Tioman Trip

Introduction

Sunset of Tioman

The island jetty

The beach

Day 1:

We set off in the late evening on malaysian vans and reached the Mersing jetty at 11.30pm. The night ride on the hands of the Malaysian driver was truly an eyeopener. (more elaboration below) Then we were suay-ed that the boat that's bringing us to Tioman STALLED for two hours. As blur as ever, I didn't realise the boat was not operating until we reached the destination two hours behind time. Booo. That night on the boat was like what many had described - 雾说南洋。8 of us squeezed onto a 3-persons mattress in the lower deck with highly no-ventilation except for a small deck opening. I was sweating like a horse, so must be all the guys.

* 13 students on training course-> 2 girls -_-

Kie and I were utterly shocked to see our room. It's a quad-room. Having odd number in the group, Jason by the middle name of "Efficient" bunked with us. He's nice, but a crappy guy when he drinks.

The exterior is somewhat misleading.

Stretch of path to our kampong room. (Upslope)

(Downslope)

We slept at 5am, and reported for breakfast at 8am.

Day 2:

We went out to the sea at 9am. Did two open water training dives. I was almost killed on the first. I couldn't manually inflate my BC (buoyancy compensator) and was on the regulator the WHOLE time when I was supposed to be on snorkel. :'( I drank gallons of super duper salty seawater in the process of attempting to use the snorkel. Goodness. Second dive was slightly better but we were tested on the skill I hate the most - air sharing.

We are expected to share air with our 'buddy' and do TONS of hand signals to each other. AND we have to manually inflate to stay afloat while waiting for the victim to be completely buoyant. I played the rescuer which was much easier and my buddy was changed to a little 21-yr old kid called Hoi.

The instructors had deliberately said in front of me that they'll change our buddies so that we won't rely too much on one person. Bet they were aiming me because the whole time they have the impression that I'm incompetent and super dependent on Kie. Boooo...

In any case, I survived the two test dives. And was paranoid the rest of the day of not passing the test. Afterall, I cheated in inflating my BC using the oxygen from the tank. Muahahahaha.

Before we head for bed... This other guy told me that on my dive in the morning, I swam towards a pile of shit and my head touched it. @?%#!&

Anything great about the sea? NO. We were all too absorbed in doing the life skills on the sea bottom that we had no leisure time nor heart to admire the ocean. Maybe the guys did. But definitely not me.

Day 3:

We reported at 6.30am and headed straight to the boat. We did two dives. Luckily both were leisure, for we were paranoid that those meanie instructors will tekan us by testing us a few more times. They are mean people.

This time around, I enjoyed myself. Saw interesting fishes hiding within the barnacles on the remains of the shipwreck in the Marine Park dive site. Er, the truth is, there weren't much things to expect, ironically, despite the name given. The second one at Renggis was goody. Because it's well-known for loads of corals and different types, WE SAW FINDING NEMO!! Haha. The clown fishes are real cutie. They'll swim in and out of the reefs. The rest of the colourful fishes too. And we spotted an electric eel. EEEWW. It looks super grumpy and grouchy with that sleeping face of his.

Being clumsy in the sea and all, I kept bumping and hitting tanks to tanks with the guys. Slapping my fins at Kie's face too. And I even 'sat' on my instructor's head! @#$%&^! *PAISEH*

Oh yarh, before we dived in, there was a sea turtle greeting us! He was so handsome!

I was so relieved that I survived the dives. Seriously.

But the journey back made me feel more insecure of coming home alive. The 150 min boat ride was hideous due to the choppy sea and rain. Then the van ride was WORSE. He was practically speeding more that 110km/h and cutting to the opposite lane as if he was on an emergency duty. We missed the a few vehicles on the opposite side by a couple of seconds each time. So, I chose to shut my eyes the whole time and remind myself that he is a okay driver. Still, I caught him answering his phone twice without decreasing the speed a lil at all (-.-) I guess, his confidence is toppled with not only his experience and skills, but the Benz.

The departure with the whole gang was weird and sudden. Everyone just zoomed straight home after announcing that everyone passed the test.

So, to leave back some memories, we managed to take pictures with the diving team:

Left to right: Travis (Photographer), Dominic (Instructor 1), Me+Mr.K, Kiat (Instructor 2), Dunno-name, Dunno-name.

Ha. He looks so friendly here. But in fact, he's the meanie mean who keeps belittling me! BOOO! Still thankful to him for being so stern and all. Pushing me to focus and learn. Well, I'm still very glad that I ended up at Dominic's team for the test instead of his. HEH.

To conclude the dive...

[cuts on the leg. not so obvious in the pic :"( ]