We are in Singapore and it's quite safe, but you can't help feeling scared waiting at void deck alone at 4am... Then, a car came, a car with lots of stickers on it. Someone in the car (I can't see the face) was waving at me. I thought... oh man... ah beng car with ah beng in it waving at me, at 4am... what should I do...?? But... it turned out to be Alex.....
Whew... hehehe... We then call the car "blink blink car". You'll see why...We stopped by the petrol kiosk in JB. It's really quite scary to be at petrol kiosk at such an early hour (actually, "any hour.."), having known so many crimes happened at petrol kiosks... But I have 4 big guys with me, I supposed I was safe. hehehe.
We reached Mersing at 6:30am~ Our boat was 7:30am. I want to have roti prata at Mersing Hotel there. Then Philip happily drove into one way lane and didn't seem to realise it. hahaha.. I think Philip thought we were joking.
It was super cold that morning! Like, mm..in an 22 degree aircond room. The fog was super thick~ My camera was deep in my backpack... didn't take a photo of it.We reached Tioman really early too~ Speedboat didn't make other stops and headed straight to Tekek. Reached there before 9am if I remember correctly. We had to share boat with others so have to suit everyone's timing. Headed for first dive at 10:30am. We have 10 divers on boat, and guess what, 9 cameras!!! Geez... have to really queue for a long time to shoot something. I didn't like to queue... so I rather swim around looking for some other things to shoot. Didn't take good photos this trip. The other 5 divers are really nice people, from Spore as well, I only know one of them named Patrick. hehe. paiseh. They are going to Sipadan in October and antoher trip 3 months later. Rich!
We bumped into Dr Luke and his girl friends too~ What a coincidence. The last time I was in Tioman (June), that was his last too. He's going to Malapasqua in Nov and heading to .. er.. dunno where during CNY. Seems like everyone is having holidays. I want a long holiday too!!!
See all photos here : Tioman Sep 07 (Sorry, there are only photos from my camera, cos others haven't pass it to me)
The usual nudibranchs.
Visibility at Chebeh that day was great~
This is the only one photo that I am satisfied with. But, colour is not so good.
Alex was very kind to lend me his strobe!!!
Even feather stars became very pretty with strobe! I never bother to look at them usually, except when looking for crabs hiding in it.
Tom, in Labas, as you can easily guess.
I didn't know Tioman has this whip coral shrimp until Andy showed me!!!! So happy!!! It's bigger than I thought, about 1cm long I think. Only managed to take one photo of it. Andy has got more, and nicer photos of course! (DSLR~~ I will get one if I hit lottery.. hehe)
This is with strobe. But over exposed. Didn't know how to adjust.
Check out the cicada~ First time I saw a real cicada~ They are always hiding among the trees isn't it?
Pardon the blur photo... it's difficult to shoot in the carpark.. flash not strong enough, without flash, the photo turns out blur to due hand movement, even with "stabiliser"..
This trip, as Andy's previous trip with Shirley, etc, we did 2 dives on Sat. Had lunch at 2:30pm! Then after that we all went for a nap until 7pm~! hahaha.. shiok and relaxed~!
It was really funny on Sunday morning. I shared a room with Alex, the air-cond kept on making noise... The noise will become louder and louder, then it went back to normal and then become louder again. On and on. We slept until 6+am , suddenly "BANG"!! Something sounded it has exploded! Then it continued "pi-li-pa-la p-li-pa-la..".... It really really sounded like the very old air-cond has exploded and things scattering on the floor. Alex and I awoken by the noise.. we looked at each other.. I got down from the bed and walked towards the air-cond. Suddenly "PI-LI-PA-LA" again... I got a shock and jumped away from there... so funny.. But it was nothing in the room. So weird.. we continued to sleep.
I told Andy when we had breakfast. Turned out he also heard the same thing. He also thought it sounded like the air-cond in his room exploded, but he chose to continue with his sleep. hahaha... I really wonder what it was.. . I wanted to check out the back of the room where the compressor is, but it's not accessible. It was so funny.
These are photos from Jun trip. See all photos here : Tioman Jun 07
I haven't post the "banana" and "prata" nudibranch's photos! here are 2 "banana" nudibranchs! Looks like sponges, don't they?
Super big gills!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Here it is~ "Prata" nudibranch! Winnie, Andy etc looked up the books, we think this is "lumpy astronautus". Lumpy huh, indeed it is. I tried to search for this nudibranch from the net. Couldn't get it. I think this nudi is really really rare. All of them have dive in Tioman for soooo many years. Never have anybody heard of this nudi. This year Tioman's water seems to be very rich!
I still remember I looked at one part of the nudi and wondered what the hell are they looking at??? I focused on one tiny spot, looking for tiny nudibranch.... ha!! gave me a fright when I realised what exactly they were all looking at!
These two fat nudi are of different shades of colour.
Another fat one!!
Tioman looked very pretty that day. Nice blue~ There was a tornado almost formed right in front of us!
