Soooo... happy. I kept thinking we did local Spore dives around Nov last year but we didn't. Our last local dive was in Aug. But when I checked my dive log, I didn't log the dives...??? How come??? I think I did only one dive, the second one I just stayed on board and sun tan. I think so.... Useless memory... If not I read my own post in this blog again... I thought we never dive Kusu/Hantu last year.... Wonder if we'll ever dive Hantu or Kusu again, our familiar boatman Ah Chua has sold his boat.......
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Anyway, back to our Tioman dive. While we're setting up our gear, kitty came checked us out. hehe..
Pretty ladies. Christina and Tiffany.
What's everybody looking at?
The newly wed couple.
Sharon. Nice "underwater smile"~
Dylan, can't really see his face with all the bubbles around.
We saw a lot of cleaning stations in action this trip, very interesting~ This batfish was really big. I was tempted to go near and see if I can touch it but well, I thought, I shouldn't disturb it while it's "taking a bath"(cleaning by other fish).
It's got a mole on its body
Now let's do some fish identification.
These fish are common, very common, but too common till I did not bother to remember what fish they are. For old birds I think you all know lah, for the snorkellers maybe they'd be interested to know, for myself, this serves as a reminder.
This should be black tip fusilier.
Eh... think this is fusilier, dunno exactly what species. But it could be squirrel fish too...
According to my Reef Fish book, this should be red breasted maori wrasse. Wah.. long name..
Trevallies. Trevally is jack? Same right? Until today I still always forget..
Eh... some kind of wrasse?
My favourite photo of the trip~ a whole family of clownfish.
Barracuda~~~ before and after edit.. hehehe...
Gabriel said there were easily thousands of barracudas around us. Big ones. I know there were a lot but I didn't pay attention to further water. He said there were lots and lots of shadows indicating hugggeee school of barracudas. Amazing~ We saw barracuda being cleaned by cleaner wrasse as well.
Gabriel with barracudas in the background.
"Hey hey...You like my photo?"
Blacktip sharks~~ I don't remember when was the last time I saw sharks inTIoman. This trip was sooo great.. one of my best trips in Tioman. We saw so many things in one dive. The blacktips here were all very fat...
Turtle~
Blue spotted stingray.
Rescuing reef fishes~~
These corals, round round like stone ones, very cute. There were lots of them in the background, in deeper water.
I am always delighted to see cuttlefish~~~
This is the first nudibranch that appeared in the Sea Slug page of my photographic guide. Dusky Nembrotha.
Many many fishesssss..... wrasses....
Mr Moray. I have no way to find out if this is a male or female. But I like to address all morays as "Mister". hehe...
Pretty girl, what cha doing there eh? hehe....
Super big giant grouper~!!!!!!! I had a 2 second glimpse of it and it went hide among the rocks. I was damn tired at that time, fighting a bit current... and I just anyhow took a shot from above and leave it. Otherwise I would have gone down to look for it.... but I was rrrreally tired.... Almost wanted to give up finning...
George and Gabriel, having nice cool shower.
Akemi and me. Akemi and Reeno had red eyes...
Me and Gabriel~
Tiffany, Christina, Dylan.
Me, Gabriel, Sharon.
George and Christina.
Everybody.
I wanted to cut sea urchins... but they gathered too close together, I dare not go near with my short knife. Gabriel did instead. It's just sooooo fun to see fishes eat urchins
yummy~
I kept looking at these tiny fellows, I think they are less than 1cm long... I looked hard, looked and looked, but I couldn't figure out what they were. They stuck together, did not move by themselves, only moved when the water moved. They remained like that for a longggg time. Nudibranchs? slugs? Anybody knows?
Dying upside-down jellyfish. Poor thing. It was very beautiful.
Gabriel shove it back to mid water and it fluttered its er... what do you call, mantle? it fluttered its mantle/flesh/wing a bit bit, but then it kept sinking. It's dying...
Everybody.
Kids at Mersing jetty.. took this photo just for fun.
I still like Tioman a lot. Easy access, friendly staffs, familiar sites, easy to access rooms from dive shop. "Just like home".
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