Scuba Diving Experience in Tioman Island - Part 3

Saturday, 28 July 2007

The day was started with breakfast, followed by a short briefing and then we went straight to the water again to do the second confined water training. More skills to practice in the deeper water.

The first session wasn't ended before we got a glimpse of an open water diving experience. We just dived to the deeper water approx 10m only, just to get to apply the skills we have just learned. Breathing through regulator, controlling our buoyancy to stay few feet above the sea bed, and learned how to move. Really...I would say...priceless experience. We haven't seen all the beauty that the corals can offer, but hey...we saw a clown fish :)

The second session that day was another confined water training, but this time it ended with longer open water diving. We went further away from the beach with water depth of 15m. More coral lifes were seen, more fishes, and for sure, more excitement. One morry eel was seen, more clown fish, anemons, and lots and lots of fish swimming around us.

The night again was enjoyed the same way as previous night, with additional barbeque dinner, more of the class session, and fire party by the beach, which honestly I didn't really bother to attend. I was really exhausted by the day's activity, and I fell asleep as soon I reached the pillow.



Sunday, 29 July 2007

The last day and the most exciting divings we were about to experience, at least so far in our early adventure of scuba diving. We were to do boat diving this time. Not only one, but two. The advantage of this is that we don't need to carry the tanks on our back all the way from the beach. The tanks are already on the boat, and what we need to do is just carry our other equipments in a bag. We will don everything once we arrived in the diving site.




The first dive site for our boat diving is Batu Malang. Why they call it 'batu' or rock, well because it's just a very small island along the other coast of the bay. But it has the most beautiful coral reefs surrounding the island wall underwater. So to be expected, we were to dive along this wall clockwise to finally ascend back to the surface close to the boat.

We then started to descend along a line from the boat. The water was so clear, you won't be able to sense the depth of the sea without the depth gauge, which showed approx 18m. But since the water was so clear, the sun managed to light up the corals down under. Even from the surface, we can just snorkel and look into the corals. Of course it won't be the same feeling as if you're just few feet above or beside the corals.

Very intoxicating!! The clown fish were all over the blue anemons, the colour contrast was so perfect. And one of them actually bit my husband's finger when he tried to touch them lightly. Haha..who asked you to touch any of them, as we're not suppose to touch or disturb the coral lifes.

The real funny thing was that my husband couldn't control his buoyancy yet, so what happened to him? At a time he went up, and in the other time he suddenly landed in the sea floor like a morry eel trying to return back to its hole...hahahaha....how exhilirating to watch him, one of the coral reef habitants :p. There's also one point when he suddenly caught his attention with some fish that made his direction deflect further away from the rest of the group, and the intructor had to get his attention back and drag him to the rest of us. Hehehe....

The second boat dive was just in Salang Bay, closer to the beach. If we have the energy, we can actually swim back to the beach. The depth here was 15m, and the corals were a different type. I called them cabbage corals since they look just like a cabbage. If we're lucky, we might see turtles here, but unfortunately none of them showed up.

But hey, I had my other amusement here, which again was my husband. He can't see very clearly without his glasses, and he refused to use contact lenses. So once again he got lost. His buoyancy was much better this time, but at the end of our dive, when we were about to ascend back to the surface, we met other diver's group who were about to take group picture. And somehow, he stopped close to them, seem very eager to get photographed as well I assumed. I was waiting for him to realize that it wasn't our group at all...hehehe... After few minutes, he finally saw us and swam to us. I was about to burst laughing outloud, but my mouth was full with this regulator. Well..didn't mean I couldn't smile wide at him :p His only excuse when we were back at the surface was that he thought one of them was me. That's why you need to use contact lenses my dear....

The dive was ended with another show of emergency skill that we need to master, then finally we all passed the assessment and certified by PADI.

Now it's time to go back to town. After we packed all of our things, bought few souvenirs, we headed to the dock, and waited for the boat that would come at 4pm. But we only got to the boat by 5pm with the weather getting worst and worst. Luckily I got the rear seat. After lots of experiences in a crew boat back there in Balikpapan that brought us back and to the rig, I realized that the best seat in rough weather is at the rear. The further away from the head of the boat is better.

Then the excitement has to end, with another 5 hours driving ahead of us to return back to KL. Hmmm....enjoy the ride!!!

