Me, Myself and I: The Scuba Diving Trip!

Whoa I'm back! And, it's blogging time!

It's going to be a long post, so take a sip of coffee and continue reading..

ON FRIDAY

I excitedly went to meet up with Guan Jie at Compass Point to go to school, but in the end, he gave me some wrong information and I waited stupidly for 30 minutes and he was in school!

We board the bus and headed to Woodlands and after we passed the customs, we were at Malaysia!

The bus ride took more than 3 hours to reach our hotel, which the time was around 12.30 when we reached there.

We finally reached Hotel Timotel!

Everyone was extremely tired when we reached there.. And all of us hurriedly took the keys to the room. And was greeted with this sight:

It was a very nice room..

Weichong, Clarence, Sheng Jun and me slept in this room.. Everyone was dead tired and we went to bathe before going to sleep. Clarence said that he wanted to sleep at the wooden sofa, leaving the king size bed all to myself. In the end, he regretted. He felt so cold even after I lent him my jacket. Serves him right!

Also, some people even made prank calls to each other, feigning as a ghost and some other weird stuff.

I wasn't there to listen, and I was knocked out immediately once I got into bed.

*Snores*

ON SATURDAY

We woke up very early, around 6am. And everyone was getting prepared to go to Pulau Tioman. But early in the morning we have..

Sin Wee and Daphne posing for the camera.

Apparently, they loved our room so much that they decided to take a picture.

We had breakfast at the hotel, and later proceeded to the jetty.

Selamat Datang!

Waiting for the other groups to come.

The view of the jetty port.

Finally, everyone reached the port...

And we started boarding the ship!

Some ships that we saw..

We board the ship at around 9.30am... And we reached Pulau Tioman at 3pm! It was nearly 6 hours of ride, and some people were having sea-sickness and Guan Jie even puked. During the ride, I realise that Sheng Jun a.k.a known as SJ, is REALLY NARCISISSTIC. Daphne and I was asked to help him take a shot of him.. But then again, isn't it good to love oneself? Perhaps if everyone were narcissistic, suicide cases would have plummet. Anyway, he was really a nice guy.. And a helpful one too..

So tired..

Finally, after nearly 6 hours on the water, we finally reached Pulau Tioman!

We were greeted with seemingly crystal clear water, with the sun rays shining on it as the water sparkles..

Seriously beautiful Tioman..

No wonder it was named as one of the top 10 best diving sites in the world.

Everyone was relieved to see Pulau Tioman after spending so many hours in the sea.

"Don't push, one at a time. If not you're landing on the sea!"

Everyone then proceeded to the diving centre.

Fishermen Dive Centre, Pulau Tioman Branch!

Immediately after that, we went to have our lunch. We're all hungry you know!

After eating, the Dive Masters gave us the keys to our resort.

I love the room that was located. It was brilliant.

What a perfect location! My 4 other schoolmates and me were sharing one room at the extreme left of the house.

The side view of the house..

The view that you will be greeted after you open the door.

Some humongous rocks were also present, and during low tide, we saw lots of fishes beside our room, what's more, we saw crabs and even 2 juvenile octopuses!

The room that we were living. The room condition was not very good, but it was still habitable.

At around 4-5 pm we went to dive. We put on our diving gears and were getting ready. I was carrying a 15kg air tank, together with a weight belt of 12 kg, and I was walking towards the beach. I put on my flippers at the ankle-depth water with the support of Aziz and Clarence. It was hard to balance thanks to the currents. Some of us fell. I was one of them, and I suffered cuts and bruises because of the dead corals.

We later went to deeper depth, and began to deflate my Buoyancy Compensator so I can sink. The water was choppy, and I couldn't see the instructor. All I could see was his black gloves. After less than 15 minutes of diving, we returned back to shore. One of the instructors who were taking the other group said that the visibility was bad and it was high tide.

We waited for quite some time before going diving again.

