My Dive Trip – Pulau Dayang Day 4

• Day One (Photo Album)
• Day Two (Photo Album)
• Day Three (Photo Album)
• Day Four (Photo Album)

Date: 4 May 2008

Sunrise

The last day of our dive trip. We are PADI Adventure Divers now. Yippee! We were as relieved as we were sad to be leaving the island. We had a lot of fun during the last 3 days.

L. O. V. E.

Only one dive today because we didn’t want to contend with the rest of the visitors for the toilet, food and seats on the ferry back. This dive would be a deep dive at Dayang Wreck. Visibility wasn’t as good as what we experienced at other dive sites, but I guess it worked to give that really cool mysterious effect as we sank into what it felt like an abyss, with no bottom in sight.

But of course, once we reached the bottom, we could see the brief shape of a boat wreck. With everyone accounted for, we finned towards the wreck. We spotted a porcupine fish taking shelter in the wreck. Moving along, Desmond pointed a well-camouflaged cuttlefish resting just above the seabed. As more of us moved closer, the cuttlefish sensed the threat and fluttered off and signalled a smaller companion with a strip of bio-luminence that lit either side of its mantle. As it moved, its skin pigmentation continuously changed and blended itself with the changing environment. It was a fascinating sight to behold.

We also saw a huge star pufferfish hiding under a coral formation.

Even though it was the last dive of the trip, our instructor made it a point to drill into us the importance of regularly checking the air pressure, the depth gauge, the safety stop as well as ascending procedures.

Returning to shore for debrief, we were told that we ad gone down to 31.4 metres, our deepest dive yet. We were sniggering after overhearing another dive group’s deep dive was not as deep as ours. :p

After breakfast, we chilled out on the beach with a little bit of nonsense…

Burial in Paradise

Obligatory buried person and people who made it possible

Floating Boon

Jumping for joy

It was fun while it lasted. I was glad to have finally took the plunge into scuba diving. Seeing the amazing underwater world, it is most definite that there is an Almighty God that made all these living jewels. Unfortunately, coral reefs all around the world are on the decline, thanks to the influx of divers and climate change. So I borrow a quote as my humble advice: “Take nothing except photos and memories, leave nothing behind except foot prints.”

Leave only foot prints

But if you are going on a dive trip soon, let me know, yah?
I want to tag along if time and budget permits.

More photos available here.

My Dive Trip – Pulau Dayang Day 3

• Day One (Photo Album)
• Day Two (Photo Album)
• Day Three (Photo Album)
• Day Four (Photo Album)

Date: 3 May 2008

My dive group

As mentioned in the previous post, we got up earlier today to dive before breakfast. 4 dives were scheduled today with the last one done before dinner so that we didn’t have to contend with the weekend visitors that just arrived.

Neither did I have time for a morning shoot. So we went straight to the boat after washing up.

Rigging up the equipment

The first dive was to be a deep dive at Rayner’s Rock, Dayang’s best dive site. We went down to 28.6 metres. Depending on individuals, diving to such depths might cause nitrogen narcosis. So in a way to gauge our tolerance, we were briefed to respond by providing an answer to a simple math problem under that depth.Ah Liang responded to the instructor by hi-fiving when the latter showed 10 with her hands.
Nitrogen narcosis? Unfortunately we were unable to determine the cause of his stupidity creativity because antics such as these occur even on land without the influence of alcohol.

With plenty of large rocks, diving at Rayner’s Rock was indeed a spectacular experience. Moving from deep to shallow water, we could experience a significant change in the water temperature, better known as a themocline. There is an abundance of marine life in huge varieties here. Spotted were titan triggerfish, yellow mask angelfish, bumphead parrotfish, barracudas, moorish idol, pufferfish, blue-ringed angelfish and moray eels just to name a few.

Unfortunately, the underwater tour was cut short because my dive buddy ran dangerously low on air.

Shameless posing on cue

The second dive was for navigation where we would perform pacing and compass use underwater. With that done, we would go on the underwater tour once again.

Spotted were nudibranches and zebra lionfishes.

A rare narcissistic moment

We did a boat dive next. Nothing extremely special, since we have been diving from a boat. The only extra thing to do was that lean back and fall entry and we were clear for the boat dive requirement. So we descended for our tour. There were plenty of things to see here at Captin’s Point. Spotted were batfish, scorpionfish, undulated moray eel, lionfish, nudibranch, butterflyfish, flat tail triggerfish, pufferfish, giant clams and fusilier.

We were done with diving for the day. Desmond joked that we could go dive by ourselves since we have already completed our syllabus for advanced open water diver certification.

Good ol’ Ah Liang sound asleep. So we the wicked people decided to play a trick on him…

First…

…then…

…Then he woke up…

If you are adventurous and have the energy, try climbing up the hill behind the resort for a really, really good view. But first, we had to contend with this and the pesky mosquitoes that breed here…

Dayang Waste (mis)Management Sdn Bhd

Halfway up, we paused for a look at Pulau Lang…

Pulau Lang from higher up

…I was momentarily distracted by some cashew fruits…

…And when we reached the top…

What. A. View.

