Category: adventures

Singapore Navy Diver Unit – NDU

Singapore Naval Diving Unit
Singapore Navy Diving Unit

Singapore Navy Diving Unit is one of the coolest uniit in the Navy (maybe SAF). Last Sun, Daddy got an invitation to visit the Naval divers of Singapore. It was an opportunity to showcase our elite divers’ capabilities to grassroots leaders.

Singapore Navy Diving Unit (NDU) is a special task force under Singapore Navy. Daddy is very curious to find out what are the attributes of a frogman (NDU’s mascot is a muscular frog), and their motto is “Nothing Stands In Our Way” !

We get to see divers perfect drown-proofing techniques. This survival skills allow divers to stay afloat longer under hostile situation.

NDU Divers Singapore
NDU Divers Singapore

**please catch the two action pack videos of Diving and Boating

Trainers will rip off your oxygen tanks ! Water confidence is a must for every trainee (also called tadpole)

After viewing the divers behind glass, the visitors got an opportunity to ogle at the divers. Six packs, dimples, suave, and yandao. All the ladies were beaming πŸ™‚

Train hard, train Safe. We sweat in peacetime, so we bled less during wartime.
Safety is of paramount concern, even for our elites.

The highlight of our tour must be the “Rigid-hulled inflatable boat” (RGIB) ride. These boats are packed with 480Bhp horsepower, and allow our special forces to cut across rough seas at up to 80kph.

After a few hairpin turns and drifts, we Wanted more! Nevermind if our hair is messy πŸ™‚

Gulf of Sembawang, and we came close to Singapore Causeway πŸ™‚

Hong Peng is clearly impressed.

Our boating experience may be a joy ride, but our Divers face pirates and choppy seas in the Gulf of Aden. (Click for some rough-sea video.)

Back on land, we got a tour of NDU’s equipments. Did you know about the indoor 25m range at NDU? Cool, no more Butt party under the hot sun.

Oohh. Wow.. High tech weaponry and systems. We are impressed.


Thank you Mindef PR for the invitation, we had an adrenalin filled Sunday morning. More action photos can be found at SengkangBabies fanpage.

Do drop by our fellow tourists’ blogposts for their experience too πŸ™‚
– Mhisham
– HP
– Senang Diri
– Techie Lobang

More Navy action can be found at :
– 2010 Navy Open house, Divers assault demo
– CyberPioneer Divers video here and here

Meanwhile, Boon Kang will be ready when his unit SKB recalls him. Singapore Navy Diver Unit for him?

High Achievers Holiday Camps

During the Nov and Dec school holidays, High Achievers (HA) will organise camps to toughen up the kiddos. Daddy, together with Winston and Carolyn, was invited to trial High Achievers‘ D.A.R.E outdoor campsite at Jalan Bahtera (also known as Sarimbun scout campsite).

Through outdoor activities like kayaking, wall climbing, and even campfire. HA hopes to build up confidence, independence, resiliency and leadership skills into the young ones.

To quote from High Achievers :
~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~
Make the best of your school holidays with the High Achievers’ D.A.R.E. (Do, Apply, Reflect, Excel) Camps. Based on the renowned experiential learning method of Do, Reflect & Apply and combined with the best of outdoor education, participants achieve Resilience, Concentration, Confidence and Life Skills.

The challengers today might not be so “young” anymore, but we are eager to relieve our childhood dreams explore what the kids will be experiencing during their camps.

With the wall facing us, we have to set our own Goal. Joe emphasis the importance of setting goals before we embark on our journeys. With a Goal in mind, we know our purpose, we persevere, and we motivate ourselves to reach higher peaks.

Under the guidance of our instructors (Nicholas, Algin and Joe, first photo black-polos from left to right), we take the first vertical stride. The wall is 18m (seven storeys) high, but when you are dangling halfway and looking down, it definitely feels much higher !

Mistakes are fine, it is more important to pick ourselves up and learn from the experience.

It is harder to discuss milestones with younger kids, so experienced instructors will bring the message across from another perspective. Example if students face difficulty with homework, instructors will provide clues on how students can better cope with their homework.

Did Daddy mention some of the grips are purposely loosen, which makes it almost impossible to grip! We are forced to navigate another path.

Instructors will shout instructions from below, “Aim for the orange rock on your right!”, “Lift your left leg higher!”. YES, Daddy heard them, and know where he wanted to reach, but somehow, the limbs refuse to coordinate !

After the climb, we have a debrief and participants are encouraged to narrate their own experience. In short :
– Daddy had an initial path (plan), but things did not work out.
– It is normal to encounter delays and detours.
– Thanks to friends encouragement and our own perseverance, we can still achieve our objective.

From the drawings, our instructors can tell us about our strong and weak points, and how we can improve our character.

We get to tour around the camp facility. Do not expect any creature comfort like aircon or hot shower :p

They call this the PlayPen, but Daddy is sure it will not be so Fun when you are stuck up there. We have to work as a two-man team to haul each other to the top, then overcome the obstacles in midair.

The three challengers decided unanimously to skip PlayPen, so that future participants will not get any spoiler-alerts :p

Daddy chided Wen Wei and Wen Kang for not trying hard enough at their Bedok rock wall adventure. Today, Daddy almost could not reach his first objective ooops. Daddy is guilty of giving too little credits to the kids.

We are sure your kids will fare better than us, and the various camps schedules are available at High Achievers’ website.

Different criteria for different age groups.

If you have more questions, do contact High Achievers :
– Web http://www.highachievers.com.sg
– Facebook http://www.facebook.com/camphighachievers
– Direct 6254 0747

..otherwise click for more climbing photos at our fanpage.

We would like to take this opportunity to thanks the team from High Achievers for DARing us, and SomeKindOfWonderful for the event coordination.

..ps..
From now till end 30Sep, take a photo of yourself on High Achievers’ 3D obstacle floor image at the following shopping centres (Northpoint, Bedok Point, or Yew Tee Point) and stand to win a camp package worth $850.