5.30PM

We went diving again, but this time, the visibility was better, but still not very good. In the end, one instructor spotted corals and we went down to take a look. I saw many fishes and went near to them. Instead of going into hiding, these fishes crowd near me as if they were curious. I was extremely mindful not to hit the corals with my flippers, and I enjoyed much, although the colour of the corals and the fishes(some) were brown, contrary to what I watched on television, where it was so beautiful. It probably got alot to do with the choppy water I guess..

We went back to shore again and all of us washed our diving equipments and went to bathe.

We met at around 6.30 and we went to have our dinner at this place.

The food was pretty good, except that it was oily. I tried to eat fast so that I can shop for souvenirs.

I had to put souvenirs as top priority to my friends before I bought anything for myself. I managed to buy some nice keychains and other stuff for them, and I bought myself a luminous T-Shirt with beautiful Dolphin printing that was worth RM $20.

After that, we went to have our final exam. It was so boring and everyone was dead tired. And we were finally released at midnight. I was knocked out right after I head for my bed.

ON SUNDAY

We woke up extremely early, and we had curry puffs and sugar donuts for breakfast, and we went to pack our diving equipment immediately.

8.20am (Heading towards Marine Park.)

The ship arrives and everyone board the ship. While in the trip, some people were flabbergasted. I was wondering what was the commotion about and they said they saw dolphins. I was thinking where was it when I suddenly spotted 3-4 dolphins gliding! Wow! The instructors said that the dolphins were following us.

We went to Marine Park to dive first. I wore my equipment and did all the necessities and plunge into the water, and waited for my group members..

We went to the seabed around 48 feet. We used a long rope to help us go to the seabed. The long rope must be there for quite sometime as it was covered with corals, and there were even fishes there. I was experiencing pain. I went down to the seabed to fast, and my ears were hurting very much, thanks to the pressure. Luckily, I did the clearing technique of ears umpteen times to clear my ears.

Everyone reached the seabed. But I accidentally disturbed the sediments, and it became all choppy water. But after awhile, it settled down, and all of us began feeding the fishes. There were lots of silvery fishes and rabbit fishes crowding all around us for the bread. (By the way, the fishes are edible.) It was such a wonderful experience. After that, we did some exercises like finding the regulator etc.

We went to shallow water, which was crystal clear. We followed the Dive Master. There were many sea slugs, around us and some sea urchins. The instructor saw a sea sponge and carried it to let us see.

To be honest, I was pretty disappointed. Most of the corals were dead except some. I've been to Pulau Tioman in 2000, and the natives there told me that the corals were destroyed by tourists.

We went on to explore further and saw some wrasses and other fishes before heading back to shore.

Heading towards Monkey Bay.

We went there to dive and the corals there were better protected. The depth was shallower than the first location. We saw brain corals and some colourful fishes such as blue devils and lovely wrasses again. I only spotted one clownfish; it was enjoying itself on the sea anemone. We saw lots of sea urchins congregrating together. When some fishes saw us, they were hiding behind the sea urchins, using it was a protection.

But with a stroke of serendipity, we saw a medium-sized moray eel! Eureka! It was hiding behind some corals. According to our instructor Amin, it is extremely difficult to spot moray eels.

After diving, we went to swim in the sea for awhile..

Finally, it was time to go home. We took the ship way back to Mersing. However, something happened to the ship. The ship was stuck in the middle of the sea, thanks to low tide. The water was too shallow and the propeller was feared to be broken if the ship carries on moving. There was a high possibility that we would have to wait till 1am in the morning for high tide before we can move. Luckily, the ship was reversed and we managed to go back to the jetty on time.

To cut story short, we reached Singapore at around 11pm and reached school at around 11.30pm..

Anyway, I would like to thank ODAC for giving me this opportunity to let me get closer to my dreams. Yes, I have a qualification that would allow me to dive anywhere in the world, and it will be added to my resume.

Here are some pictures we took: