Divocean Diver's Club

Freddie's birthday

2009-07-20T22:33:00.003+08:00

The few of us had a last minute meet up at Freddie's house for his birthday. He wasn't at home when we reached, Winnie and us first ate the durian George bought.

And when Freddie came back, he had birthday cake with durian. hahaha....

The durians George bought were very nice indeed~ So was the tiramisu cake WInnie bought.

So sorry... this photo was blur, didn't notice it....
Hopefully the next group photo we take with Freddie will be at Tioman~~

Tioman Jun 09

2009-06-29T20:22:00.019+08:00

Wow. THis year we only dive Tioman in June... Every year we will go in March or April...

So many hiccups before the actual day, end up only 6 of us going. This trip only me, Winnie, Ivan, Mila, George and wife Louisa. I was saying, if everyone cancelled, I will go by myself, you all pay the van transport still and I alone take one whole big van. Wahahahahahaha... Super VIP seat. heeheehee...

Anyway, it was a great trip in the end!!

This is Abec. Trying to wind surf. There was only mild breeze. But he managed to move a short distance.
Xeno crab in Tioman~! And this is not the only one~ Last year people saw ghost pipefish in Tioman. This year xeno crab~ never really saw it in Tioman before~

Reeno dive with us throughout~ brought us to see many things. If we didn't dive with him, probably won't see these xeno crabs. THere's one xeno crab and one shrimp on this whip coral.

Another xeno crab, and a shrimp on the same whip coral! I only noticed this shrimp when I look at the picture! kekeke....

Reeno is getting more and more comical by the day!! I wish I can video him telling us his stories. Damn funny! haha!

It was extremely foggy on Friday morning along the roads to Mersing. Even at 8+am it was still covered with thick fog. The visibility on the road was also limited! That was the first time I experienced such thick fog in low land... It was the same on Tioman. 8+am the sun was already very high up, and it was still foggy. It wasn't haze. I wonder what's going on..

Winnie and.. Irene was her name? Wasn't sure. The instructor helping Eugene.

Big fat Jorunna funebris. Saw a couple of them.

This was so small, no one is sure what it was. Reeno also not sure. Until we zoom in in the photos and saw the pincers. Should be a crab then. Half way taking its photo it "flew off"!! I didn't touch it and I didn't make big movement. Scared me!! I tried to catch it but it just won't rest on my palm. Luckily George was beside me and saved it to a safer spot.. Gosh.. What a scare...

A different colour xeno crab.

Now I know how this kind of photo was taken. Kekekekeke... Too bad mine wasn't a DSLR camera..

That's a nudibranch you looking at. hehehe.. See the body and rhinophores?

Nudi and eggs.

Now this is a good one. kekeke.. Ivan upside down, WInnie patting Ivan's tummy. haha!

This looks fun ya~

Eugene going to do the sandscrew thing for OW students.
Eugene bought us dinner at New Mui Tau on Sunday nite. THanks Eugene~

Winnie helped preparing the students for shore dive.

George and Ivan also helped with the OW's shore entry. The buoy Eugene set was very far away... I would say, at least 350m to 450m. George wore a life jacket and swam with the students to the buoy.

Mila and Louisa, looking pretty.

Snake eel right in front of the beach!! Only at about 1.8m deep if I remember correctly.

THe shrimp was almost invisible. Reeno enjoyed finding the tinniest thing which is sooo difficult to shoot..

Pipefish! The others have seen this in Tioman but it was the first for me, so I was really really excited about it~! And it wasn't shy at all.
After 2 dives on Saturday, Winnie, George and Ivan didn't want to do the third. I urged them on (Reeno heard me) for another dive (I wanted another 2 dives actually, kekeke), just one. But they didn't want to, looked at me laughing.. hahaha... Then Reeno talked about the next dive, and asked me "You want to dive, right?" and I said "but I need a buddy..." Then he said "Dive with me lah." (or was it "I dive with you lah."?) wahhhhh.. so honoured~ VIP status like that ya. Sooooooooooo happy.

Afterwards, the rest of the boats were full and I said to Akemi forget it, I don't dive then. But then Reeno came asked me about the next dive again, I said there's no space in any of the boats. Him and George said just do shore dive! Since the seahorse is at house reef (Reeno told us earlier). I have forgotten about that! GREAT then!! YAY!! kekeke...

And TADA~! The biggest find of the trip!!! This was after 5pm. The next morning went the same site again, this time with Ivan, George and Winnie, but the seahorse didn't come out. There're plenty of places for the seahorse to hide in these hard corals. If they don't want to come out there's simply no way of seeing them. I guess they prefer to come out in the evening huh.
I must thank George and Winnie too, heehee.. for helping me to do shore entry. It was hard for me to stand up after donning the gears on the stairs, very heavy for me, both of them helped me get up. heehee.. I am also clumsy at wearing fins half submerged in the water when the waves keep pounding. Wahhhhhh, felt so much like a VIP this dive!! 2 people assisted me and dive with Reeno (along with Eugene's 2 Japanese leisure divers)!!!! heeheehehee...
It's a bright yellow seahorse, sooo pretty. But it was too shy. Difficult to take photo. But this is good enough. I'm happY! This dive lasted 96minutes. Luckily it wasn't too cold and it's shallow. The deepest we went was 11+m.

Reeno thinks too highly about me. He didn't know about my "blur" and "losing way" history. kekeke. When we talked about doing house reef again on Sunday morning, he said to me "You know where the seahorse is right?"

........................................

He then went on to tell me which buoy it is, when my face went blank. I couldn't even understand which buoy he was talking about and that's ON LAND! In the end, he said he should be not going out on Sunday morning, he'll go with us again. Wahhhhhhhhhhhh.............. soooooooooooooooo nice right? Ohh hohohoho... happy!!!

This time we went to 13+m. Muck diving at 10+m. There were soooooooooo many gobies. Everywhere on the sandy floor. And all kinds of colours. George saw a flounder with 3 pairs of vivid fake eyes on its body. Really weird stuff! I was hoping for a blue ring octopus, or bobtail squid or something, I know I hope too high, kekeke.. but Reeno said there is one blue ring at er... I forgot where. Paiseh. hehe.

Nice sunset~

George saw this preying mantis in toilet. It slit a small cut on George's finger. I asked George, "Pain or not?" hahaha... George said "Of course lah!" hahahaha.... soooo funny... I wasn't teasing him but I really wondered pain or not. hahaha.... That's Ivan's body by the way.

Fish attack!! It bit Reeno's calf, luckily Reeno wasn't wearing a shorty. Reeno wore a few layers of rash guards and wetsuits...hahaha. He said "One hour's dive leh" . I totally respect that. Rather than pretending to be a hero and wear a shorty and shivering like crazy on boat afterwards (I've seen such instructor before) which is really... stupid.. hehe.

This is a tiny tiny shrimp.. Reeno is really good at finding the tinniest stuff.
Shrimp in feather star. Reeno got his hand full of feather star for this pic...

Mila, Ivan, George, Louisa, Winnie, me and Reeno the man! He's preparing his strobe. Eric Leong coming with big big expensive camera on Sunday.

Took this pic in the van~
It was a great trip, mainly thanks to Reeno lah. Otherwise we probably see the normal stuffs we always see at Tioman only. Also, everyone's great fun. Oh, there was also a simple birthday celebration for Louisa. PHotos are in Mila's camera. Will post it when I got the photos.
This was also the first trip we took a ferry which the seat is adjustable, even have trays! Like an airplane! Only lack of stewardass. We actually sneaked in the ferry at 2:30pm with Eugene's group although our ferry was supposed to be the one at 4:30pm. And that was a big and fast ferry. We arrived at Mersing a little faster than usual.

HOpe the next trip will have more people eventually.

See all photos here : http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y34/ocean_goer/Tioman_Jun09/

and photos from Mila's camera : http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y34/ocean_goer/Tioman_Jun09_Mila/

Ubin and Andy's b'day

2009-01-01T15:06:00.006+08:00

We went Ubin again last 2 weeks. Went cycling for a while, Gab, me, Tiff and Tiff's friend Kelvin. The rest joined us afterwards.
Stopped by a place to have some nice coconut drink. Look Tiffany imagining herself using the wood-made-lavatory, hehe.
Tiffany driving speedboat~! kekeke.

The birthday boy. Another mug printed with photos from Similan. Andy, are you the mug now? Must use it in office to show people. ahha...

Philip, Doreen and Megan had to leave early, so did not join us for dinner.

Dinner was half paid by our pool money from previous trip and balance "sponsored" by the birthday boy~~

See all photos here : Ubin Dec 08

Winnie's present

2008-10-17T00:00:00.002+08:00

15th Oct is Winnie's birthday, we went for buffet dinner on last Sunday. The gifts are from me, Gab, Andy, Alex and George.

