what a wonderful trip it was...
the lodging wasn't exactly of 3 star quality, but at least the room is air-conditioned and there are warm water showers...
Fri, 29 july 2005
left concourse on fri nite at 8pm. was travelling on a minivan. went by the 2nd link.
the entire journey to mersing took 4 hrs. had a supper break half way.
reached the motel at abt 12.05am and stayed over. nice little bed w a blanket, hot shower.
watched a malaysian chinese drama serial. quite amused by their accent and mix of chinese and dialect.
remember one character said," 不要 gha jiao 我 kor."
some bits were unbelievably unrealistic, but it was entertaining enough.
there was a mozzie flying ard. tried to kill it but to no avail.
slept at 1am. luckily the mozzie din disturb my sleep.
Sat, 30 july 2005
woke up at 6 the next morning. packedup, had breakfast. simple bread and peanut butter and coffee/tea bfast.
it's kind of cheap white loaf of bread they serve at kopi tiams when u buy roti kaya.
wasn't interested in the peanut butter, so juz ate 2 slices of bread.
shortly after, we went to the jetty to board the boat to tioman.
was a fairly long journey. but the morning sun was a sight to behold.
will post fotos in the next post.
after that, it was wiping the sea water off my face as the wakes splash in through the window.
after abt an hour or so, we reached tioman, the boat docked next to our dive boat, so we transferred our gear to the dive boat.
grabbed our personal bags and boarded a smaller boat that took us to shore.
checked-in and got ready for dive 1.
dive #1
went into the water at 10.20am. couldn't stand the taste of the seawater. i was constantly spitting into the sea. while floating at the surface.
instructor descended and told us to go down one by one. so with mask on and regulator in my mouth, i descended when it was my turn.
felt the pressure in my ears as i went down. panicked for a sec coz i wasn't prepared for it. so finned up a little bit and equalized.
the feeling is kind of like wat u feel when u're taking the elevator up swissotel the stamford to equinox.
but once i was at the bottom, it was fantastic all the way...
we did some drills which we were taught during our pool lessons. clearing our regulator, recovering our reg, clearing our masks, fin pivot and hovering as well as practice drill for a out of air situation.
after dat we went up to the surface and did a few more drills, but shan't bore u with dat.
after dat, we went back to shore, had lunch which was quite good i must say.
rested for a while, den we went out for our 2nd dive.
dive #2
did a few more drills, den we were off scuba diving !!
diving is so awesome when u're not doing drills. our instructor took us ard, showed us some of the plants and animals under the sea.
he showed us the crown of thorns (poisonous!!), sea cucumber, anemone and a ball looking thingy which i cant rem what it is. only rem he said dat it belonged to the starfish family.
there was a group of japanese divers who were sharing the dive boat w us. one of them started throwing up over the side of the boat shortly after she came back up. she was juz hurling away. the japs have such 'cute' apparel. one of them had a green hood which had a flower lookng thingy on top. so we called her the 'flower lady'. another had a set of pink fins, snorkel, mask, booties and gloves.
dive #3
this was a 'kai-kai' dive. brought my camera down. took some fotos of some fishies, corals, nemo and his home.
saw a nudie branch which kinda looked like a bluish color caterpillar.
was really amazing looking and enjoying the sights of the underwat er world.
shortly after we surfaced and got on the boat, the sky kinda darkened a bit and the sea got a
the boat was like rocking left and right forming abt a 45deg angle. was pretty bad. we couldnt' leave yet coz we were waiting for the jpa divers to surface. the water was superly choppy where they surfaced. was so bad that the platform at the back of the boat was like abt 1m off the water at some points.
so the boatman threw a bouy with a rope attached to the boat and towed the divers who held onto it to calmer waters so that they could board.
the first lady came up sans fins. and we asked her where were her fins. she happily replied, " oh, i lost them! " she seemed pretty happy abt it. next one up passed us his video cam which looked pretty cool. my instructor was holding onto it and he was like trying to operate it and see wat videos they took. but couldn't do anything... all the labels on the video cam were in japanese. cant read 'a-no-nae'.
picked them all up after 2 passes. went back to shore, showered and got ready for dinner.
went for dinner with e instructors and a couple of other guys who went on the trip with us. one of the guys knew the owner of a resort further down the coast, so we had to take a boat ride from the jetty to the resort. the boatman quite good coz he had to make his way through in darkness. saw bio-luminence in the surf as the boat sped along. it was so beautiful.
had a bbq seafood dinner which was great. had bbq sotong, fish, satay, curry prawns, fried chicken wings.
took the boat back after dinner. saw the other diver guys having drinks at the bar so we joined them. they were like happily drinking can after can. i only had a can of heineken. was like feeling kinda sleepy and was completely flushed after one can.
i'm such a lousy drinker rite? but after a while, not so sleepy liao. but was still a little tired from the diving and all.
went back at abt 1.30am and went to sleep at abt 2am.
Sun, 31 july 2005
woke up at 8am. had breakfast of toasties, baked beans, fried egg, hot dog and fries.
shortly after it was dive 4.
dive #4
dis was the best dive of all. saw lots of stuff. saw sting ray, stone fish and a turtle. managed to get pretty close to them, esp the turtle.
saw two absolutely beautiful schools of fish. it was juz amazing. but wat sucked was i forgot to bring my cam along !! @#$%&%#%^!
surfaced and rested for a while before we went for our final dive.
dive #5
this was our final dive of the trip. we were already certified divers by then. only needed 4 dives to be certified.
our instructor said he's got a tradition for his students. they are to dive w/o wetsuits for their 'graduation dive'.
so dat's wat we did, dived in our swimming trunks. the water felt cold at first when i juz entered but after descending and swimming along, it's wasn't dat bad. saw lots of sea urchins (another touch no-no) along the seabed. but also saw quite a number of fishes. like the trigger fish, which was quite big. and saw nemo again. this time, my intructor was like trying to catch it in his hands. seemed so nice to play with.
will it e next time i dive.
it's amazing how the corals which looked solid are the brittle ones and those which looked fragile are the hard corals.
but most of the hard corals look like brains.
soon, it was all over... *sobs*
back to shore, showered, packed up and had lunch.
logged our dives and it's off to mainland m'sia.
took another long journey back. the captain of the boat was quite a good driver, evreyone on board seemed to have gotten wet in some way by the waves and splashes from the surf. this indian lady got it quite bad. i, on the other hand was superly dry coz i was sitting behind the captain. i was the only person who had his window fully opened throughout the whole journey.
reached mersing jetty, had a ramly burger, and we were off to singapore.
another 4 hour journey brought us back to concourse. unloaded our stuff, exchanged email addresses and we left.
had dinner with friggy. ate at geylang. my gay partner had to cook dinner coz it was his dad's birthday.
had the geylang beef kuay teow and frog porridge. also had sweet and sour pork. yum yum...
went home, unpacked, and it's off to bed.
my back is kinda burnt. had to sleep on my front and side last nite.
slobbed a chunk of jergens ultra healing lotion on my shoulders.
it's better now. but still bought a bottle of jergens soothing aloe relief to ease the pain at the shoulders and back.
off to bed now. got training lessons tom for my M9 exam paper next week. need to pass to be a financial advisor.
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