Tioman - Diving

Day 1 - 26th September 2008
Waking up early in the morning? Sure not a problem. I had to be in Kelana Jaya LRT station by 5.30am. Hitch hiking from a friend of mine. There were two others who were following as well. I have no idea who they were. Friend of a friend’s friend. I’m going Tioman by the way and apparently this is my second time there. Seriously, I don’t recall a thing. I remember the ferry and me slipping and bumping the back of my head, visiting the doctor on board, the jackpot machine (yeah the cool one where you get to pull the level) and visiting the captain of the ship. But somehow Tioman just wasn’t there in my memory. Anyway, it’s a good thing I had the chance to revisit Tioman and thank god it was still as beautiful as before. I think.

So with my friends GPS set on course, we started our 200+km journey down south. We stop at Ayer Keroh rest area for a toilet break. There I was introduced to another 3 friends. We left shortly and headed on to Kluang where we had our breakfast. Passing through the town requires luck, if not patients. You have to get by 14 traffic lights. Headed on toward Mersing and almost miss our 11am ferry. We somehow miss the turning to the new road to Mersing and had to travel an extra 20km.

We made it anyway thanks to Milo’s F1 driving skills. Damn, my heart almost dropped out. Let’s not do that again! At 11.30am, we were on our way to Tioman, Panuba Inn to be exact. It’s the last stop after Kampung Genting, Kampong Gaya, Berjaya and Air Batang. We arrived at 1.30pm just in time for lunch. There is only one restaurant there, so you have to bear with the food they served for the duration of your stay. The food was good by the way, so no worries there.

Panuba Inn Resort Jetty.

Yeah, Diving here I come

Just another view point.

After checking into our rooms, we went over to the dive center, Balihai where I took up the Discover Scuba Diving course. I practically spent the whole day on it, watching the first video session and learning about the equipments. Since there are no swimming pools around, everything was done in the open sea. Learned the basic of scuba diving, how to setup gears, putting on fins in the water, breath continuously and etc. It was a different experience altogether and decided to proceed with the open water diver course. I had a short break to clean up before returning to watch the second session video. The day ended with dinner, a walk to the jetty and of course a good night rest.

Seriously remind me to take a picture before we unpack.

A view from the balcony of our room

Day 2 - 27th September 2008
Today’s going to be another full day of scuba diving. It was kind of an intensive course as I only had 3 days to try complete it. Of course if I am not able to finish, I can always continue it another time. But I was determined to get my license to dive before I return. A buzz of the alarm on 7am got me jumping out of the bed. I went and took a couple of pictures before going down for breakfast. Breakfast was buffet style, but it doesn’t get refilled often. They had a tray of fried noodle or was it mee hoon, toast, coffee/tea/juice and fruits. That’s about it.

Hellooo... It's me!!! Haha

Before jumping into the water, I had to watch another 2 sessions of video. After that, headed out to continue my confine water dive. Not very confined to me though. I was in the open sea and the waves were rough. I was thought the basics again and learn a few other skills required to pass the open water diver course.

After a short rest of 15 minutes, I was back in the water. This was going to be my first actual dive. I met another diver who was also completing his open water diver course. We headed over to the House Reef dive site. It just by the jetty. I get to leap around 2 meter into the open sea. There we descended slowly to the bottom. Again, practical comes first. The basic of retrieving a lost regulator, recovering mask, removing your BCD and putting it back on and buoyancy control was practice before proceeding further. Initially, I had some issue equalizing, and I could feel a slight pain in my ear. I thought it was quits for me. I managed it anyway and I glad I did. Just a few months back, I was about 4100m above sea level, now I’m 10 meters below sea level. Wow!

It’s a completely different world down below. Things feel so calm, beautiful corals and fishes. Too bad I don’t have an underwater camera. I would love to share it here. I had another dive later at the same dive site after lunch. We were joined by another diver who was doing his refreshment course.

It was a tiring day indeed. I was totally exhausted. I had two color tones on my skin. My hand was evidently the most obvious. Gleaming red as I was roasted. Charcoaled if I stayed in the sun longer. Dinner was bbq fish with rice. Had a stroll at the jetty before returning to my room.

Monkey feeding on banana.

You can find this lizard lazing around the same rock every afternoon

A staff member of Panuba in fishing for fun.

Day 3 - 28th September 2008
It’s going to be interesting today. Met up at the dive center after breakfast at 9.00am. Got into my gears and headed over to the speed boat. With the weight loaded on your back it was kind of difficult to get on to the boat, not to mention, unloading and attaching your tank to the boat. We took off shortly and thank god for that. I was beginning to feel nausea with the boat swinging left and right. It wasn’t long before we reach the Soyak dive site. Again, in my heart I was screaming to get off the boat. The sea was rough and if I don’t get out soon, I’ll be feeding the fishes. There were nearly 12 divers in the boat. I was one of the last to get out.

Diving to almost 15 meter deep this time. I saw a turtle close up for the first time. Of course there were also the barracudas, puffer fish and NEMO…. Lots of NEMO. The dive lasted around 40 minutes. Return to the boat, change air tanks and headed over to our second dive site, Pirate. There we dive another 40 minutes plus to around 16 meter deep.

The rest of the afternoon, after lunch, I spent most of my time doing theory work. Studied my course material, did the quizzes, review sessions and finally my final exam in order to complete my course. I had that nervous feeling again, when my instructor was marking my paper. I PASS anyway!!! Never felt happier.

The only thing that stands between me and my Open Water diver cert is the swimming portion which was scheduled at 7.30am tomorrow morning.

The jetty. Sorry, I ran out of words.

Balihai Dive center.

Was playing around with my friend's ultra wide angle lens

This is where i did my confine dives. There's no swimming pool so this will have to do.

Day 4 - 29th September 2008
I jump out of my bed as soon as my alarm rang, put on my swim suit and dash down the jetty. There I waited for a friend of mine who was a dive master. He volunteered to see that I swam 100m and stay afloat on the water for 10 minutes. Though tired, I had no problem completing the task and I’m proud to say that I am an officially an Open Water Diver. There weren’t time to hang around as we wanted to take the 10am boat back home. So right after breakfast, we pack and waited for the ferry.

Since a different ferry (actually a speed boat) came earlier than the one we were suppose to board, we decided to hop onto it. They accepted the tickets we bought for the other ferry. Anyway, it was a decision that we all regretted. It had made a stop at a jetty for more than half an hour. Apparently someone forgot his golf clubs and made all of us wait for him. Our initial ferry came and left long before us. Secondly, just about 13km from reaching Mersing, strange smell started clogging our nose. The damn boat was on fire. Thick black smoke rushes into the cabin as soon as a crew opened the door. It was quite a commotion, but overall everyone was fairly calm. Some had their life jackets on. The only thing I was worried about was an explosion. Haha.. And the next best thing was, the only exit of the boat was where the fire was. A crew member, told us everything was fine and a sos has been sent out. From what I’ve heard, the engine overheated, melted the plastic and caught on fire.

Anyway, another ferry and we reach Mersing safely. Thank god for that. I was so worried my stuff being at the bottom of the ocean. Had lunch in Mersing before our journey home. Truly another wonderful experience, both bad and good.

It's cool when the boat is moving. When it's not, I almost feed the fishes.

Totally agreed. Diving is fun!!

Fishes feeding on bread.

Imagine swimming next to them.

My dive instructor, Sonja and me

All of us