Crew: Myself, Caryn, Elvin, Sebastian, Boon Hui, Anny, Tat, Lily, Uwais, Cik Azli (Instructor) and Hj Kula (Boatman)
Dive Site: Blue Water Wreck@Mabini Padre and Cement Wreck@MV Tung Hwang
Viz: Good ~ 10m
Max Depth: ~25-28m
Dive Time: 30m
I was soo disciplined the night before you wouldnt believe it. I said "no, thank you" to wine, got home at 10pm, cleaned and waxed my camera's housing, listen to my panicking dad;
Dad: "Are u crazy? Why are you diving at this hour????? Who's so crazy to dive now? ladida.."
Me: "No dad, i'm just packing for tomorrow"
Dad: "Oh.. =_=!",
packed my gears, put them right beside my door, stood grinning at them for a few seconds then snuck under the duvet for a good night sleep but instead i layed there wide awake, i was staring point blank at the ceiling. GAWD! It was a shuffle of reading a book, doing crosswords, and lying still in bed. Lets just say eventually i fell asleep and most of the SLEEP i got was dreams of deep sea diving. Right..
We reached Muara Port at 7.45am on the dot, scuffled around unloading and loading tanks, gearing up, and watched the "ta-tou-sia" (literally big prawn head for clumsy oaf@boon hui) slipped and yelped. He got himself a cut on the chin and elbow and we're not even in the water yet!
The ride to blue water wreck was really long. It was long enough for the feelings of vulnerability in the open sea to cave in. I didnt talk much during the ride.. something was amissed, i forgot to take sea-sick pills
i tried so hard to hold my breakfast in. When we finally anchored above blue water wreck, i breathed a sigh of relief, YES, i'm here! for the very first time..At 25'c, the water was coooooooold, we had to swim towards the bouy and follow the anchor line down. By the time i reached the bouy, i was seriously out of breath. It was only 10 metres away from the boat, i then realised i've lost my stamina, i need to start exercising.
As we descend to roughly 10m, the dark silhoutte of the wreck emerges into sight. This wreck is huge, and at most time is swarmed with schools of barracudas and tunas. Back in 1981 she sank lying on her port side, which is now festooned in soft corals. You name it, she has it. I was hovering around the starboard side at 24m while my adventurous buddy, Sebastian ventured lower to the stern.
Fidgeting with my camera, i wasnt sure what to look out for, i didnt want to take any pictures of batfish, groupers, wrasses or angelfish.. until Tat pointed out something to me. A gorgeous nudi. Different family to the usual chromodoris or pustulosa, this nudi has oral tentacles and ceratas (those elongated projections). Usually quite a rare gem to spot, it's everywhere in this wreck. According to Caryn, it seems like their mating season.
.really rare to see 3 together.
20 minutes passed before i started feeling nauseous again. This is bad. So i shifted my focus to smaller objects. On closer inspection, i caught sight of a pair of shy gobies, two porcupine puffer fish..they have this glassy lifeless pair of eyes, armies of hinge-beak shrimps that peeked out of portholes, seemingly as curious about me as i am of them, hundreds of glassfish and cardinalfish darting by oblivious to my presence. I was beginning to feel at home.
Then dive computers started beeping, Caryn's shaker clinking, she signalled for us to ascend, bottom time is never enough for wreck dives, we slowly ascended to 5m for our safety stop. This is the time when i truly satiate the freedom of weightlessness and the serenity of the sea. Then suddenly this AMBOK pops into sight! Hahahaha, there's never a dull moment with Sebastian around.
When we surfaced, the rest were discussing whether to continue our 2nd dive here or to move on to Cement Wreck whilst i was leaning over the boat puking my guts out.
So did Sebastian and Lily. I had a massive headache and decided against a 2nd dive. Me??? Succumbing to sea-sickness, unbelievable. What a way to start the 1st dive of the year.
It was then decided Cement Wreck would be the next site, and by the time we reached, i was draped under my towel fast asleep. All i recalled was BSAC divers shouting out "Viz at the bottom is shitty, around 1m, it's much better at the stern", then woken up by a rocking boat and found myself alone. Great.. I thought i felt much better so i had some cheezels. Bad decision. More food for the fish i suppose. :P
When the rest ended their 2nd dive, we headed to Kuraman Island.. had some food, barbequed the huge tuna fish that Lily bought from a fisherman, some took a nap, some took a stroll down the sandy beach...
I finally got home at 7pm, absolutely worn out, cleaned up and endured another 10 hours of open house before i finally collapsed in bed at 5am the next morning.
Yes, i might be insane.
Then dive computers started beeping, Caryn's shaker clinking, she signalled for us to ascend, bottom time is never enough for wreck dives, we slowly ascended to 5m for our safety stop. This is the time when i truly satiate the freedom of weightlessness and the serenity of the sea. Then suddenly this AMBOK pops into sight! Hahahaha, there's never a dull moment with Sebastian around.
When we surfaced, the rest were discussing whether to continue our 2nd dive here or to move on to Cement Wreck whilst i was leaning over the boat puking my guts out. So did Sebastian and Lily. I had a massive headache and decided against a 2nd dive. Me??? Succumbing to sea-sickness, unbelievable. What a way to start the 1st dive of the year.It was then decided Cement Wreck would be the next site, and by the time we reached, i was draped under my towel fast asleep. All i recalled was BSAC divers shouting out "Viz at the bottom is shitty, around 1m, it's much better at the stern", then woken up by a rocking boat and found myself alone. Great.. I thought i felt much better so i had some cheezels. Bad decision. More food for the fish i suppose. :P
When the rest ended their 2nd dive, we headed to Kuraman Island.. had some food, barbequed the huge tuna fish that Lily bought from a fisherman, some took a nap, some took a stroll down the sandy beach...
I finally got home at 7pm, absolutely worn out, cleaned up and endured another 10 hours of open house before i finally collapsed in bed at 5am the next morning.
Yes, i might be insane.
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