End of Season Diving

This final trip to Tioman for an "end of season dive" had it's fair share of ups and downs. Weather was horrible through out and that contributed to horrible visibility for all dives on the first day. Water got so choppy that JA lost her lunch & breakfast to the fish.

The highlights, though, more than made up for it. This time around we saw....

1. Blue Spotted Stingray X3
2. Batfish
3. Angelfish
4. Clownfish (of course)
5. Dogface Pufferfish
6. Maroon Pufferfish
7. Giant Groupa (this one was a MONSTER, it was as big as my upper torso)
8. Sucker fish (the kind you see attached to large fish like sharks and whales)

This encounter with the Sucker fish was quite interesting. It thought our dive group was a pack of big predator fish and tried to attach itself to us. When one of the girls in the group felt something ticklish on her thigh and looked back, she screamed so loudly the whole group could hear it. XD

9. A huge pod of dolphins. Links to the video here
10. Greenback Turtle, twice!

All in all it was yet another fantastic experience and reaffirmed my passion for diving. I am looking further aboard for my future dives and hope to see different things from the usual sights in Tioman. Just Langkawi was a great excursion and that is something I hope to do more often.

Back In Action

Been a long time since I've written anything on here and it's not for lack of anything going on in my life. Far from it in fact and I am barely able to fall over in exhaustion at times. The job in Shanghai is coming along fine - I get to learn and experience under the teaching wings of 2 experienced people in the water industry. Flying between Shanghai and Singapore is tiring of course, but the payoff is more than worth it. It is difficult to maintain a relationship in the midst of everything. To top it all off, the diving trip recently in Langkawi has GOT to be the gem.

Some housekeeping matters regarding the blog first. The chatterbox on the right has been taken down (as if anyone noticed to begin with) and I don't foresee putting up another one. Comments are still available of course, I have always preferred them to the chatterbox anyway.

For this first leisure dive, I got an underwater casing for JA's canon digital camera. Worked like a charm!

To Glide Effortlessly

photos courtesy of Ong's amazing underwater camera.

Recent Convert

The recent diving trip was a revelation to say the least. Snorkelling and diving are just incomparable. You get to stay underwater only as long as your breath allows when snorkelling and most marine life avoid you when you dive under. Probably because you're making such a din and look like a menacing predator advancing on them.

The disparity in amount of marine life you come into contact with when diving is just amazing. As you glide along effortlessly underwater, it is like you have entered an alternate world and the fishes treat you as part of it. Was motionless as I watched a giant jellyfish float eerily by and then couldn't help but smile as a parrotfish kept nibbling on my fins. There was a shark circling a school of large bumphead fish while its cousin the stingray and blue-spotted ray skirted along the sea bed. Clown fish families amongst the sea anemone swan about in distress as the dive instructor fanned at their stringy homes. Not forgetting the yellow polka dot box fish, fearsome looking moray eel and large barracuda, shy sea turtle and multitude of colourful corals on the sea bed.