Dive dive dive....yahooooo...diving is FUN (Episode 3) - FINAL EPISODE

Final eposide of my SCUBA diving epilogue for the year 2006. For this post...I wanna scrible down the most wonderful trip I had....which include the most toughest and FUN course for me by far.

Brace yourself for the most adventourous and FUN dive trip I have ever did. Welcome onboard....smiles and laughter is mandatory while reading.

Merdeka Eve Nite 2006:
The plan is 'bertolak' from KL bout 1am...early Merdeka morning. Since from 6pm till 1am got nothing todo....so I 'ajak' one of the Mat Salleh (David Beasley....yeah...its him again) to go rock climb 1st in 1 Utama. This is because the other Mat Salleh (Greg Hoyle...this is geng 'baru') which we are gonna 'tumpang' his car, stays only bout 10 minutes away from 1 Utama.

So here we are....one banana chinese and a mat salleh climbing wall in 1 Utama prior to the trip. Another reason for this also becoz we wanna tire ourself kaw kaw so can sleep on the journey later. Greg told me that he can do the driving from KL to Merang Jetty (700+ kms bout 7 hours...trust me its torturing) eventhough I told him that it will be torturing. Since he insist....well I then better tired myself now via rock climbing n sleep later. Summo his car damm comfy....Honda Accord V6 3.0 VTEC leh...full leather interior.

Early Merdeka Day 2006:
Go pick up Richard aka The Instructor from his house bout 12am sharp. Then we went to a 'mamak' stall near his house to wait for another 3 fellow divers.

Ones 7 of us are ready....we left KL in 2 cars. Next stop in in a rest area along Karak Highway where we will rendevouz with 7 more fellow divers. In total...will be 14 divers (3 gals, 11 guys) in 4 cars....1 Accord, 1 Vios, 1 Kelisa, 1 Wira.....so no need guess which one is fastest ler..hehehehe.

Reached Gambang Rest Area around 4.30am for fuel. This is the bout 1/2 way into the journey and also the end of the highway. After this we will be using the trunk roads to reach Merang Jetty. Greg felt tired so I took over the drive. Wah...so excited....1st time drive Honda Accord V6 3.0 VTEC leh....summo got EBD, ABS, TCS,....macam macam lagi. Furthermore it just started to rain....yahoooo...get to test car in rain.

Along the journey...it rained heavily. Really nice to drive the car......damm powerful, responsive and stable. Kept on forgetting that I am attacking sharp corners on the trunk road at 90km/h.....best best...low understeer and the car just turn in according to driver's need. Sometimes can feel the TCS kicks in also.

Merdeka Day Morning 2006:
Reached Merang jetty bout 7.40am.....then found out that the 7.30am boat din wait for us...damm. Kena wait for the 9.30am boat now...aiyoh....double damm. Take the 2 hours slack time to read on my PADI Rescue Diver manual....got tough exam wan ah.

Yew Hong last minute baca buku.

Finally got up the boat....and as usual....it is my favourite place to catch a nap. I dunno y lah...the boat shakes like nobody's business but still its a nice place to nap for me.

Sleeping in boat.

Lastly reached the island...yahooooo...my 6th trip there in 3 months. Seeing the cool 'signboard' again is the proof I am here again.

Cool signboard.

1st dive is the famous "Checkout Dive". As usual...this dive is a torture for me...coz my eyes are tired after hours of concentrating on the road. Usually in checkout dive, we brush up a little on our basics diving skills such as mask removal and regulator 2nd stage recovery. This time, the Rescue Divers (Odett, Yew Hong, David and me) have to do something special...which is to take a deep breath, remove our SCUBA gear underwater (bout 12 metres deep), swim close to the sea bottom for 5 kick cycles, make a u-turn and wear back the SCUBA unit. Quite frightening actually but everyone did it perfectly.

The most FUN part of this whole trip is the Rescue Diver course. We had some confined water session....in which case that we laugh our hearts out 70% of the time....act as victim for 20% and last 10% is rescue our victim. Our instructor put us on an incentive, that who acts as the best victim will receive a gift at the end of the training. With this incentive for grab..... we try every possible ways to out do each other in becoming the victim. Listed below are some ways used by the 4 of us:

Odett:
Shout "HELPPPPPPPPP" at the top of her voice to get attention from people in the resort...kekekeke....till some of them really stand up n tengok tengok what happen.

David:
Swam towards Yew Hong n grab him when David was being the panic victim. Yew Hong was caught by suprise and couldn't even sink and kick in time to get away from David. Was very funny when we saw it....really laughing until stomach pain while threading water.

