Tioman

White sandy beaches, clear blue skies and warm, inviting clear waters. Big fish, small crustaceans and beautiful corals. These are the things that lure me to diving, like a moth that is enticed by a glowing light.

Tioman is all of that, except maybe the part about warm and clear waters. The waters are fairly murky, and the temperature isn't exactly toasty. Not to my skinny ass anyway. Brrr.

It wasn't too long after I returned from Sipadan that Uncle Lloyd told me about the trip. But even though I had just returned from Sipadan, I knew I had to go away for another dive trip or I might go mad. So I did.

I was in need of a diving holiday when Uncle Lloyd told me that he was going to Dayang. Although further away from Tioman, I actually like Dayang island much better than Tioman, unless of course the people I'm going with are great. In the end though he decided to go to Tioman.

This trip, we had 17 OWDs (term for Open Water Divers eg, new divers) and 6 AOWDs. On top of that, there were quite a few leisure divers, and not forgetting the crew. In total there were over 40 divers! This was a first for Hardy Tadpole, Uncle Lloyd's dive company.

Most of the divers were from Republic Poly (RP). Majority of them were students, but there were teachers too, 2 to look after the students, the others to enjoy a short holiday.

All the divers met at 7pm on Friday night at RP, to gather gear and get on the bus, on time. I had gone to the school earlier to have dinner with Jenny, but she was later than me, who was also late, so we didn't manage to grab a bite. However I did manage to get Reen to grab some (junk) food for me on her way over.

Closer to go-time, the divers started trickling through the gates of the school. Jenny, who was from the school, was stressed to bits about everything. She was busy getting everything to go smoothly, and it didn't help that most of the students need to be told what to do, otherwise they would not move at all and just sit around.

As luck would have it, we managed to fit (stuff) every one of the RP contingent into the bus transport that was to take them to Mersing, and in time too. I was fortunate enough to have had a comfortable seat assigned to me in a car which was driven by someone who loved to go fast.

Mr Fu (our driver and DM) took off the moment everyone was in the bus. We hit a traffic jam shortly after we left the gates of the school, but it was smooth driving after that. We had so much time to spare, because Mr Fu drove like a madman, that we even had time to have stop for dinner and still reach Mersing ahead of everyone.

The bus took some time to get to the port. We were getting a bit agitated waiting for it to arrive with all the students, as it was early in the morning (o100hrs) when we arrived in Mersing, and most of of wanted to get to the island quick to catch a quick nap before heading off for our morning dives.

Finally after a fair amount of waiting, the bus showed up with all the students. All of them were thickly wrapped in thermal layers, complaining about how cold the bus was as they got off. After getting their gears, we brought everyone to queue for the boat.

It was low tide by the time everyone was ready to leave, and our ferry was parked offshore to escape being beached by the receding tide. We thus boarded a tiny transfer boat to get to our ferry. In the midst of the ensuing chaos, Uncle Lloyd forgot to bring his dive bag with him, and it was left in the port. It did however make it to him the next day.

The boat trip was fairly uneventful. I made some new friends during the 2 hour ride to the island. Ken (buddy, as I would call him later), Ivan, Addie, Sabrina, Carome, Eunice etc. They are nice. I mean, they talked to me the whole ride to Tioman! Everyone knows I talk, a lot.

Soon enough, we reached the island. The boatman did some skillful manuevering to get the boat alongside the jetty. Once secured, everyone got off the boat. We headed straight to our designated bunks in the resort and before long, most were snoring. I was one of those who couldn't sleep, but I did eventually.

The next morning at 7, we dragged our tired asses to the dining area to have a bite before heading out. Something screwed up, so we only left the place at half past 10. Some people were getting a bit agitated with the wait, but all were elated when we got up to leave.

The first dive of the day was my favourite. I saw loads of stuff, many of which I was the only who saw. All the divers on that same dive did not like the dive, rating it last among the 3 dives we would do that day. Strange.

Nothing much about the dives I want to write about. I don't advocate people touching anything underwater, so I was a bit pissed when the divers went around flipping everything. That being said, even though I don't touch anything whilst under, I did mutilate 4 Crown of Thorns very badly with my knife. I just had to. I'm sorry, really I am, but I personally think I am doing the reef a favour.

