Tioman Open Water Dive

The day that I was awaiting in anxiety and excitement, has finally arrived. OWD in Tioman!!!

Yay, wake up damn early, reading the text book, (which later I found out I was the only one doing the revision...) as I was still so water-fobia, and feeling so scare, next to dying I guess, to step into the water...again. He he...

The journey to Mersing, long and tiring...boring also... haha...:p As I am driving Suey and Vicky, whom are elder than me, as a respect, I be a good boy and drive carefully lo... @'.'@

However, Hawkuen's speed of light didn't allow me to do that. >.<

Driving at an unprecedented 4700rpm, 160km/h, yet, he was still so far away from me!!!

After 5 hours driving at an average speed of 140km/h, with a tasteless dinner in Kluang, (first time being in Kluang, despite living just an hour drive from here... Too tired till could not taste the hou fan I had...) we had finally, eventually... arrived in Mersing. =.="

Checked into the hotel, and after having a comfotable hot shower in the cold rainy day, the next thing to do is to lying on bed, and say "I coming" to 周公. So paiseh didn't even have a complete conversation with ming kit, hehe... :p

Woke up the next day at 5am, in order to catch the 6.30am ferry. Was idling about while waiting for the others, I played with my camera and had these shoots.




By the time the boat on the way to Tioman, the sky was still dark, and it was really great to be able to catch some sunrise.

The change of colour is simply fabulous and stunning, great piece of art from the God.

The moment checking in the resort, and looking out to the sea, I was really stunned. Wtf the sky is so clear?! Wtf the sky is so blue?! Wtf I could see fishes in the seawater?! Wtf everything was so perfectly coloured and matched?! Amazing...

The open water dive was actually not as easy as I thought, as we had to perform the skills that we did in the pool dive. Everything went smoothly, and to my best of luck, Hawkuen didn't ask us to perform mask recovery, wakaka...:D

The boat dive at the 3rd dive really made me understand why shall we pay more for the boat, instead of walking through the piercing hard carol reef, with the danger of being carelessly stung by urchin. >.<>

All of us went through the 4 skills dives, and the exam. With sufficient time before the return boat, we had the Fish Id dive, which is part of the Advanced Open Water dives. This was then I realised how horrible and terrible it could be to be in the diving...

We descended from the surface, straight down to 20m underwater. The water was all blue, as blue as the sky I saw on the first day morning. At the first thought I was thinking the visibility was not really good, thus all I could see is only a painting likewise blue. However when looking around during the descent, I could see everyone clearly, even 10m away from me. Still, I couldn't see anything, no fish, no sotong, no jellyfish, no sun, no sea surface, and I couldn't even see the bottom... It was like hanging up in the middle of an infinite space, and you are left alone...Which I believe would drive anyone crazy to be in the environment alone, for not too long.

Eventually, we were at the bottom of the sea. The Fish Id started with some really stupid thing happened... The current was strong, even 20m deep down underwater. Yet we need to control the buoyancy and identify the fishes pointed.

While fighting against the current from pushing me towards the "heaven of urchin", I responced to the first "fish" pointed, which was a creature with palps...The first thing that came across my mind, with palps... A lobster...+.+ Which was a total and stupid mistake, as I found out later lobster only active in the night...and, it is actually a cutterfish. (Lao da later said that, the moment I pointed at the lobster, out of the sudden, he felt so hungry. Luckily I couldn't see him laughing inside the water, or else 6 full tanks wouldn't also save me from embarassment till couldn't breath. >.<

"Lobster"

During the process of identifying that "creature with palp", I was consuming plenty of my gas, which left me the first to be low on air, with only around 30 minutes of dive. I surfaced at 15 bar of gas, which could only last for at most 5 minutes. >.<

Gao gao lat

Yet, through the processes of vomit, pening kepala, stung by urchin, hurt of stepping on coral reef...All of us pass our OWD!!!

Ah Chow

Ming Kit

Ah Hua

Vicky

Suey

Posted herewith some other pictures I took, lucky to have brought my camera along, the sky was really blue, really clear, it was indeed a paradise, even in the night.

Congratulations to us, yeah!!!

p/s: 4700rpm, 160km/h wasn't really the fastest along the journey... I was driving at 5000rpm, 175km/h on the way back home, wakaka... Because was feeling so unwell having gone ups and downs in the 2 hours boat from Tioman to Mersing, all i thought throughout the drive was, reach home, sleep!

Thanks Vicky for safely drove me home. :)