Winnie opening up her gifts. It's a t-shirt and a mug from Snapfish~~ I selected our trip photos where all of the gang were present. It was our Similan trip for the t-shirt and Manado at Cocotinos for the mug.
It is something that I hope Winnie will keep for a long time :) something memorable~ Hope you liked it Winnie~~!

Ubin videos

2008-09-10T13:41:00.002+08:00

Here are the video for our Ubin outing (a combination of 2 outings).

Ubin1

Ubin2

Ubin3

Video viewing

2008-09-02T21:50:00.008+08:00

Finally got our Manado video done and we had a small party at Fred's house. Thanks to Fred again for having us :)

Winnie and friend, who are now enjoying themselves in New Zealand~

Megan and Krissy the doggie. Krissy is very old already. Somehow she got very very excited when we went into the entertainment room. Soooo funny..

Brenda, Jacky and Gabriel.

George, having a go with the mini golf.
See all the photos here http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/divocean/Dinner_SEpt08/

Ok, our main purpose of the small party~ Manado Video~~ I've made English and CHinese versions. Check it out~

English version (1 of 4)
Chinese version (1 of 4)

English version (2 of 4)
Chinese version (2 of 4)

English version (3 of 4)
Chinese version (3 of 4)

English version (4 of 4)
Chinese version (4 of 4)

Ivan's wedding

2008-08-07T00:56:00.007+08:00

Sorry guys~!!! Have not got the time to upload our Ivan's big day (20th July) photos~~ CONGRATULATIONS~ Ivan and Mila~~
Here are the photos~

Our beautiful bride Mila with Tiffany.

Me and Mila. My eyes are so small compare to Mila. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.......

Diving kakis, from left, me, Tiff (can't see in the pic), Alex, Frankie, Laura, Sally, Freddie, Uncle George's daughter-in-law and son.

From left, back facing camera, Philip, Jacky, Ah Pow, Eden, Andy, Winnie, Doreen and Megan.

The ever adorable Megan. Her dress was so cute.

Ta-da~! The bridegroom and bride. Ivan has lost quite some weight right?

Exchanging rings.

"We're married~!"

Mila has changed into a blue wedding gown.

The guys went all out to "YYYAAAAAMMMMM SSSEEEEENNNNGGGGG!!!!"

360 degree kiss~!

Group pictures.

Please go here to view all photos : http://s3.photobucket.com/albums/y82/divekaki/Ivan_wedding/

Durian-siao at Ubin~

2008-07-17T23:02:00.007+08:00

Last last SUnday (13th) we went Pulau Ubin to eat durian~ We have been waited for this for 2, 3 years! Because Jacky who knows Pulau Ubin best went Australia to study for 2 years. Now he's finally back and he still remember the promise~!
All together 7 of us, Andy, Tiffany, me, Jacky, Winnie, Gabriel and Alex.

We are teasing Tiffany to say something to the camera, over and over again~! ha!

At the "Sensory Trail", where it features plants and herbs (planted by Jacky!) which people use. Most of the plants have its own distinct taste and smell. And there's this board for blind people to read about the plants.

Tiffany being hoaxed into eating a leave which was really bitter. hahaha...

Fruits that looked like rambutan, but they are not. I don't know what is this.

Andy place the leaves of a plant on his buttock, in an attempt to repel insects. haha. This is the plant used to make insect repellent. Its smell was very strong.

Baby nangka, or is it... baby cempedak? or nangka? dunno......... cannot differentiate..

Durian time~ We had durian at a villager's house.

The younger generation have not seen the core of a budding coconut. I've seen it, but I didn't know it can be eaten. So Tiff and I wanted to see and brought back an old coconut. Alex tried all his might to open the tough coconut.
Alex's hands had gone red... After this Alex can be friends with orang-utan. hahaha. because orang-utan is expert in opening up these coconuts.

Gabriel, taking a bit of video clips.

This uncle in blue shirt... ate durian with..not hand, but fork! Where got people eat durian with fork one.....................?? It does not taste good when you don't eat with hand, man~ He said it's unhygienic to eat with hands. Wash your hand lah........ hahahaha...

A surprise! A baby wild boar~~ I saw it walking around in the living room when we just came. I guess perhaps there're too many people, the villager put it in cage.
It actually got separated with its mother, so the villager kept it.

It was sooooooooooooo adorable~!!! When it was laying on the floor, me and Gabriel went and caress it, it then it wagged its TINY TINY tail like a puppy~! Soooo cute!!!
Alex finally opened it! Alex was soaked in sweat~ thanks for the effort, Alex~

Have you seen this before? Only when a coconut starts budding does this core appears.

We all shared a bit of the core. It doesn't really taste good. A bit like "soaked bread". They said it's too old. Else it'll be a bit crunchy.

Time to go back~~ After the durian, we had lunch again. Whoa... full.. The black pepper crab was yummy yummy yummy!!

I like these two photos of Tiff. So I put it here~

Jacky asked me to take a pic like this, with sunlight on top. Really nice~
Go here for all the photos : http://s3.photobucket.com/albums/y82/divekaki/PulauUbin_Jul08/

By the way, Ubin was packed with people!! THousands!! A lot of tourists among the locals. Surprise surprise. And people just ride a bike and came out with bags of durian. We didn't go into the "jungle" or "forest" to pick the durians, because the villagers have already got whole bunch of durians. And the durians were very good~ very tasty~!

Manado 7-13 Jun 08

2008-06-18T02:06:00.000+08:00

We have came back from another diving trip. It was soooo nice, at Cocotinos Resort with Odyssea Divers, being pampered from the beginning till the end~~

*** I'm definitely still in holiday mood... :( I believe others also... This morning I had a vivid dream of going to airport for diving holiday! ***

But first of all, one lesson learnt this trip, ALWAYS, always buy travel insurance. What an experience, this trip, 4D also not so "zhun4". Our flight was supposed to be at 09:25 Saturday. It didn't fly. There was a volcano erupted near Manado airport. Other airlines were flying, but perhaps SIlkair wants to be on the safe side. WHich is fine. But the staff and even the supervisor or something, did not give us satisfactory explanation and didn't handle the situation well and frankly, was quite rude. They said there'll be an announcement at 1pm. It never came.

Sally went asked them around 1:30pm. Finally they told us it's not flying that day. The scheduled time would be at noon 12:00 the next day. But they didn't give proper explanation and everybody's temper started getting hot. The supervisor's attitude made things worse. Then he went missing. Left a female staff to handle a whole bunch of angry passengers. So poor thing.

At the end, SIA's manager came instead. He's very professional, very good attitude, gave proper explanation. So everybody is ok after that. It's not that we're being unreasonable, we just need an acceptable explanation why the scheduled flight is 12noon the next day and not anything earlier than that (since that other airlines were flying). So we went Changi Village HOtel for a free night stay. Free dinner. Free breakfast. The stupid hotel people tried to segregate us to different area with different food than other guests but we don't see why they had to treat us differently and we insisted on having the same food. We said we'll pay and claim with airline. But in the end, they didn't charge us.

Each of our room is entitled 5min of IDD call on Silkair's bill. Winnie made a 10cent local call and the staff asked her to pay for it.... ridiculous.

Anyway, in the end, we got to fly as scheduled. Those of us who have bought travel insurance, we can claim at least $400 for 24hrs of delay. At the end of our holiday, the flight delay about 3 hours again. We were all hoping it will delay for one whole day. hahahahaha..... but it nvr happened. But at least the airline had email our resort, and we got to spend a few more hours at the resort rather than the boring airport.

I never thought I'd use the claim for travel insurance. But this time really did. So, buy your travel insurance, my friend.

When we reached Manado, the sky was soooo clear. No sign of volcano ash. Perhaps only because the wind was in favour to us. But Martinos said the volcano (Soputan) is 3hours away from Manado... We checked the map, it is around 40km South West from Manado airport.

Ok, about diving. When we reached, we went to our rooms, there're baskets outside the room. We put our gears in our basket, which already has our name tag attached to it, and they carried to the dive shop. They put tags and stickers to all our gears, set everything. We just have to get our butts to the boat and get wet~

Our checkout dive became a night dive.. Saw many juvenile octopus. Martinos told us this is juvenile mimic octopus, I have thought it's coconut octopus. How to differentiate the two of them anyway...
Freddi's torch went "boop", gone, couldn't even find the "head" of the torch. And my Pelican small backup torch, I guess it got flooded during this dive, its maiden dive. I never even checked afterwards. Only saw it after a few days, since I put it in my pocket.

Vis wasn't very good, about the same as we had last year. What a disappointment. I haven't experienced 30m, 40m viz.....!!!!!

This is some soft coral crab, don't know the name. It's got eggs!