Scuba Diving Experience in Tioman Island - Part 2

Friday, 27 July 2007



After having satisfying lunch in the village (and how wouldn't it be when we were starving), we gathered for a briefing and started to learn how to use the equipments at surface. We have also agreed several hand signals that we might use in the water. Of course with a regulator in our mouth, we can't really talk, can't we? Plus the fact the we cannot generate any sound from our mouth if it's full of water. We can hear though, don't get me wrong. Just not as focused as if in the air. We can hear sounds that reached our ears perfectly fine. We just don't have the sense of direction from which the sound came from.




Anyway, not long after the briefing with all of us divided into 2 groups for the whole course, we prepare our gears and headed to the water for the confined water dive training. This kind of training can be done in the swimming pool or shallow sea water where we still can stand up. Since we're just on the beach, we did the training at the sea, shallow water of course. Just to practice the breathing and other skills necessary underwater.

The drawback of this is that we have to carry the air tank in our back, and boy it's heavy. I couldn't manage to stand up straight with the tank on my back, affraid I would have fell on my back instead. But once we entered the water, the weight on my back just disappeared. What a relief.

Then we started the confined water training....

What can I say here...the experience was priceless. Having able to breath underwater was really intoxicating. Well..in the beginning I have to struggle to properly breath and get rid of the panic, but why should we panic if we can actually breath normally in the water?

Once breathing techniques were more or less managed by us, we started to do other required skills that will be used in normal situations, and also if emergency occurs. Don't get me wrong, it's really not as easy as we think. Some has difficulties to control their buoyancy, some has difficulty getting rid of the panic, and some including myself has difficulty managing the emergency skills, which was really important to survive down under.

This skills training took the rest of the day. We wrapped up by carrying back all the equipments we have used, including the darn tank. Once we got off the water, I could feel how heavy it was again. But hey...it was worth the effort.

The night was then spent for relaxing, strolling along the beach or village that only lays along the stretch of the bay, some went to go fishing, dinner, class session, and finally....a good night rest, shared with other 3 occupants per room. The cottage was not really the best available, but enough for the purpose, to get some rest.

Scuba Diving Experience in Tioman Island - Part 1

Have you ever done something fantastic for the first time and got really addicted afterwards? Well...for me, scuba diving is just one of the plenty I've had, but really....it's a very different kind of experience altogether. To begin with, we're suppose to enter a different living environment that possess two third of the earth's surface. Where else we will scuba dive if not into the water. And what for? Ofcourse to see that other world...the world of the underwater.

Now, the other difficulty would be...that this environment is not our natural habitat, which means...we cannot really stroll in that world without equipment, can't we?? Especially breathing apparatus. And to use all the diving equipments safely, rather than kill us in the process, we ought to get training and certification.

That was why in the middle of one crazy week, when I just noticed that a friend of mine back there in Kemaman has managed to organize a PADI Open Water Diving Course for us and apparently was lacking participants, without any hesitation I enrolled myself in along with my husband. I have missed last year's opportunity to do so. Eventhough this year's course was only half paid by my company, I certainly would not miss this opportunity again.

With only one and a half day preparation whilst still working in the office, I and my husband managed to get all the personal diving equipments such as the diving suit, mask, snorkel, and fins. We also managed to read the training materials we're suppose to finish before the course started. In a hurry obviously..but worth the effort.

To get to the island, we have to gather at Mersing Jetty, Johor at Friday morning to catch the boat. As a result, we have to drive all the way from KL in the evening, which was really a torture. It took us at least 5 hours to reach Mersing after driving in the middle of nowhere. Really...we had to take the short way in order to get there in time, but it meant we had to drive through this very large felda area which was really..really dark. And we're practically the only one driving in that road in the middle of the night. Luckily there's no highwayman trying to stop and rob us on spot. That would be scary.

Anyway, we arrived in Mersing at 2 in the morning and found a motel to sleep for few hours before we had to depart to the jetty. My husband's experience on trying to sleep in that motel was a whole different story altogether, but really, I didn't felt anything weird in the room. Or was it because I was fast asleep already?? Never mind, not that I'm complaining of my lack of 6th sense.



To cut the story short, we arrived in Tioman Island, Salang Bay to be exact, at midday. Apparently, the only means of transportation available to access this 'kampung' was by boat. There's a resort in the middle of the island that has an airstrip, but that's about it. No meaningful roads connecting the villages all around the island, which was really fascinating me. It really is a marine park.