly good breadwinner and didn’t mind if I didn’t want to work, which I felt gave him the right to decide where and how he was going to win the bread, so to speak. At the end of the day if building a beach resort with a dive base in Malaysia was what my husband wanted to do, that’s what we’d do. But don’t think that didn’t stop me telling him, long and very loud, ad nauseum (literally in my case) that he would absolutely hate running a resort once he’d built the damn thing!

Daniel set off almost immediately, leaving a very disgruntled and hormonal wife to close down our life in the Maldives. He was having the time of his life creating his idea of heaven, I was busy being completely unamused whilst winding up our business and destroying my nest when I should have been building one. I caught up with him two months before my due date only to discover a building site with no cohesive plan of how anything would actually be done and never a thought about sheets, towels, crockery, cutlery, menus, etc. Apparently that was all “my department” so I spent two weeks crawling around shop houses in Johor Bahru and then did what any self respecting mother to be would do in that situation, went home to my mother. My mother happened to be living in Florida at the time, Daniel managed to arrive two days prior to his son Richard’s birth, and we both had so much fun baby number two was instantly planned for the following monsoon!

Having opened in February 1993 the marketing comprised of Daniel visiting Raffles Marina, the Tanglin Club and the Singapore Cricket Club and announcing “Dan’s back in town, why don’t you all come up to the island?”.

By April 1993 I was pregnant again and by June 1993 Daniel told me he didn’t want to run a resort on Pulau Sibu (enormous will power stopped the “I told you so”) from which time he was constantly on the move looking for what he’d really like to do. Here I should mention that a great friend on mine, Nancy, a highly qualified and sought after professional nanny, had followed us to Pulau Sibu from the Maldives in 1993 to teach me how not to kill a baby, since I’d never wanted children and apparently had no natural instinct for being a mother whatsoever. Nancy became a very important part of the Sea Gypsy story and she was one of the reasons it was so easy for Daniel to keep leaving the island in 1993. She moved on in October 1993, not realising how soon she’d be returning or for how long.

Our daughter Jade was born in January 1994, again in Florida, and by the time I returned to the island in April 1994 I knew our time on Pulau Sibu was drawing to a close, and that was absolutely fine by me. In June 1994 Daniel was offered an excellent position at a fantastic new (not yet opened) Marina in Desaru, good salary, house, car, expenses and great prospects. Wonderful, just near the ferry to Singapore, I was finally going to have it all!

In mid August 1994 I received a message that Daniel had come off a jet ski, which I found odd as he hated them. Apparently they’d been putting buoys in to act as markers for slalom races at the official opening of the marina and Daniel had decided to test them out. The accident happened at 2.30 pm but there were no other managers on duty and no SOP for accidents at that time. It was midnight before we got him to the first (supposedly) good hospital in Johor Bahru, where they proceeded to butcher him. Moved to Singapore the following day it was already too late, he fought the good fight for six weeks but died of septicemia at the end of September 1994. He was 29 years old.

I said this would be the story of how I “ended up” on Pulau Sibu, however it really doesn’t explain why with no home on the mainland, no boat other than a tiny 40hp, US$50’000 in debt and two babies I decided to stay on Pulau Sibu. That story is for next time.

If you have been, thanks for reading x