My photo of the trip~~ my first pygmy seahorse~ First time I saw pygmy seahorse. The others saw seahorse last year, I never see nuts of seahorse last year. hahahah.. This makes up for it.
I only took two shot as there are people queing to take photos. It was quite deep, can't stay too long, NDL was ticking... I was like, take one photo, check my dive comp, take one photo, check my dive comp.... My point and shoot Sony T100 finally rendered me good photos. happy~
Actually, before this dive the guides had shown the rest of the guys pygmy seahorse. I wasn't there and I thought that's it, this trip also no seahorse for me. But thank God pitied me and showed me this one and a few others in the following dives. In the first dive they saw pygmy, James was eager to bring us there, we were finning against current. I thought I still can take it and signalled OK to James and Gabriel. Until some time later I signalled to Gabriel I am breathing heavily, I hold on to Gab's hand and all of a sudden, panic attacked. I suddenly breathe both from my mouth and nose, causing the mask to flood. Somehow I cannot control myself to stop breathing from nose. Gab said because hyperventilated, CO2 built up in the body causing the body wants to breathe out more, something like that. I signalled frantically to Gab I want to ascend... We were at 20m.. Gab calmed me down and luckily I still have the sense to pinch my nose to stop breathing in and out from nose... then we ascended, rather faster than usual but it was still acceptable.

Came up to the boat I cried. hahahah.. It was really scary..... The scariest moment in my 6 years of diving. Winnie aborted that dive and was very uncomfortable herself but she comforted me as well. Gabriel who had heart surgery was stronger than me, haha. I'm glad he is very healthy and strong now. Afterwards James apologised to me and I too apologised to him because Martinos sort of scolded him for finning too fast in current. But I understand, he was just eager to show us pygmy seahorse (I had told him I want to see seahorse! I nvr see before..). He had checked on us to see if we're ok. I overestimated my ability and signalled to him ok several times. So he's not in fault.

Winnie on the other hand had ear infection. She was quite in pain. Glad to see she is better now.

In this pic, guess what I had my focus on? The rubbish in the center................... I had thought that was the shrimp until I checked my photos afterwards. Lookalike eh? hahahah...
Too bad we didn't take a photo of the dive boat. It's a very long boat. But it's a weird boat. The engine is at the rear end, so the "captain" couldn't really see where he's going. Some one has to sit at the bow and be his "viewer". When we returned from Bangka, it rained. It was soooo cold. But the staff, no matter what, had to sit at the bow, in the rain, as the "captain's " eyes.... So poor thing. I was really froze while inside the boat, under a towel....

Next, tiny cute frogfish. Felt like taking it home. Sweet baby~~
Check out this nudi's "antenna"~ like an antelope!

Our great guide, James. The divemasters are all very good. They would find the stuff, and try to show it all divers, not just those beside them. They will swim to you even though viz not so good, and bring you to what they found.
And the guides are very organised from the beginning when handling our gears. They gave very interesting and useful briefings and also very organised while underwater. But as James put it, good guide, if met with some messy divers, he will not be able to control either. If there are 4 divers, one is far in front, one far behind, one on the left, one on the right of him, he can't provide good guide either. If he follows one he will lose the other 3. So, I guess we are good divers. hehe..

Everybody was fighting current to take pics of squid and their eggs~ it was a mess... hahaha....

Check out the hole~ A worm's hole. It's rock solid! I used pointer to touch it, it's hard like our cement wall! cool huh?

Ever seen live scallops? I haven't. They move very funny.

"Dude, you're trespassing my territory!". The anemone kept zooming here and there in front of Gab's video. It was very funny in the video.

The elusive harlequin shrimp. Andy, Alex should have better photos. I couldn't really see what it was, it was so tiny. I just took 3 photos and decided to see what it is later on when I zoom in the photo. hahahah.. WHen our guide Jemmy discovered the harlequin shrimp which we had said we wanna see, James zoomed to Andy and took out his regulator and yelled underwater "Ha-le-quin-shrimp!!" I never saw that!!! What a pity!!! Tiff and ANdy told me about this, must be damn funny!!

The very beautiful resort. I forgot to take photos of its toilet~!!! the best we've seen so far. It was JUST.SO.NICE.

The food wasn't so good here.... maggie mee tastes better at times. hahaha. But our last day's dinner and "bak-kut-teh" was goooodd. Even though food was not so good, we don't really mind it. Cos the overall service was very good. After our last dive, they washed our gears, hang dry, the next day we just make sure all our gears are in our own basket, they carried the basket to our door step. We then packed our luggage and afterwards they carried our luggage to the car for us. Every step was well thought of. Oh oh oh, when we came back from day dives, they had ice cold face towel ready for us as we stepped up the jetty. When we came back from night dive, they had warm face towel ready for us. It was soooo pampering! What could be better than a warm warm face towel after a night dive?

Gabriel, climbing "high up" for Tiff-she's been craving for coconut drink. hehe.
Actually it's not high up lah. hehe.. Just camera trick. heheeheh...

This was the last night before departure. Tiff and me chilling.
Andy and Alex having their full body massage.

Check out the low and high clouds. Soooo beautiful.

Oh, UFO coming!

Sally chilling.

Beautiful sunset.

Manually patched sunset photo.

Winnie and Sally.

Gabriel. Look at the colours of the cloud. Sooo beautiful. We really enjoyed the last night's sunset. Previous nights, it was raining, couldn't sit under the stars and appreciate the beauty of the universe. But we're thankful, at least it's sunny during day time. The day we went Lembeh, a bit cloudy, but we still have sunny times now and then.

Tiffany enjoying the coconut Gabriel plucked for her. haha~~
We celebrated Freddie's birthday (one month ahead.. hahaha...Winnie said since Fred always fly and also difficult to get everybody together, so we just celebrate it one mth ahead) that night. Freddie was extremely sporting. They brought out the birthday cake, and our dive guide James said to him "It is the tradition at our resort here. Either you jump in the pool yourself and we throw you into the pool." I was like huh..... but Freddie, laughed and ran to the pool and a few seconds later he had jumped into the pool~! hahaha. And James was pushed into the pool immediately after Freddie jumped! hahahah.. unexpected. And he had no idea who pushed him. It wasn't recorded in the video, so we also didn't know. It was too fast!

My camera was not with me, so didn't take photos of the birthday celebration. But wait for our video which will come soon~~ (soon, maybe 3, 4 weeks. hehe)

The only negative thing we would say, is that this resort is next to a mosque. Which gives us morning call every morning around 4:15am... It's not just a 3min prayer... it was at least 10min. And it was super loud. On Friday, Gab and I thought we had got used to the prayer as we wasn't waken by it. But George said there was no prayer that morning around 4am. Then the prayer around 7am was much longer than other days. But it's ok still. If we can't go back to sleep after the prayer, we just wake up early to enjoy the nice scenery, since the day breaks very early at 5+am or so. And given that if we were going Lembeh or Bangka, we had to have breakfast at 6am. So we all thought it was ok.

The last day.
Flight delayed. So we might as well utilise the pool. When we go diving, Sally goes golfing and enjoying the spa. So, everybody is happy~

Winnie just had her massage, couldn't dip in the pool. While Alex and Andy were having their turn at the spa.

Here they come~ hahaha. with their "Astroboy" hairstyle~~ soooo cute....

Our group photo~ Backrow from left, Jemmy, Andrew, George, Tiffany, Sally, Freddie, Andy, Martinos, Alex, Winnie, Laura, 2 female staffs I don't know their names. Front row from left, one staff I don't know his name, Parman, James, Fendi, me (Michelle),Gabriel, and a staff I don't know his name. Another guide, Hanni wasn't in the pic.
If we're going Manado again, Cocotinos/Odyssea Divers is definitely the one to go!!

See all my photos here :
Michelle's photo
and
Gab's photo (Video camera's still shots)

Still waiting for Winnie, Andy, Alex and George's photo.

Philip's "birthday video"

2008-06-02T00:19:00.006+08:00

Sorry guys, forgot to put PHilip's "birthday celebration" video here. hehe.

Philip, here's your cake for you. Cake was already in our stomach, so only photo for you. hahaha....

Here's we sang happy birthday for Philip. Pardon me that I laughed like that, cos it was very funny to sing happy birthday to the video. haahaha. Click to see the video.

And this is the second video, we "demolished" Philip's cake. hehe. no lah, just get rid of the super thick cream. *unhealthy* haha.

Tioman April 08

2008-05-03T23:08:00.008+08:00

Trip to Tioman : 26-27th April. One word to summarise our trip : rewarding!

Fantastic trip~ We did only one dive on Saturday, which we normal do 2 dives. The surge in the ocean was horrible............. The climate, weather now is really going crazy. There's usually no surge/swell at this time, but... it's so bad, we had a hard time trying to get a good focus in our photos. We don't really have a lot of fantastic photos this trip but guess what, we did only 3 dives in the 2 days we're there, and we've saw 13 different types of nudibranchs! Check this out!

Amazing right?~~~

I do not have the names though as I don't have nudibranch reference book.

It was such a great trip~ We saw sharks, barracudas, and cuttlefish mating~ and it was caught on film~! Check this out~!