I didn't dive on the second day. I wanted to do a bit of shallow freediving/snorkelling (which I happen to really really enjoy) so I packed my scuba gear early. Turned out that I couldn't do any freediving during that day.

It was utter chaos. Uncle Lloyd dropped us in a current, and when the scubies went down, some couldn't. The boat had already gone off a distance, and the water was murky, so in seconds, me and the scubies with problems lost sight of the other divers.

Time was ticking. We were being swept out to sea and lost forever! Well maybe not, but it was not a pleasent situation. There was a pontoon a swimmable distance away, but against current. It was our only chance of survival. Turns out one of them cannot fin hard enough, so I had to drag his heavy ass (plus the 16 pounds of weight he was wearing) against current to the pontoon. As if it couldn't be any harder.

I got them safely to the pontoon in due time. Pretty soon Uncle Lloyd spotted us and came to pick them up. Whilst this was happening, the fat guy (Farhan) dropped his 16 pound weightbelt into the consuming blue. And I was tasked by Uncle Lloyd to try to find it, which I attempted to do later on.

All of a sudden, all the other scubies started popping out of the sea, like daisies! Except daisies don't grow in the sea. Many were girls, and some started panicking, no thanks to the China dude who was screaming his balls off. I went to help them, but Uncle Lloyd told them to float down current and the boat will go pick them up later.

I looked like fool scrambling over to help. Oh well, I was concerned wasn't I? I had good intentions at heart. Haha. But by then my heart rate was way up, and I couldn't go down too long on a breath. I may have given freedivers a bad name by not staying under long enough. Scubies don't understand or care; all they want is proof you can stay down for at least a minute. Well, not with my heart rate like this, no!

After resting on the boat for sometime, mingling, it was soon time to get in for the second dive. I couldn't freedive as I had been tasked to find the weightbelt. Though I was wondering, how the hell was I going to drag 16 pounds of weight, stay afloat, and go back the 200m to the boat? Luckily, I didn't find the belt.

During that swim for the quest of the belt, I encountered 2 huge-ass cudas! They were easily 1.5m long, and staring at me, like I was lunch! Naturally I got a bit unnerved, but I swam past them and nothing happened. It was an interesting swim, that one. Me looking back constantly, half expecting 2 cudas to come charging out of the gloom straight for me.

Eventually I got back to the boat, and manage to scare the girls playing in the water shitless. I used my breath holding skills (which are limited) and covertly swam a distance underwater and came bursting out in front of them! I almost died laughing. And that was pretty much it for the second day.

Oh, the RP students are horrendous. They seem to have a unique skill in losing/breaking things. It was all incredulous to me. Though I too broke my snorkel holder when I dived head first into the blue from a height. Oh well, at least I could freedive to collect the snorkel which had become unattached.

Another interesting event happened on the first night on the island. A fishing trawler caught fire and burned at an incredible rate. I think no was was hurt, but I heard that the owner was inconsolable. Afterall, it's their only source of income.

We headed back to Mersing at noon on the second day. We managed to get back without anyone doing a merlion (Singapore slang for puking) even though the sea wasn't a mirror. It was actually rather rough. Waves were high and the boat rocked violently.

Amongst all that turmoil though, Siva, Jenny, MC, Adriel, Racheal and Diana managed to sleep on the floor of the upper deck. The most incredible feat though was performed by Eunice. She managed to sleep on one of 2 benches on the upper deck, and she didn't fall off when the boat went side to side! It was like seeing a parrot roosting in the trees during a storm.

I sat Mr Fu's car back, and again on the way we stopped for dinner. We were the only ones fast enough to have time for a stop, both going to Mersing and coming back. We had an incredible seafood dinner courteous of Mr Fu. However, we misjudged our timing, and got stuck in the traffic jam while heading home. We were stuck 2 hours in the jam, most of which I slept through.

Eventually I got home, at 11pm in the night. Everyone else was already home, bathed and sleeping, but my father didn't pick me up on time, so I came back late.

It's now 0220hrs in the morning, so I'm going to sleep yeah? Be seeing ya!