Garden of Eden

.Blog of the week. I thought i could share my diving experience in one of Brunei's most gorgeous wrecks. The Bolkiah Wreck. If i'm not wrong, it is a fishing trawler.. not to be mistaken for this sunken junk. This wreck is relatively small when compared to Cement Wreck yet there is nothing small about its beauty. One night last year, it took my breath away.

.Bolkiah Wreck.

Day: Thursday, 24 August 2006 - Night Dive
Crew: Myself, Tracey, Reza, Annie, Tat, Boon Hui, Angel and Simon (Boatman)
Dive Site: Bolkiah Wreck
Viz: Good ~10
Max Depth: ~22m
Dive Time: 40m & 40m

This is my first night dive at Bolkiah Wreck, and true to Cik Azli's words, this wreck is beautiful. It is an underwater garden of eden. It looked like someone has put in a tremendous amount of effort in masking the brown rusted ship; draping it with soft corals in colours you can only imagine, giving it life that danced through the night.. these kind of intimate detailed grooming..only mother nature can provide.

Upon arrival, DMT b{itc}h was given the task to dive in and make sure the wreck was infact below us. It wasnt an easy task given the sun was setting fast, within a couple of minutes a ray of light shone from below - signalling OK - the b{itc}h saw the wreck. Great job! So we began our giant strides to bolkiah wreck. Since we were told of giant grouper sightings here, we were mentally prepared to bump into one. I'm not going to lie, i was honestly freaked out when we first dived in, imagine looking at your depth gauge - seeing the needle drop from 14 to 16m and it's pitch black nothingness around you, 16 - 18m, still nothing?!?!, then suddenly *WHAM* your light beams a HUGE white and black striped something.. a few spastic inhales later, you realised it's a batfish. 18-20m sediment starts to fill your surroundings, 20-22m sand..you look up to check and you see a gigantic silhoutte right infront of you and there it is, the beautiful bolkiah wreck.

We were greeted by a lionfish hovering above the sandbed. It's rather hard to get a good shot of them because every friggin time you focus and just about to shoot, they turn their back against you. Camera-shy or plain proud, you tell me. This wreck is populated by scorpionfish, cleverly camouflaged..they're everywhere you turn, so becareful.

.Lonesome tonight.

I saw something that made me giggle, sending bubbles out by the zillions.. a baby pufferfish, hang on.. not 'a' but there're baby pufferfish everywhere feeding on soft corals. Cute is the right description for them; ugly but damningly adorable.

.I know i know. I'm irresistable. (eraser-size baby pufferfish)

We also saw a hornnosed boxfish for the first time, black saddled toby pufferfish, narrowlined puffer, tons of miniscule pink cowries, hingebeak shrimps, cleaning stations, thieving crabs that do not hesitate to 'plug and dress' - dressing themselves with coral polyps to match their surroundings.

.Black saddled toby pufferfish.

.You are my sunshine.

.Wanna play dress up?. Stuffing itself silly.


.View from the top. A pink cowrie, half the size of a 1 cent coin.

Bolkiah Wreck is undeniably stunning at night - corals are so vibrant that you want them for your own backyard. However, for the keen seeker, there's not much to find on deck.. what you see during the day is almost always what you get at night, though it does not offer the same thrill as reefs exploration, it has historical hues of its own. I would recommend wreck dives at night if you wish to see a picturesque wreck, a view only torches can bring to life under intense darkness.

Fortunately or unfortunately, the giant grouper did not show itself which gives us another excuse to revisit this wreck.

.Reminds me of 'electrifying soon' @ Sebastian.
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Sometime this year, i have to go check on them baby puffers. : )

Marcel Proust quoted: “The true voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes, but in seeing with new eyes".