And we've had so many "first time" in this trip :

-first time change driver on the way to Mersing
-first time we have a female driver
-first time we saw such bbbeautiful sun rise on the way to Mersing (haven't been able to access Alex's photos to post it here)
-first time the driver join us in breakfast makan roti prata
-first time we dive only once on Saturday
-first time we saw so many nudibranchs
-first time we saw cuttlefish mating (at least for me) and had it filmed
-first time we "celebrated" birthday without the presence of the birthday boy
hahahah..... soooo many first time right?

We recorded us singing happy birthday to Philip but it's in Alex's SD card and my card reader can't read it. So..... will have to wait before I got it and upload it to show to Philip, the birthday boy.

Click here for photos from Andy, George, Winnie, and me (Michelle). Tioman April 08 Photos

Guess the next time we go Tioman will be after our Manado trip in June. Probably end end of July or August.. Man... that's sooooooo long to go...

Tioman Mar08 Videos

2008-03-29T13:33:00.006+08:00

Finally, I've finished editing the videos... Pardon the long wait, but I couldn't have finished it any faster... I can only do it when I'm back in JB (no computer in SG)... had been working till 2, 3am these 2 weeks.

Editing the video creates LOADS of big files (the clips).. computer not fast enough, have to wait a while every time I changed something and want to review it. As the computer is not fast enough, the playback was like, one frame one frame... I couldn't really see the effect which is set in less than 1 second. It does make a lot of difference even if it's only 0:30second.

Then dunno is it the software or what... it kept giving me problems when I was editing the sound. It kept shut off the programme.... Had to restart the programme again and again... And when I edit the clips too short, the image kept jerking.. I had to convert the files first (and there are loads of file!) then only I can edit it............................. very time consuming because of this.

Also, because of the same reason (comp not fast enough), pardon the little mistakes here and there. If I check everything thoroughly as much as I would like to, you probably have to wait for another week. Quite unhappy about the mistakes though, some part music too loud, can't hear the person in the video talking, some words missing, etc...

Not a lot of underwater clips though.... not much was taken..... makes editing and script writing a bit difficult cos the underwater scenes are too short.

Anyway, here are the videos. Remember to turn on the volume~! else please watch the video some other time when you can turn on the volume. P.S. I've made the video as something like a travel show/ diving guide. Hope you enjoy it. Do give some comment~

Part I
Pardon some little mistakes here and there... kind of rush the video out.

Part II
Diving scenes, corals, turtles, cuttlefish. The part were Andy was talking to Ivan.. music too loud.. I've edited it in the beginning but still.. :( end up like this.

Part III
Scenes of Reeno's birthday celebration and surface interval at Pulau Tulai.

Part IV
Diving scenes with barracuda, turtles, titan and scenes before going home. The part where Gab was talking after the dive... after I converted the video, the talking and the image do not match.... faint.... nothing I can do about it...

Do forward these to your friends and let them see your holiday~ Direct link to our videos Diving Video.

Tioman Mar 08

2008-03-16T00:55:00.005+08:00

Tioman diving season started again and we can't wait to go there~ and there we were, on the 2nd weekend of March. This time, we have a big group~! Unfornatuly George has fallen sick and he and Tiffany couldn't go with us.

All of us here, waiting for our breakfast, from left corner clockwise : Alex, Frankie, Gabriel, me Lilo, Julien, Mila, Ivan, Andy, Sally, Fred, Catherine, Laura, JunWei, Jonathan, Andy Lee, Philip... ee? Where's Winnie? went to the toilet perhaps. Joining us for the first time were Julien, Harold, Andy Lee, Jonathan and Jun Wei. Hope you guys had a great time :)

The weather and water was surprisingly cold... It was due to the El Nino thing. El Nino and La Nino are different? Lazy to read about it... Anyway, because of this, it had been raining for a couple of weeks, as if it's still rainy season. While we're there we had like, 30-40% of sunny times... better than none I guess. But the visibility was bad, bad bad bad... And the sea was choppy. On the way back to Mersing, ferry had to go sooooo slow... I had never seen such big waves during diving season months....

This is a photo from Alex. What is the orange thing?? Who's it at the back? JunWei? I think so.

Nice blue background~

What's this? Soft coral?

Alex's favourite shot of the trip. This is... blenny, right? How come it's out of its house..

This is sea lice... about 5mm, said Andy. Can't see clearly...

Andy in action.

These little clownfish are so cute. Due to the wind/waves, there's surge in the sea, quite badly, makes photo taking sooooo difficult. You'll find your subject swaying left...swaying right...... and photos all turn out blur.....

Winnie was using new Panasonic camera this trip~ can't wait to see her photos. And some others are buying Panasonic as well~!

This is a photo from Gabriel. Look at its "antenna".

Aiks! One's doing all the hardwork studying, one doing all the drinking?? hahaha.....

During day time, little moray eel came out investigating.

My own favourite shot of the trip. Check out its "antenna", looks like somebody has taken a bit on it.

HUUUGGGEEE sea fan~! but it's broken a bit. Gabriel in the background.

Having steamboat dinner~ from left, Gabriel, Ivan, Mila, Jonathan, Andy Lee.

Freddie, Catherine, Alex.

Frankie, Andy Lee, Philip.

Ee... Why is everybody so tired..? Too much nitrogen?

Julien and Harold, chilling, after their exam finished.

Their friend Patrick, joined us on Saturday. Too short a time for him to take up a course like Julien and Harold did.

Everybody except Julien and Harold as they went out diving earlier than us. From back row, clockwise, Reeno, Gabriel, Andy Lee, Freddie, Laura, Frankie, Alex, Winnie, Andy, me Lilo, Mila, Ivan, Jonathan and Philip. Ee.. where's Jun Wei? Somewhere around taking photos I guess.
We saw quite many interesting marine animals, HUGE baraccudas, cuttlefish laying eggs, turtles, shark, etc.. but it wasn't "shiok" enough, as the water was cold, and vis was bad. Hopefully the weather get back to normal soon~!

Go here: Photos of Tioman Mar 08 to see all photos of mine, Gab's and Alex's.

I will be editing the video clips taken into videos. Watch out for it soon~!

Videos of Similan

2008-02-23T18:08:00.006+08:00

Have a look at the videos of our trip to Similan~ Video shot mainly by Gabriel, edited by me (Michelle). Please give me comments of the editing and music~ (Do note that these videos were taken using digicam video function, no red filter nor lightings. Therefore the colours are not good.) Part 2 and 3 are most interesting.

Part one (9:03min) - intro of friends and the journey from Spore budget terminal to jetty to our liveaboard : The Excalibur.

Part two (9:20min) - underwater footage, sneak up on divers taking a nap and interesting turtles that kept coming back for food. Oh, and Andy being pushed into the water~

Part three (8:09min) - scene before a night dive (the one which Tiffany said after the dive "Nobody 'hiu' me...!!" and underwater footage with interesting octopus (notice the fish beside which kept followed the octopus~).

And I deliberately delayed the start of the music so that the part of music which started to sound "exciting" coincide with the many little fishes coming in.
Also, there's one part showing tiny fishes being cornered among the rocks and many predator fishes came to join the feast.

Part four (6:26min) - photos of Andy's birthday celebration, end Tiffany "wanting" to take her weights home , scenes of returning journey, scenes in shopping mall and don't miss out the ending, which I thought was pretty good. hehe.

Similan LOB Dec 07

2007-12-20T22:09:00.000+08:00

Diving~ diving~ Liveaboard the Moskito to Similan~

Please click here : Michelle's Similan Photos for all photos. Please go to that link to download your photos. The photos here are small size version.

See we got a huge trolly for all our gears. haha. This is Phuket airport.

We were onboard~ This is the upper deck. Laura and daddy Freddie.

Me, Gabriel and Winnie.

Guy, Laura, Freddie and me.

Our guides, Alain and Champ, George, Tiffany, Andy, Doreen and Philip.

Alex, Guy, Laura and Freddie.

The star of the trip~ Manta~!!! This is from Gab's camera. I was so caught in surprise, as we saw the manta 2minutes into that dive... and the manta went off quite fast. Vis wasn't good. My first time seeing a manta~! happy ~ :D

Guy.. saw a manta? happy face? hahahaha...

2nd star of the trip~ turtle! They were so friendly. This one kept coming back for more watermelon, even longgg after we ran out of it. Everybody got to touch it and it wasn't annoyed by us at all! Amazing! Guy and Alex jumped in the sea and played with it till they were tired.
There was another turtle came asking for food on another day! Amazing!

Everybody marvelled at the turtle.

Lots and lots of moray eels in Similan.
Why were we always made to swim for long distance? When we were on MV Grace, we had such a longgg distance surface swim, I thought that was the last. Then at Sipadan, long surface swim and also long swim to find the reef.... I thought that was the last. And now this is the best, swam 20minutes, a full 20minutes to see this stupid wreck! Swam at 20m deep! When we reached there, I never bother to see the deeper part of the wreck at all. Everybody was cursing underwater..... man... i hope this is the last.

