By SANTE VILLIAMON
SEMPORNA: As an annual event, the colourful Semporna Lepa Regatta is still very much a crowd puller, attracting more than 15,000 people to this normally sleepy town over the last weekend.
Already into its 13th year, held on a grand scale, the regatta was held from 14 to 16 April with an official launching by the Head of State Tun Ahmadshah Abdullah on Saturday night.
People thronged the streets of Semporna as early as 5pm coming from all walks of life including the tourists.
They were treated not just to performances from artists like Fauziah Latif, Camelia, Noraniza Idris and Benda but also to a 15-minute rousing display of fireworks to mark the launch of the regatta.
A total of 104 entries took part in the “Most Beautiful Lepa” contest that required them to be paraded before the Semporna Marine Tourism Centre.
Yesterday morning, sunny weather and the burst of colours from the brightly decorated lepas became a visual treat for the thousands who arrived including a delegation of 40 led by the wife of the Menteri Besar of Perlis.
Tun Ahmadshah and wife Toh Puan Dayang Masuyah Awang Japar were also taken on a leisurely cruise on a lepa together with former Head of State Tun Sakaran Dandai, Minister of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Datuk Shafie Apdal and Minister in the Chief Minister’s Department Datuk Nasir Tun Sakaran.
Courtesy of New Sabah Times
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