I think the mosquitoes and insects at Tekong are already immune
to many of our insect repellents. I have tried applying the SAF
insect repellent before during my first few weeks. My skin feels a
bit itchy after applying it and I still get a one or two stings
from the mosquitoes. But of course it is better than not applying
it.
I will be booking in today and will not get to book out anymore
in the next 2 weeks until my field camp is over. I hope I won't get
any extra confinements or what so ever punishments through out the
field camp for overacting over an insect. And I hope it doesn't
rain too much and there will be no centipedes especially. The
shellscrape thing is one thing that worries me a lot because I am
sure digging the ground inside is going to have a lot of insects
there and worst, I have to sleep in it. I hope those insects won't
go into my shirt or shoes or just any way closer to me. How I wish
I could bring pesticide there...But can't because we are not
allowed to bring any commercial products for field camp.
Anyways, I hope I'll survive through and stay alive from the
insects. I will update this thread when I get to book out again in
2 weeks time. Thanks everyone for their comments.
Just to keep those people who responded to this thread, I have
just completed my 6 days field camp and 3 days SIT test outfield
training. So this will kind of be the only two outfield training I
will have in BMT(I hope so...).
I would consider myself very lucky throughout my 6 days field
camp because I didn't get a single drop of rain throughout the 6
days. The sun was scotching and it was very hot. During my shell
scrape days, my position was very lucky because my location had not
much creepy crawlers. I see a lot of ants and some small insects
that looked a bit like roaches but it is not. I just use my ET
stick to flip the entire soil with the insect away. One of my
friends, he saw a one palm big dead green lizard under the ground
while digging. I was like WTF. Many of my friends had earthworms
all around their shell scrape and they had to sleep with those
worms. I could remember my worst one would be a bee flying loudly
beside me for the whole of my sand two. I was so stupidly annoyed
that I secretly move one of my hands to my grenade pouch and took
out my insect repellent and start squeezing to the air while my
other hand is holding to my rifle. The bee is just not scare of the
SAF insect repellent. haha...
During SIT test, it rained heavily on the second night. My basha
tent was flooded and I was quite traumatize when I go
back to see my tent after the rain. That night, I didn't sleep well
at all because all my stuff are wet. Apparently, during SIT test,
there were more creepy crawlers in the area. Many of my friends
were bitten by centipedes while sleeping.
Throughout the outfield training, I applied the SAF insect
repellent and found that it doesn't seem to work at all. I still
get a lot of mosquitoes bites and I still see insects. The SAF
insect repellent is only spoiling my things. I applied on areas
like my socks and my hands. But in the end, because my socks are
near to my boots, it somewhat made the top part of my boots to melt
and because it is some kind of rubber leather material, it is very
sticky. As for my hands, the repellent got some on my watch and I
realise the texture of my watch is very rough after that.
All in all, I think I didn't regret going through the field camp
though I was very worried previously and was very tired throughout
the field camp. But of course if you were to ask me to do it again,
I would definitely say NO. haha!
And thanks for those who had encouraged and took your time to
reply to this thread. Thanks!