Similan has this pretty, soft looking sea grass. Very nice~

This is from Gab's camera. Similan has lots and lots of lion fish as well.

Don't you just feel like giving the rock a push? hahahahah....

Someone pushed Andy into the sea when we were still playing with the turtle. hahaha...

Gabriel shooting video.

The turtle was still around when we ran out of fruits for it.

Alex and Andy trying to pull Tiffany into the sea! Too bad I didn't manage to get Tiff into the pic. hahaha!

Gabriel, army man's habit? hehe.

Similan's sunset.

BIG BIG lobsters!

First time I got to see so many octopus~ happy!

I thought I was the only one who took a photo of this one-tooth-less triggerfish. Turned out that everybody has the same shot and almost exactly the same pose! hahaha.... First time I was this close to a trigger fish. I will never do this in Tioman.

Super big crab~!!

Gab called this "kuku-diver". hahaha.. The "cowboy" diver. I was totally stunted when I saw him!

The act-macho-wearing-only-swimming-trunk diver. The water was cold, man. Lots of thermocline. And we think he was cold. Serves him right for trying to be macho! wahahahahaha...

And pink diver!!! George and Tiff saw "zebra diver"!! A diver with a black and white horizontal stripes wetsuit!!!! Can you imagine that??? Too bad I didn't see him else I sure follow him and take a photo.

Hawkfish always make good picture.

Don't you just wanna lay in the grass with the stonefish? It looked soooo comfortable. Well, on second thought, you DON'T wanna lay beside a stonefish. hehe.

Chill out at night.

Alex secretly drew a birthday "board" (not card) for Andy.

Party time, eh?

Birthday boy~ It's one week earlier, but doesn't matter~
Happy Birthday Andy~

Last day before leaving.

Me and our guide Alain. He's from Belgium. He came to Phuket 2 years ago for holiday instead of California as his father strongly suggested Phuket. And he decided to stay~! Good choice Alain! Good choice!

Everybody~~! From left, Guy, Winnie, Freddie, Laura, Tiffany, George, me, Doreen, Philip, Andy, Gabriel, Alex and Alain.

Our boat, Moskito~
A 5 day trip, gone. Looking foward to Tioman diving when season open~

p.s. I will be editing video for the trip and burn into CD. Hope it'll be good~!

Gabriel's cast

2007-12-01T13:10:00.000+08:00

Gabriel was so careless to hurt himself again. Just 3 weeks before our Similan trip, he hurt his arm/wrist. During the last check doctor said cannot see fracture lines in x-ray, but it doesn't mean confirm no fracture. So he'll have to go x-ray again. Hopefully there is no fracture.

This is his photo when his arm needs to be in cast.

The cast has been taken off few days back. HOpefully he'll recover soon. :)

Kusu 11th Nov 07

2007-11-17T22:58:00.000+08:00

Our Kusu dive~ after so long... (2 yrs to be exact) A special thanks to Hantu blog's Debby for kindly giving us the bumboat's contact.

It was quite nice dives on Sunday. Hardly any current on the first dive, but current started picking up towards the end of the second dive. I was thankful it didn't rain. The water was quite cold that day.

View all photos here : Kusu's photos

Here's Freddie, our newly certified OW diver, YookSau, Winnie and George.

The long-time-no-see Ivan on the left, and Philip and Gabriel. Sorry, in this photo nobody was facing the camera :p My fault. I didn't inform them.
Tiffany and Laura-new OW diver. I didn't realise Tiff has straighten her hair until just now when I was editing their last Tioman photos. haha....

I remember there's a cartoon who holds a leave just like Philip. Was it Mashimaro? That's Philip's dive flag by the way. kekeke...

There were more feather stars this time. They said there were supposed to have sea grass growing around this time but we only see tiny ones.

Check out this squat lobster~ The vis wasn't superb that day. We had much much better vis on our first time to Kusu 2 years back. And there were lots of particles. Anyway, this crab was quite big, nearly 2 inches I would say.

Somehow the water behind wasn't totally green and yellow but green/blue, which makes a nice contrast to the red feather star. The lobster had climbed out from the center. When I was editing the photo, Holy crap~ the was another lobster beside! We never noticed! Take a good look! Different colour. I am guessing it's the offspring of the bigger one, but just guessing.

Flat worm. Very cute.

Tiny nudibranch. I like to take tiny nudi photos but camera always focus on the wrong thing.

Surface interval time.

Laura and me.

This, is a nudibranch that I have not seen before. It looks like a dragon, doesn't it? But it swims like a fish!! It's true! This nudi reminds me of the "gay mandarine fish" in Sipadan which was attracted to Andy. This nudi started to swim after I took a couple of photos and it swam towards me! And as it swims like a fish, it was rather fast compare to other nudibranch. It kept swimming towards me and it was so fast, I couldn't get Gab's attention in time. I was afraid that if it sticks to me, I might hurt it. In the end it reappeared, I don't know exactly where but somewhere around me....

Again, somehow the water becomes blue like Tioman.. instead of yellow and green. So disappointed this photo was not really in focus. But then the nudi's head faced the other way. But I like the background. George and Tiff saw this nudi as well.

Ohhh I was soooo happy to see whip coral shrimp in Spore water~! Never expected that. It's only about the width of the pointer!

Too bad something wrong with Andy's DSLR. Else we would have impressive photos of the "dragon" nudi and this shrimp.

There were 2 nudi in this photo. Can you spot it?

This flat worm is quite big.

p.s. Below is some interesting thing that I feel like putting here. Not what I saw in the wild (I
wish!)

I went to the zoo lately. Trying to find sea lions but we saw no sea lions. The place that used to be sea lions performance place had become manatee's home! They are soooooo darn cute!

I supposed this is still a baby. So nice and lucky that it came near the glass. There was a fence there so I wasn't able to go nearer to take photo to eliminate the reflection.

Check this out. They were really really playful~ Kept hugging each other. Really hugging each other oh~ so heart warming to see~ I wanna hug them toO!!!

Go to the zoo to see them!

Tioman Oct-OW

2007-11-17T22:14:00.000+08:00

Freddie and Laura had their open water training in Oct. George, Andy, Alex assisted Winnie.

View all photos here : Tioman-Oct 07

Notice the curious swimmer at the back.

George and Winnie demonstrating. "Hello? lend me your octopus?"

Taking a rest.

Andy and George demonstrating how to help a buddy to don gear. But I could never be able to do that.. I can't lift up the tank that high...

Daughter helped father, father helped daughter.

This is really "watching over" them.

Alex demonstrating fin pivot.

Share air practise.
Freddie doing CESA.
Open water training day. Cloudy huh...

Winnie looked like a warrior~

Cowrie~~ I hope they breed more and faster.

George and Tiffany. Too much particles.

This cuttlefish was really white huh, superb colour changing skill.

Sea snake~!!

Alex always, always see jelly fish and I don't
Some kind of special effect ?

Er... who is this?? Is this... Yook Sau?

Big eye Andy.

Scorpion fish? They have the same mouth shape with frogfish. HA! which reminds me.. I sms Gab, Winnie and Andy one day : "Oh My GOD! I saw a man who looks exactly like a frog fish in the train!" I am sorry, I am really bad but that guy rrreally has a frogfish's mouth...
Cute little filefish. Or is it leatherjacket? Or they are the same?

George~ Edited the photo to become brighter.

That is a really big moray eel, eh? Gab said he played with it and stroke its body!

Someone please volunteer to put your hand in the moray's mouth, and let us see if its "second jaw" comes out from its throat to bite it.

Graduation time~
Laura and Fred, officially Open Water Diver.

Tiffany, Advance Open Water diver.

Winnie's Birthday

2007-10-14T13:00:00.000+08:00

Winnie's birthday is on 15th Oct, happy birthday Winnie~

We were having dinner at Alex's place on Saturday and wanted to give her a surprise. Andy, Gab hid the cake in the fridge when she wasn't looking. hehe..

View all photos here: Winnie's Birthday

Here are part of the photos.

Our chef : Alex~ working hard on the black pepper crab~ yummy~ Voila~ delicious meal~ Black pepper crab not in this photo, it was in the making.

Some crabs were too hard... We had to make use of the hammer. hahaha...

George and Tiffany couldn't come as George was sick.. Winnie's sister, brother-in-law and niece were there too. They just passed their open water last week.
Doreen and adorable Megan.
Megan is so cute and clever. I asked Megan about her doll, Lilac Baby. I asked er.. "Do you talk to baby?" or "Does baby talk?" I forgot which. And Megan must have thought what a silly Jie-jie, cos she answered me, "This is not a real baby. This is just a toy.." ahahhaahah... Megan is so clever~

We turned off the light and brought out the cake~ Winnie, were you surprised?