Yew Hong:
Release all the air from his BCD and pretend to struggle at the water surface while shouting for help. Really drank a lot of salt water while doing this. No wonder he won the best victim award.

Me:
Always have my BCD almost empty....hence still can sink a little and make my rescuer have a very tough time rescuing me from underwater...hahahahaha

Overall....we are really enjoying ourself soooooooo much that we din even realize we got sunburn on our faces, neck n head while threading water in the hot sun.

Other times of the trip:
Performing the rescue scenarios is one of the requirements in order to be certified as a Rescue Diver. For me....I find this the toughest part of the whole journey. Everyone have to do 4 scenarios.

One of my scenario involve saving a panic cum unresponsive diver in open sea....bout 200 metres away from the beach. During the rescue, I had to remove gears, thread water, do rescue breath and lastly tow the diver back to shore in a limited amount of time. After reaching the shore.....gotta carry the diver up the beach and perform CPR also.....damm tiring.

Yew Hong (left) carrying David back to shore. This is a very tiring activity.


Yew Hong (left) doing CPR to David.


Me (left) doing CPR to Odett


Odett tried many times to carry me up during training but fail. Really susah for her...and also torture for me, kena eat sand each time.

Many of us lose weight while goin through the rescue training. Yew Hong lost almost 4kgs on the trip....that is an average of 1 kg per day...wa lau eh...what a good way to slim down eh.

On this trip also....I got to lead dive for a few times. The 1st was leading Yew Hong in a deep dive at Karang Nibong Laut. There are many baby jelly fish and planktons at shallow water, some of them is very cute. Visibility of the dive is not very good (ard 7 metres) due to termocline and some mild current stirring up bottom sediments. However we manage to spot many nurse sharks among the rocks at the dive site. Also while descending, we saw a very very tiny (bout 2 inch long) Titan Trigger Fish on the buoy line.......soooooooo cute.

The 2nd lead dive I made was to Batu Banyak Keras. This time Odett and me lead 4 (Ginn, Stanley, Greg and Beckz) AOWD students. I took the Lead and Odett take the back as the Sweeper. We did a few rounds at the dive site...which consist mainly of 3 small boulders and some giant sea fans. It is quite a nice dive site with variety of fishes. During the safety stop, I challenge Beckz on some buoyancy control...hehehehe....now she know what is called "Buoyancy Control"....hehehehehe.

Divers "lepaking" at the cafe during surface interval (SI).

Last day nite:
As usual.....the last nite for the trip is our Graduation Nite. Overall 8 divers passed as Advance Open Water Diver (AOWD) and 4 passed as Rescue Divers (RD). On this nite also....we vote who is the best "victim" in the rescue training exercise...and Yew Hong got the prize.

Voting for the "best victim award".


Overall 8 divers (Greg, Stanley, Ginn, Beckz, William, Josh, Sim and Eddie) passed as AOWD. This pic shows Greg (right) receiving his scroll from Richard.


4 divers (Yew Hong, David, Odett and me) graduated as Rescue Divers. This pic shows me graduating.

Final day:
This is always the sad day for the trip. We are leaving the island after such a wonderful and FUN 4d3n trip. As usual...we will take many many photos....as we would like to remember this trip forever.

Before the trip....we were full of anxiety and expectation. Now after all our expectations are answered.....we will always look back to the pictures to bring back those old memories....those FUN we share and those happy moments we went through.

The 4 gentlemen (from left: William, Eddie, Sim and Josh) with the pretty rose Beckz (in middle) posing for a shot.


Wah....this picture very "gaya" ah.


Dive sites in Pulau Lang Tengah.


The whole group.
Back row from left: Stanley, Odett, William, Siew (me), Yew Hong, Sim, Josh, Eddie, Richard (instructor), Beckz, Greg, David and Ginn.
Front: Eric.

Finally....this is the end of all the diving stories I had for 2006. The most memorable and most 'precious' trip (among all the 7 trips I made in 2006) is this one....which will forever has a long lasting effect in my mind...and also in my heart. You will always never know what the future (3 months is enuf) holds for u.

Throughout all the dive trips.....I have countered my fear of drowning, has more confidence at sea, learn to react to situations and lastly enjoy every single moment I go underwater. I realize the need to conserve the wonderful nature of the underwater aquatic life. Hence as a diver, I always remind people to take caution while diving/snorkling so that we will not harm the balance of the aquatic world.

Not to forget all the friends I have made doing diving together. Now the dive season is closed in the east coast of Msia...hence we don't see each other much. However when the season opens back next year.....brace urself...I AM GOING BACK TO SEA.......

yahoooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

..........THE END.............