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.