Pulau Tioman 21-23 March 2008

Pretty uneventful trip - except for a nasty gash across my palm caused by an embarassing accident.

Encountered an inch-long baby squid at night, a huge sleeping humphead, a small lionfish, a few puffers, a full-sized barracuda, tiny little shrimps, lots of clownfish and the usual others.

But what makes this trip note-worthy is not so much what I saw, but what I felt. After 40 dives under my belt, I realise now I am truly comfortable diving. I used to feel a little apprehensive putting on the restrictive mask, that uncomfortable regulator, shuffling around with a tank dragging me down, and the plunge from boat to deep blue nothingness. Even when diving, I would feel a little claustrophobic coz of all the equipment.

Not anymore. On this trip I giant-strided in without hesitation every time, and underwater my body felt no discomfort at all. Only thing that bothered me was the fogging up of my mask and the pounding migraines in my head when I couldn't equalise. otherwise I was totally at home wrapped in a BCD, engulfed by sea, with fishes swimming all around.

Of course the headaches bothered me quite a bit, and the temptation to shoot up to the surface and normalise myself was always there. But somehow as the water slows everything down, I am more calm, more relaxed and able to slowly think things thru. I CANNOT shoot up. i MUST stay below and remain in control. So i ascend up slowly, up to a level where it doesn't hurt, and stay there. I don't get to see things up close as I usually like, but I still get to enjoy being underwater, diving.

I hope these migraines are only due to my blocked nose rendering me unable to equalise properly. Besides that, I am now truly, 100% comfortable diving. Yes, maybe 40+ dives is quite a long way to get here, but look at it this way - it's an entirely different world to get used to.

My Last Trip to Pulau Aur

Dive trip with company sports club, which i am on the committee.

background: angmoh colleague wanted to be in charge. told him i'd help and suggested a dive shop, plus rates. angmoh colleague didn't even respond to that email.

dive operator chosen was nemo travel, run by angmohs (big surprise). pick up at office was supposed to be friday 7pm. at 8pm a call was replied saying that they were on their way. sg isn't that big, is it?

26 of us got (squeezed) onto a 40-seater bus - 1/3 was already taken up by another group. angmoh colleague later told us he thot only got our group.

and the group got bigger - dive operators regrouped everyone in open water (abt 30) advanced (abt 10) and leisure (abt 10). plus 10+ dive masters/instructors.

1st dive - murky waters, only saw 2 nudibranch. frayed BCD kept slapping at my neck while diving. lost the dive group, and me and my 2 buddies surfaced with a previously unknown french guy.

2nd dive - off pulau lang, still murky waters, managed to catch 1 batfish, 1 hairy nudibranch. then, wanted to review photos so i flipped the play-camera switch, and to my surprise it turned 360 deg. and i saw bubbles started coming out. and i saw water started pouring in. F@^K!!! i jammed the lever down to prevent more water from going in and told my colleague buddy i was ascending - he reminded me to do safety stop, and for those 1-2 minutes (seemed longer) i was damn worried abt my camera and flipped it around a bit to keep the water one side while we hovered. then i managed to catch sight of the rest of the group again and swam furiously to the dive master, who swam away just out of my reach - she didn't seem to have lost us. gave up, and ascended.

floating on surface i opened the casing and poured the greenish water out - and the nice boatman helped me take my camera and the broken pieces of the lever and kept them safe near the boat helm. climbed up, stripped off the gear and examined the camera. the casing was hot and smoke spewed out from the battery compartment, which was wat caused the greenish water. sianz.

tried to dry the camera by stripping it as much as possible and using a combination of serviettes and blower, but it didn't come on even with fresh batteries. my canon A75 drowned.

skipped the 3rd dive doing that, and when it came to night dive, colleague buddy and i were keen. young punk of a dive master said he needed to check if there were torches. disappeared and came back saying there were none for leisure, and furthermore we shd hv informed them we wanted to go night dive before the trip. wat rubbish. leisure dives usually hv night.

ate the famous seafood dinner, but it sucked. crab was far from fresh. not like the previous time when the whole table sat thru 3 plates of pure crab. only satay was good, but not enuff sauce.

tok cock with colleagues quite a bit before turning in. didn't wake up for the morning dive - slept until 930. ate a light breakfast and clambered across rocks to a large flat stone by the water to sleep somemore. long time nv sleep in the sun liao. rather cloudy so sun wasn't strong. nice. in fact, only really nice time on the island.

after lunch, boarded the speed boat back to find that wrestler sized divemaster and his puny gf joined us. not that he wasn't a nice guy (he helped me find my dive mask) but he and his stuff severely weighed down our craft - tilted twds the bow and port side. managed to make it back to mainland, but some of my frens and some of the bags were drenched.

ate my 1st real coffee in 2 days, but it was much too sweet. instant coffee powder on the island had all turned sour due to exposure. sucked. took the same 40-seater bus home watching crappy shows like shrek 3 and music n lyrics. angmoh dive operator refused to let off 2 colleagues staying in the west even though we came from 2nd link. when we got off they were cheery and said bye, but i didn't bother to reply.

- lousy service
- lousy equipment
- try to smoke ppl
- squeeze too many ppl
= no more using nemo travel. period.

- poor visibility
- no more big creatures - no more cuttlefish! :(
- shabby accommodations
- lousy food
- lousy coffee
- bad & sad memories
= no more going to pulau aur. period.