Group Photo~!

A view of the establishment

Dinner on a Saturday would be an exceptionally sumptuous spread with highlights being lamb chops done to perfection.

After dinner, our instructors debriefed the group and finally signed for all our certification dives for this trip. We are now officially PADI certified “advanced open water divers”.

We then chatted late into the night before turning in. The last dive of the trip would be before breakfast as well.

More photos available here.

My Dive Trip – Pulau Dayang Day 2

• Day One (Photo Album)
• Day Two (Photo Album)
• Day Three (Photo Album)
• Day Four (Photo Album)

Date: 2 May 2008

Another lovely day. The children from the other group (German expatriates living in Singapore) got up early for a game or two of beach soccer.

The kids from the other group playing under the morning sun.

Rising earlier, I went to the bonfire site for a better view. I savoured the lovely sea breeze that was blowing. The air was exceptionally fresh on such a secluded island.

The mast that the other group erected my their bonfire

The powdery sand on the beach was a joy to walk on. Soft and warm, I would almost suspect there would be medical benefits just walking on along the beach.

My shadow and I

As I walked along, I noticed some fast moving things heading toward the waters. I took a closer look and spotted a number of well-camouflaged crabs.

Can you see the crab?

The lone island on the horizon is Pulau Lang, where we took our first dive. We would return there for a few more dives.

Pulau Lang

Heading towards the jetty, the morning sun has already risen mid-way, allowing for a silhouette shot.

A Tropical Sunrise

Breakfast was served. The al fresco dining area definitely has its charm, with powdery sand on the table and bench top and all. It is nice in the morning when the sun is nice and soothing. The only grouse is the uneven ground which allowed a lot of rocking of the table setting. Because of that we returned to the deck where the tables were more steady.

Some of the German expatriates group on the same ferry

The little ones weren’t in Dayang to dive, so they carried on with their own fun.

Super Girl~!

A teen couple made use of the picturesque place for a romantic walk.

A romantic walk on the beach

Once we were done with our breakfast, it was the dive-eat-dive-eat routine once again as we headed out to our dive boat.

The jetty with clear waters underneath

As before, we geared up quickly for the dive.

Gearing up for the dive

Just before our dive destination. My guess: the islands here were formed by volcanic actions from long time ago.

Lovely greenery

The first dive of the day was at Telok Jawa. This was the last dive for the PADI Open Water Diver Certification. We managed to spot plenty of marine life as well. Sea star, puffer fish, garoupa, clown fish, nudibranch, squirrel clown fish, butterfly fish, christmas tree, clams carpet anemone, crown of thorns were just some of the highlights. The draw of diving must have always been the ability to witness these colourful creatures in their natural ecosystem. 45 minutes underwater just seems insufficient to fully appreciate this unique environment.

Right after lunch, we proceeded to our PADI Adventure Diver knowledge reviews and returned to the boat for our first advanced/adventure dive. PADI Adventure Diver Certification is definitely something I would recommend as it allows for the recreational diver to try out more diving techniques and also to dive deeper. But first, we would work on our peak performance buoyancy. Simply, this is important for divers as it helps to conserve energy that might have been wasted to maintain at a certain depth. It is also something that is pretty hard to master for novice divers like us.

The third dive of the day was supposed to be for underwater navigation. Unfortunately, the currents were too strong for the navigation course to be carried out and it was converted to somewhat a drift dive where we tried to ride the currents. Unfortunately, we didn’t last very long underwater and surfaced only after 29 minutes. Then we returned to shore for rest, food, water and debrief.

Being a busybody, I peeped over to see what the group of youngsters were doing…

T-shirt painting by the kids from the German group

This time, it’s t-shirt painting. Hmm… I wonder what they’ll do next?

The night dive was one of the requirements for this certification. Diving in darkness definitely poses additional risks. Yet it is also exciting as you never know what you might spot at night. Our instructors ran through a detailed review on the aspects of a night dive and handed us an underwater torch each before boarding our boat.

Once we in the water, it really wasn’t that bad. Fellow divers were still rather visible with their torches switched on. Desmond then led us around and then stopped at one point and instructed for us to turn off the torches to experience the darkness for confidence building. After that we carried on our tour of the seabed. I guess we were led along barren areas for the safety of both the divers and the environment as we didn’t really spot any interesting marine life, except for maybe a sea urchin. We had to end the night dive because our torches ran out of batteries and my buddy and I separated.

Once we surfaced, we were greeted by the stars. It was really tempting to just float there in the water and stare into the night sky. It was just like we were floating in space. Still we reluctantly boarded the boat and returned to shore to wash up and rest for the night. We would dive before breakfast the next day to beat the influx of divers that would arrive on the island.

More photos available here.