Land of the forgotten

Saturday, June 04, 2005

After a long analysis, I finally came up with the hypothesis for not being able to blog anything for the pass couple of days. Simply there was still some left over nitrogen soaked in my brain causing a floaty feeling even when sitting in front of my PC.

27 May
Met up at Eunous MRT to board the mini vans that heads us to Mersing. In the group is Des, ML, RX, Ash, KZ, Cam, Elr, XL and me! Our diving instructors are Joe and uncle Allan. We will be staying in Mersing for one night before heading for Tioman. The trip there was terrible! Unknowingly, I chose a seat without a headrest. Throughout the trip, you can see a monkey turning and tossing trying to find a comfortable spot. Well, the monkey was not alone. There was a gorilla right in front of him doing the same thing too. *grinz*

Over at Mersing, we lodged in a motel. It's a twin room and I had a gorilla to share my room with. Reached the motel at 12 plus. Lights off in just 10 minutes after we stepped into the room. 5 minutes after lights out, there was a knock on the room. The door opened and Ash was standing there shocked by the darkness she saw in the room. Without a word she ran off. I ran after her to explain that I am living with a healthy-lifestyle gorilla whose bedtime is at 10pm. 5 minutes later, again there was a knock on the room. Opened the door and des popped out and started jumping on our beds.

28 May
After breakfast, we took the speedboat to Tioman. On the boat, A complain was made toward me for not being sociable enough. To prove my social skills are at top notch, I befriended a stranger on the speedboat. I used is a rambutan as the catalyst. I called this friendship, the rambutan friendship. The stranger's name was Simon. He was a diving enthusiastic. He did 100 over dives in just 2 years. Impressive. I bid him farewell when he alighted from the boat. Sadly, a hungry gorilla consumed the token of friendship, the rambutan.

Upon reaching, we unpacked our luggage in the kampong huts. It's an air-conditioned kampong! Way cool! I would just sit in the balcony and laze my life away if I can. My dream home. Our diving equipment is distributed and the next moment we are ready for our first dive.

Dive one. It is near the shore at the depth of ten plus meters. Instructed to walk out to the diving spot, we carried our heavy equipment and head out looking like a turtle. We descend with the help of a rope. To prevent injuries, we must constantly equalize our ears. For the first time, I am breathing ten meters below the sea surface! WAY COOL!!! To prevent us from drifting away, we are asked to hold on to a rope. I cling on to the rope for my dear life. Try to imagine 8 Darth Vaders holding to a rope and you will have a picture of us. First dive, we were asked to perform a few skills. Clear half mask, full mask, mask removal and regulator recovery. Guess I am awe by the magnificent view of the underwater world that I forgot how to panic. I even got the time to brush my hair back to look cool while doing the mask removal. Haha.

The underwater view is just amazing. School of little fishes swam above me. Colorful fishes that were only seen before on discovery channel were now just within reach. I passed a life sea cucumber to ash, trying to tell her to hold it and pass it to des. But ash just poked it with her finger and could not read my message. Feeling hopeless, I put the cucumber back to the seabed. Just before I start to ascend to the surface. I saw a stingray! It was soooooooo big! I bet it will be nicer with garlic and chilli served a banana leave. Haha~

And so the turtle vaders swam up and head for shore again. Still excited over the first dive, I happily swam towards land. But the excitement did not last too long. The information of my cousin friend KZ had some problems when she was underwater and had gone ashore earlier. Thank goodness she was all right if not I will feel guilty cause I sort of recommended them to this course. So little boys and girls, diving is fun but there are dangers involve. Be a responsible diver and you will discover the secrets the sea has to offer you.

Dive two. This time round, we will be diving from a boat. The Giant Strike! From the boat, you try to walk on the water. And the next moment, you will slap into the water buoofffff... a lot of bubbles around you. It is a thrilling experience and I can get high just by doing this. I can just do this over and over again.

Dive two was aborted cause of strong current. Therefore back to the boat and we headed for another dive site. On the way, we saw dolphins! Though it is not the first time to see wild dolphins, but the sight is still bring out the child side in everyone one the boat.

Dive three. In this dive, we did all the buddy stunts. I called them stunts cause I am pairing up with Ash. And she told me that she did not learn all the stuff during the pool session. That is freaky! Lucky everything went well. Haha. And from then on, she became my diving buddy.

In the night, XL brought her tarot card for the trip. And she did a reading for XM, Ash, KZ and me! I had always been interested in tarot reading. Maybe cause of the pretty pictures in the deck. The question asked was about love. And the reply... is not for the blog readers to know. Hahaha.

29 May
After a good breakfast, we were off for our dives again. No more performing of skills. It is leisure dive! Woopee!

Dive four. We were instructed to follow Joe. While fining across the seabed, I keep feeling that I kicked someone at the back. To those I kicked, I am very sorry about it. Joe kept asking us to spread out cause we are clustering together. Maybe the thought of being closer beside the instructor makes us feel safer, none really took his instructor and we still cluster together.

When we surfaced from the dive, uncle Allan exclaimed that he saw a lot of giant seahorses down in the sea. Later then we found out that the giant seahorses are actually pointing at us! What sarcasm manz. When we asked gorilla about what he saw down there. His only reply was "A thrill of destruction". Cause he followed behind the group and due to our lousy fining, we disturbed the pretty seabed quite a bit. From here I conclude that to be a good diver, one must be equip with extreme sarcasm.

Dive five. The best dive of all! The moment I start to submerge, I noticed its different form other dives, there is no good seabed for us to land on. We are above a massive coral. It is so magnificent for its size. This time round, uncle Allan lead the way. He is an experienced diver. Therefore he could maneuver in between the coral with ease. But the rest of us who followed behind, just bump into one another trying to get through the tiny space between the stones.

During this dive, I saw so many things. A fan shaped coral that spreads at least 50cm in length. There are a lot of colorful corals in sight but I do not dare to go too close to them cause of my lousy buoyancy control. A sea urchin! The spikes are so bloody long! I cannot image if I get prick by it. Joe used one of his diving hooks to poke at a Giant clamshell. And it moved! Incredible! Hey do not call me Sua Ku. You will not understand till you been there. Ash pointed out to me a big blue starfish. It can be placed just nicely across my chest and I would have become Captain America.

Towards the end of the trip, we are given our graduation certificate, our very own diving license. Though it is kind of sad that not all passed in the course but I really enjoyed the company of my diving mates.

Some things that I had learned from this trip.
1.I might be falling in love with the sea soon.
2.I drink air like a buffalo underwater.
3.My every cents into this trip is to its worth.
4.I got a new bunch of friends!

This a long post. Thumbs up to those who endured my lousy English till the very end.

On the last note, can someone buy a bookmark and mail it to me. I am picking up my reading habits again but I am too poor to buy one myself. Hak.

Miyuki leaving skool at 9:16 pm

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