Winnie blowing the candle~

Smile~
Happy Birthday~~

The lychee martini cake Andy bought was very delicious~
Also must thanks to Alex for being the host for the dinner

Tioman Jun/Sep 07

2007-09-28T23:06:00.000+08:00

Another short Tioman trip gone. Philip, Andy, Alex, Ah Pow and me, we 5 people drove up to Mersing last Sat morning. Philip being the driver had to wake up at 2+am (if not mistaken)... I got out of the house at 3:45am. And the light in my landlord's room was still on! Don't they have to sleep? Hmm... I wonder what they were doing...

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?

and.... TA-DA!!Blink Blink Car~
Plus me~

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!

Nudibranch larvae

2007-06-03T00:12:00.000+08:00

Hey everybody, ever wonder how nudibranch babies, or rather, larvae look like?

This is one nudibranch called Berghia.. I got these photos from a site where it's about regulating fish tank using nudibranch to eat some other creatures in the tank........ something like that. Too long to read it all...

Nudibranch got eyes??? ahahha.. I didn't know. I thought they only use the "antenna" to feel... but in this status, we can't really tell what it is, ehm, not that we can see it with naked eyes..

See the nudibranch babies eat anemone~ geez.. so darn cute, right?

Very cute hor? Just some info for you all to see ;) cheers.

Manado - Alex's photos

2007-06-02T23:16:00.000+08:00

Got Alex's photos, from last week's dinner at block 511 Bedok. Not many turned up for the dinner due to last minutes things happened.

Here are some photos from Alex, see all photos here : Alex's Manado photos

What a cute crab~ stretching out its pincers.

Seahorse. I actually didn't see any seahorse...

I love these shrimps~! They looked as if they're smiling~ really~ look at their mouths.

Alex, what is the subject in this photo? The plant? Is that hydroid?

George with the decoration.

Shirley, so cute... think Alex was testing the strobe..

Napolean silhoutte. Nice~

Ok, spot the fish in this photo. *Hint* find the eyes. Excellent camouflage.

This photo... I looked for quite a few times before I realised it's a crab. I kept looking at the thing on its body... hahahaha....

One of the best photos.

Er... did someone provoke this ray??? Quite a few photos with its tail rising up like this. Becareful guys... remember Steve Irwin.... :(

Sea snake.

Alex's photos are not in sequence.... so... this is actually the last night. So the underwater photos after these were on previous days.

You shoot me, I shoot you, everybody's shooting everybody, using camera of course.

Say cheese~~ Yook Sau, Winnie, Guy, me, Gabriel, ST, Andy, George, Philip and Doreen.

Alex being molested~!!! hahaha....

Gosh.. I smiled till like that... so ugly.

Who took this picture?? Not Alex. ST is it? I looked so funny.

The long-time-no-see Guy.

I have trouble figuring out which part is which part of this fish...

Tng tng tng tng...... Mimic octopus emerging.

Amazing creature.

Tiny seahorse.

Manado - April 07 (1)

2007-04-14T15:00:00.000+08:00

Wah, so fast our Manado trip is over.... When is our next dive trip? Tioman is good also. Wanna get wet~~!

Here's our trip highlight. These photos are from me Michelle and Gabriel. Will post others when I received their photos. (For reference, photos here are marked with our names. Please go photobucket to download those without names)

Gabriel's photos : http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/divocean/Manado_Mar07_Gab/
Michelle's photos : http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/divocean/Manado_Mar07_Mich/
(I don't know why my memory stops in MARCH... I kept thinking our trip was in Mar... thus the album name is Mar07... but too troublesome to change now. so i just leave it as it is)

On the way to Lumba-lumba Resort. It was Good Friday. There were red crosses everywhere. Manado is a very interesting place, a small place but lots of cars, and lots of good Japanese cars. AND, they have a church in almost every 500m~! Amazing, and those churches are very pretty. Can tell they spent a lot of their money in building churches.

By the way, Gabriel celebrated his birthday in the plane. I shot a short video using his video recorder, didn't have the photo in my camera... Will upload it when I have it. SilkAir gave him a cake, quite tasty.

Arrived at the resort, having welcome drink. It'll be better if the drink is freezing cold.

We go diving~ Look at the calm sea, almost mirror-like calm. Makes you feel so peaceful and calm looking at the sea. Here were Alex, George and Philip.
There's a crab hiding in the feather star, it kept running... This was the best shot I've got.

So cute... a fish which looks like it has put on lipstick. hehe...

We never figure out what fish is this.. It was quiet big. This was at very shallow, maybe 5m.

This cute little fellow has got very nice pink colour. I wanted to shoot its sideway picture but it kept facing me... All 3 or 4 photos I've got is like this.

Snorkellers watching us watching them.

Little crabby hiding in coral.

Gabriel's favourite shot. A hawkfish. It's got a cute expression and feels like it's playing hide and seek.

Hairy hairy crabby.

"Birdie" on the move.. I don't know what fish is this.

There're bubbles coming out of Winnie's hood and I thought it was very cute :p
Yook Sau~ "007"...

Nice nudibranch.

A scorpion-posture-like shrimp... so funny...

"Birdie" again. Very funny thing, always in pair, the one behind will follow the exact movement of the one in front. But difficult photo subject... cos their comouflage is so good.

Very pretty nudibranch~

A big mouth it's got there.

Our favourite shot of the trip. Lizardfish eating pipefish.
I saw the pipefish behaving very quietly near the bottom, I hesitated whether to call Gab to take some photos of it. In the end, I decided not to and just take the picture by myself cos a pipefish is nothing unusual. Just when I was about to descend further near to it, "zoop!" the pipefish was eaten by the lizardfish! Amazing! I then frantically rang my bell to alert Gab.

Think it got startled a bit and the lizardfish turn the other way. By now Gab and I were on either side of it. The pipefish turned white colour.

I don't think the lizardfish can swallow the pipefish whole... so it's got no choice now... can't finish its meal and perhaps it thinks it's safer to hide in the sand.

But it managed to only submerged itself, the pipefish was exposed. You can see the lizardfish's eyes.. sooooo... funny... Poor pipefish, there's nothing it can do. Then Gab made a movement, the lizardfish got scared and spilt out the pipefish!!! and ran away. The pipefish's tail was bend. It still can swim, I think it will survive... Poor lizardfish... Gabriel made it lost its meal. hahaha... But the lizardfish was too greedy to think that he can swallow the pipefish whole...

Cow fish. Look at its eye... from this angle, it has got a love shape~~

Sun tanning on top of the boat~ We love this boat. Very comfy and entry and exit out of water is very easy.

I've never really see the sun actually sinks down to the horizon. In Tioman, it's always blocked by clouds. And now finally...
Too bad don't have a tele-lens to capture it nearer.

Colourful nudibranchs.

This is so cute~~

Lionfish at the grass patch. We love the grass patch, a lot of things to see.

Gab tried to wait for the shrimp to go into the eel's mouth but it didn't. And notice the small baby eel beside. Soooooooo cuteeee.... There were a lot of creatures around these pipes alone. A lot!

A fatty.....

Sea urchin's eye.

This makes a nice abstract picture.

Manado - April 07 (2)

2007-04-14T13:04:00.000+08:00

Many of us took the photo of these creatures. Some kind of amphipod I think. They have bright orange colour, very cute.

One of my favourite photos of clownfish. It's got anemone and hard coral as the background instead of just anemone.

"Orang utan" crab again.

Funny looking crab... sooo.. cute....

This is... 一坨大便...

This coral looks like the "whomping willow" in Harry Potter. It's "arm" can catch things and pass it to its mouth in a very fast pace. Looks so weird.. like a plant that moves like an animal.

Snake eel. I wasn't sure whether it's a snake or an eel, thus I dare not go too near it...
Gab took this close up.

I love to see sun ray shines through the cloud... In Manado, the sun sets earlier than Singapore, thus when we came back from 3rd dive, it's already got evening sun. See how the sun ray shines directly on the surface of the ocean. Like there'll be an alien (Mr Bean?) being beamed down anytime. hahahaha....

The jetty at Lembeh STrait. 2 days before, some makcik came to our dive boat to sell us bracelets and t-shirts. We didn't have any money on us. They asked us to pay the next day, they'll come look for us. So the next day Gab brought the money plus a little bit extra in his dry bag. And he left the money there till the day we went Lembeh. And thank Goodness he brought out extra money and didn't take it out. We had to go toilet after a 2 hours' journey. And a visit to the toilet cost 2000 Rupiah.................... that's about S$0.35. Nobody had any money even the dive masters...................... Then I remembered Gab has got money in his dry bag... whew... thank goodness. We all expected the toilet must be super dirty. We were told that we cannot wear our slippers into the toilet, must go in bare foot. Lucky the toilet is really really clean. whew.... relieved... and because Gab's got the money, after a day's dive we came here again to have a very quick shower of fresh water. Wah, felt so good... as we still got a 2 hours car ride to endure...
I had the best lunch of all days there in Lembeh... we were served fishes. Everyday there're only 2 dishes, one meat and one extremely simple cooked vege. If you like it you're good, if you don't, then it's your business. I don't like their lunch. I didn't even have my lunch on the last day. Lucky I've got my chocolate.

