As the speed boat approached the island, the mobile signal waned till it completely disappeared. The sea breeze tickling our hair, water splashed on our clothes, someone exclaimed “Look!” When we thought we were almost there, the boat suddenly halted about 5 miles from the shore.

“Swim,” The captain commanded us from the stern.

“What?” I couldn’t believe what I’d heard. “Swim?” Instinctively clutching my lifejacket, I looked around, only to find, despite the waves, some grotesque rocks sticking out of the sea. “Seriously?” I murmured, “I can’t even swim.”

“Nah, the captain was just joking,” some soon clarified my concerns.

“Joking? All right…”

Though the volunteer work was to assist the nest checking and tagging of the marine turtles, what awaited me first on the island, however, were not them.

Bathed under the bright sunshine, the cabin, surrounded by thick tropical trees, seemed veiled with a fanciful mystery. All the windows and doors opened to their utmost, though, the cabin’s interior was nothing but dim. Inside, there lied two folding camp beds, with mosquito coil and the remains of candles strewn about on the floor.

Humming, and still indulged in the excitement to start a new life on the isolated part of Redang Island, I was arranging my stuff in the cabin. Something was moving overhead, I suddenly sensed. Looking up, what caught my attention was something hung on the beam, dark, fuzzy and consolidated into a lump.

Switching on the light, step by step, I was approaching the lump when it trembled, slightly yet still noticeable. More closely, more slowly I was moving. The creature’s wings suddenly spread wide open and swiftly shut close, as if protesting me, the intruder. One of them yawned, just awaken by the human movements and still sleepy. I counted, seven - total of seven bats hung on the beam of my cabin!

Backing, I could hear myself murmuring “It’s going to be OK. They are not moving and they are not going to hurt you.” However, the lump was all stirred up before the tales on Vampire could register with me. Wings flapped, a bat swooped down, circling in the air and driving the astonished me out of the cabin.

“What’s going on?” Wei Kean, my roommate, asked me outside the cabin, “I heard you scream.”

“Me, screaming?”

“Yeah, very loud.”

“All right. Maybe I was too shocked to realize it.” It was the only way I could come up with to explain my “blacking out.”

With my seven “little brothers” settling in my room, I was forced to stay outside for the rest of the afternoon, either wandering on the beach, lying in the hammock or sitting on the bench in the kitchen.

Probably because of the serenity of nature and slow pace of life we were indulged with for the afternoon, when the storm hit the island at dusk, we were completely unprepared. Without our knowing it, light already absorbed into the thick clouds, the storm ripped open the heaven, rain pouring from the sky. Trees trembled under the shower, leaves stripped off and scattered all around. When I rushed back to the cabin to shut down the windows, it was already too late. The bulb, along with the string that tied it, was swinging in the wind. Switched on, the bulb radiated no response. It was dead. Torchlight shone throughout the room, my “little brothers” left no traces but some “shit” on the Wei Kean’s camp bed. I may they would never come back.

Though the plastic curtain rolled down, water still splashed into the half open dining hall, table and bench all wet. It was in the storm, with the pouring rain and howling wind, that we had our first dinner on the island- Malaysian chicken curie.

To save power, we shut off the light powered by solar energy. At only 19:30, it was all pitch dark, only the dim candle light still wavering. Some ghost stories started to register with me. I recalled Addie, the administrator of the turtle house warned us not to whistle, a gesture, in Malaysian context, of calling upon spirits. The fear did not really take shape as long as I stayed with my teammates. Yet holding a torch, barging into the toilet outside the cabin was a different experience. Torchlight shone on the mirror, trust me, you’ll see another you coming from the other side of the world.

At the first night, it was my turn to take the second-round night shift, between 3:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. Before going to bed at 10:00 p.m., I had to do some precautions: lighting the mosquito coil, spraying the mosquito repellent all over my legs and arms, arraying the torch, water and shoes just beside the bed. Then, poof, the candle was blown out, everything devoured by the darkness. Wearing the eye-patch Kean had lent to me, I kept telling myself not to think of the bats, spiders, ants and whatever insects settling on the island. “Relax. Don’t always assume that insects are going to hurt you,” Kean said. “Learn to live with them.”

Still giddy and sleepy, I was ten minutes late for my night patrol. Back to the hall, my teammates Bingsee and Mei Kun were already waiting for me. Outside, the storm had swept away the heat, leaving a bitterly cold night for the lodgers. Still cloudy, the moon and stars unrevealed, the moonlight was striving to shine their way to the ground. Off shore, on the horizon line where the sea and the sky met, a lamp on a passing ship was giving off light, unsteadily twinkling yet still assuring for people who ran across it. Water receding to its low, grotesque rocks submerged under the sea in the day were now lying naked on the sea bed. With a fixed rhythm, waves were clapping on the rocks, soothingly monotonous, eternally energetic. The beach was enclosed on its three sides by hills and wild forests, only its heart confronting the sea.

The light was weakest after 5:00 a.m., moonlight fading away with no sunlight to substitute it. Having adapted to the environment on the beach, I, even accompanied by the sound of waves, felt all around tranquil, deadly tranquil.

One patrol through both ends of the beach took approximately 20 minutes. In search for the traces of turtles landing on the beach for nesting, our efforts were frustrated. The storm not only drove away the heat but also the mother turtles.

Thus, till the end of the first day, I still had vague idea of what the adult turtles looked like in reality.