Sunset at Lembeh Strait was very very nice~~~

Early morning, there was fog on the surface of the ocean. Made the mountain looked like it's floating.

The whole family of clownfish were looking at me.

Wonder this is the father or mother. It must be very very old.... Look at its face..

This little fellow was alone in the anemone. Soooooo... tiny.. soooooo.. cute.....

Lots and lots of moray babies in the grass patch. This one wasn't too shy. I used my pointer to shove the grass away in order to take this pic, and it didn't swim away. I like~

This lobster was hidden inside some coral....All I can see was his 2 feelers when I stuck my head in it. So I just anyhow pushed my camera in it and anyhow point and shoot. Who knows, this turn out to be a nice pic~ hahaha.. so happy... But because we weren't allowed to wear gloves, and I was trying to stable myself... I pushed my hands against the coral... and walau... got stung... Damn itchy until now... But it's worth it.

Gab and I chased this little fellow here and there... playing hide and seek... this is the ONLY photo I've got.

Weird looking fish~ so funny~

Guess what, I used Andy's polaroid sunglasses to take this photo. hehe.. The reef looks nicer this way.

Guy came with us to the trip instead of John SMallwood. What a surprise~ I didn't believe at all that he's going with us when he was at the airport with the rest. haha...

Doreen and Philip.

Me and Shirley.

Shirley and Andy. The resort used coconut to make the light.
Alex and George.

Our birthday cake. Gabriel, me, Alex and George celebrated our birthdays during a dive trip for the second time~~

I don't have the group photos in my camera. So, have to wait for other photos to come~

Tioman - Gab's photo

2007-03-31T22:22:00.000+08:00

Gab's photos uploaded in the same photobucket URL :
http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/divocean/Tioman_Mar07/

Here's one video of Sharon skin diving.

I just don't get tired of baraccuda's photos... Gab has taken closer shots than mine.

Look at all the little fishes in the background~~

The colour of this photo is pretty awesome. I love it. It'll be perfect if it's sharper (focus).

Nice posture of the nudibranch isn't it~

Ferrine skin diving.

Jiang Yi's turn.

Oh~~~ my favourite photos~~~ If only we have strobe, then this can be a magazine cover shot. hehehe... just kidding.. But really, I love the super big seafan. I was actually just behind the seafan about 2 feet the most, but it looks like I was coming from afar in this photo. My intention was to show the magnificent size of the seafan in relative to mine.

Sunset at Tioman.

Dylan, Christina, Tiffany, George and Sharon.

Gab took better shots of the dying jellyfish.

Sharon feeding fishes. This was at Monkey Bay.

That was my first time at Monkey Bay, so many reef fishes~~ very fun~~ they kept swimming towards us once we started feeding them with bread. I can touch them~ they were so close.

This is Tiffany? I can't really tell...

Christina enjoying snorkelling~

Sharon skin diving. I dare not skin dive. I admire anyone who can do skin dive. I love this photo~~~ I love the way the fish came into the picture. So cute~~

Tioman March 07-video

2007-03-17T22:12:00.000+08:00

A very short video of the barracudas.
Click

I still have Gabriel's photos and videos to upload. Will do so when I got it from him.

Tioman March 07

2007-03-17T19:51:00.000+08:00

Finally, after almost 7 months of waiting (I my own's last dive was in August 06), we dive again 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.......

(View all photos here. Remember to click on the "Full Size" option [top left] after it's loaded to see bigger photo)

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".

Sipadan - Alex's photos

2007-02-10T18:32:00.000+08:00

Wah, after almost one year then only got Alex's photos. haha.... but I've delayed posting for around a month, as the earthquake disrupted the internet. Singapore's line recovered quite fast. But my Malaysia line had been extremely slow for many weeks and wasn't able to log on to blogger. Now, finally.

I am posting only a few photos from Alex's. See here at photobucket :Alex's photos for all the photos.

The jacks~ Our first dive wasn't it? Can't really remember.

Shirley. Pity that the photo was over exposed.

And that's me~~ Look at the vortex of jacks.

Philip and Doreen.

Napolean~ Napolean~ I didn't see this one. I only saw a much smaller one and tried chasing after it. haha..

A few photos of dolphins~~

Unicorn fish. I didn't see this, again. Hmm.. I am no luck in seeing special creatures.

Neither did I see this jellyfish. Very very beautiful~~

Yellow colour eel. I don't know its name.

Sea snake.

Another eel. Very pretty, eh?

The flash wasn't accurate. Else ths would be a very good photo.

Everyone's favourite mandarin fish.

Tako~ Tako~~ Octopus~ Wah, even by looking at the photo, I missed spotting him/her out.... Let alone underwater.........

Andy assembling camera.

On the island.

The ang moh, he caught the snake? I didn't see.

Alex and leng lui.

Eating ice-cream in Kuching.

Which airport was this? Can't recall...

What is this?

2006-11-24T09:57:00.000+08:00

Any idea what is this??

From Sin Chew Jit Poh
海魚
updated:2006-11-10 13:37:27 MYT

（登嘉樓訊）登嘉樓的峇都布落海邊退潮後出現大批海魚，吸引附近居民到該海邊檢拾，其中一名小孩慕哈末阿米魯向攝影記者展示他檢拾到的一堆海魚。不過，當局促請居民勿食用這些海魚，直到有關海生物研究工作完成之後。（星洲日報‧2006/11/10）

Another shark catch...

2006-11-24T09:50:00.000+08:00

Another shark catch... I believe this is still a baby or juvenile whale shark.... So sad.... Why do they always swim into fishermen's net....
From Sin CHew Jit Poh
1噸重貓鯊
updated:2006-11-13 13:28:16 MYT

(吉隆坡訊）龍引吳亞良的拖网漁船週日（12日）早出海捕魚，不但大唱豐收，還意外捕獲一尾逾1噸重的貓鯊，引起轟動。

吳亞良（49歲）於週日清晨6 時許帶著2 名員工到馬六甲海峽公海去捕魚，上午9 時許，即意外捕獲該尾龐然大物之“貓鯊”。

吳亞良拖网漁船於中午12時返回龍引碼頭時，整個碼頭已經擠滿聞訊而來的村民，大家爭先恐後，都來爭睹該“貓鯊”之盧山真面目。

這尾“貓鯊”長20呎，估計有1 噸重，吳氏動用了十余人之力加上升吊器，竟無法將它拉上岸，最后唯有動用挖泥机，才成功將它拉上岸。

據吳亞良表示，他從事捕魚業已有30年，還是第一次看到這麼大的貓鯊。（星洲互動‧2006/11/13）

Reef ball?

2006-10-08T13:41:00.000+08:00

Saw these downstairs of my block. They were in the middle of some construction work. One day suddenly I saw these there.

They look exactly like the reef balls we see underwater don't they? I wonder what is it for? Can't be that they really are making reef balls.. cos they are in the middle of some construction work. But if they are not reef balls, if they are made for construction purpose, what is it for??

Perhaps it really is for construction purpose and the person who invented reef balls got the idea from here.

What a beautiful shark... died.. so sad..

2006-10-06T09:21:00.000+08:00

Oh my God, the fisherman have captured a thresher shark! The beautiful thresher shark... what a shame..................

Copied from Sin Chew Jit Poh newspaper:

怪鯊魚尾巴魚鰓特別長
updated:2006-10-03 19:56:31 MYT

（亞羅士打訊）吉打港口漁民出海時捕獲一條長約10尺，重30多公斤的鯊魚。漁民趙時新用驚奇地說，漁民一般只見過100公斤重的魚，尾巴長1尺至1尺半，但這條鯊魚只有30多公斤重，尾巴和魚鰓卻有4尺半和20多吋長。

這條罕見的鯊魚，是進江漁行東主蕭清獅的拖網漁船所捕獲的，並於週二早上10點多載返吉打港口。（光明日報‧2006/10/03）

Steve Irwin died..... :'(

2006-09-04T14:55:00.000+08:00

OH MY GOD...............!!!! Steve Irwin died........

He died in an accident while diving and shooting a film about stingray. Read here

This is sooooo sad... He's one of the naturalists I admired most... And he's still so young... Really unlucky that the barb went directly at his chest and reportedly into his heart. Else he wouldn't die.... sigh sigh sigh............... This is a sad day... I'll always remember Steve Irwin.

Kusu Dive 27/8/06

2006-09-02T23:29:00.000+08:00

We went Pulau Kusu for the second time, first for Alex as he was injured during our first time and couldn't dive then. It was raining cats and dogs on that morning. I was thinking, "shit... perhaps we'd just have to go out there and admire the rain..." But we were lucky. On the way there the rain became a drizzle. And then the sun started coming out. Everybody was so happy. And it was a bright sunny day after that

These are photos from Andy. To view all photos click here.

On the boat, boatman Ah Chua is going to sell his boat... in future, it'll be even harder to organize local dive..
Long-time-no-see Ivan, the Orca guy.

Feather star.

There are lots and lots of sea fans at Kusu. Very big ones, as I mentioned before during our last Kusu dive, over half a year ago. (to see photos of our first Kusu dive, go www.geocities.com/divoceandiversclub and click Gallery) This time not only we saw lots of big sea fans, but also a big patch of anemones. Since the viz was only 1-2m, you have to swim near to be able to see it, so it's like, you don't realize how many anemones are there until you swim closer. Else you'll just thought those were rocks. We saw many big sea fans and anemones at about 16m of depth.

This is my personal favourite photo from Andy's.

This should be sea slug right?

I think this was the one that Winnie mentioned it was very big and fat.

This is, flatworm? very nice.

What fish is this??? I didn't see this. Quite cute. It looks like it's "standing" on its pectoral fins, like frogfish does.

Very rich red feather star~

It looks like there's another anemone growing in it.

Tioman 22nd July

2006-09-02T22:35:00.000+08:00

(this post, basically, I copied from my own blog. hehehehe.. paiseh... no time to re-write. :p )

Finally posting about out Tioman trip, it was already July.. only 3, 4more months left before diving season ends in East Coast Msia. Tioman's corals are very healthy, so happy to see that. BUT, the fishes are getting lesser and lesser, like a forest without animals, very lonely, desserted feeling. HOwever it's always nice to go for a short diving trip at Tioman.

This is a flatworm.

Shirley and me.

A nudibranch's egg~ So pretty.

Anemone and clownfish.

Labas island, my favourite dive site at Tioman.

The many swimthroughs at Labas. Very special site.

Tioman's sunset is always like this. The sun is always hidden behind thick clouds.

Very very fat nudibranch.

Lots of hermit crabs.

Cut a hole in my glove so that I can handle my camera easier. Thanks to ST's ingenious idea. She told me to only cut a slit on the glove, so it becomes like a "hood" on my finger. When I don't need to handle camera, I can always pull it back and cover my finger~!
(I still remember because of the glove, I couldn't press the shutter when I wanted to, causing Hazel almost running out of air as she took out her regulator for me to take a photo. hehe..)

Purple nudibranch~ so pretty. Gab took this photo while I was looking around. Actually I don't have much interest in nudibranch, pretty as they are, I prefer to play with things like porcupine, batfish, etc. hahahaa...

This is, if not mistaken, juvenile sweetlip, theso called "agogo-fish" because it swims like it's doing agogo dance.

Alex playing as victim in rescue course. The two rescue divers-to-be spent a longgg time dragging Alex up the boat.. very funny...

Sipadan - Brenda & Jacky's photos

2006-05-06T22:07:00.000+08:00

Finally got photo’s from Brenda. Oh... oops... I mistakenly edited these photos to be uploaded to blogger into very small size........ Only realised that wasn't what I did in previous post AFTER I've uploaded them all... So, please visit the link here to view full size photos.

Jacky's photos were uploaded previously, click here.

Here are some photos from Brenda. I do not know what is this creature... never seen before leh...

A cute baby octopus~!! So lucky of Brenda to see this~

This should be flat worm?

Beautiful "Spanish Dancer"(I hope I am not wrong, it is spanish dancer right? haha..), I've yet to see this with my own eyes...

Stargazer~~ How come it came out of its sand?

The angmoh videographer who almost lost a fin. hahaha...

I forgot to climb up here!!! Such a nice view...

Brenda and Jacky.
Dining area with nice turquoise sea as the background.
My poor Hazel knocked her head... She's got a huuuuge 包 on her head that night... Alex rubbing her head so that it won't get blue black which will look really funny on her forehead... And luckily she didn't get blue black.

Sipadan - video clips

2006-04-02T12:18:00.000+08:00

Click on these videos and enjoy~! It should not take long for the buffering. If it doesn't play when you see this : Playlist: Playlist1, try click on the er... rewind bar? or control bar, there should be no problem.
Turtle & batfish - from Gab (43 seconds)

Nudibranch flapping - from Gab (54 seconds) - very cute~~

Shark - from Gab (51 seconds)

I've got ST and Doreen's video of SWV room but I don't know how to convert .3gp files to .mpg or .mov...

From Michelle : Squid baby (9 seconds). Click here if you can't see it below.

Free video hosting, video codes at www.vidiLife.com

Message Board

2006-03-31T11:36:00.000+08:00

This will be the place for member to put whatever you want to say or ask. But this is NOT an automated forum... so when you want to post a message, please click the "Comment" on the bottom right of this post (Preferably please choose "Others" and put your name instead of Anonymous).

Then I will post the message in this post itself for easy viewing. But please bear in mind this does not work like a forum. So everything will be continuous in the "Comment", I will then copy the message(s) and put it here (under different subject) in this post itself. Please don't be confused.

(p.s.Until I update new message(s) in this post itself, you can also read all messages by clicking Comment)

Sub : Southern Island fishing trip?

Gab : Halo, how abt a fishing trip to the southen Island? any one interested pls let us know. 31/3/06 12:02
Gabriel : ok, count me in. 31/3/06 12:18
Dory : June is reserve for Pulau Ubin durian makaning.....Jacky and Yook Sau....31/3/06 12:25
Gab : We can hire Ah Chua's boat and every body jt share the boat fee. but you hv to prepare ur own fishing eqmt. 31/3/06 12:27
Dory : It would be good to organize at least 1 event per month. Keeps the club activity going and we all can have time to catch up. Be it scuba diving, mountain climbing, fishing, makaning, nature walk, project aware clean up, photography, etc. etc. Lets all put our effort into this. Does not have to be one specific person organising. Good to have at least every member has a chance to organise the event. 31/3/06 12:28
Michelle : Fishing trip is day time only or what? 31/3/06 13:15
Gab : yes, its day trip. same timing as we went divg. 31/3/06 13:40
Dory : on ah......for fishing. wah, long time did not go fishing... 31/3/06 15:53
Dory : aha...after a while...I wonder what our fun kakis are up to nowadays???? the busy ones get busier each day....sigh! anyway, Jacky thanks for organising the Bukit Timah walk and sad to say even I cannot make it last minute. Perhaps another time. 10/5/06 16:21
Dory : hello fun kakis! still remember our fishing trip???? how about Sunday 28 May? Any one of you interested leh? 10/5/06 16:26
Dory : aha......guess none is interested or never visit our blog. hiza...so very sad. 16/5/06 11:48
Lilo : yeah.. hehe.. the truth is... hardly anybody visits this blog as i can track how many visitors... sad indeed...16/5/06 11:58

More of Sipadan trip

2006-03-28T16:53:00.000+08:00

SS took some photos of SWV's room and dive center.

This is the bathroom. They put orchids in our room including bathroom on ehm, don't know the 3rd day or 4th. This is the best bathroom I've had during a dive trip~ It's got everything we need. I don't know if Manado's resort is better as I haven't been there.

The best sundeck~! We can sleep with the wooden doors open like this. Which is really really enjoyable.
Hazel carried us all one by one~!!

Sweet~~girls~~! SS and ST. I think they look alike.

Dive center. Full tanks and empty tanks were put separately but without other indication that whether this is a full or empty tank. I personally prefer the practise of which full tanks' o-ring are covered by a sticker. This will avoid confusion AND accident.

One more thing should mention about the dive operator's practise... The inexperience divemaster always ask the boatman to follow the other boat. When two boats were close to each other, the divemasters on each boat jump into the sea to "check current".. And when both of them came up, each of them was pointing at 2 opposite direction of current..................... Then the 2 divemasters communicate with each other by hand signals. In the end, I still had no idea where the current was heading. I don't think the divemaster was clear either.hehe... So, we're on our own......
Alex... where is your photos.. Alex~~~

Gabriel assisting Doreen for her sunset dive.

And Philip.

Sipadan Mar '06 (Summary)

2006-03-26T19:34:00.000+08:00

Sipadan Water Village's staffs were superb, very friendly and good service. From the moment we reach its jetty till they sent us off at the airport.

The room was huge... very clean and comfy. Why didn't we take some photos of the room???

Anyway, the resort itself was superb. But the dive centre... hmm... lousy. The dive sites were lousy, that's out of dive centre's control of course, but the dive guides were lousy as well. Caused us to fin for long distances unneccessarily due to their lack of experience and knowledge. Boatman and divemasters weren't helpful. Very very lousy service. We are not those pampered divers who need to be treated like princess but their service, basic attention to customers were really really bad.

Most divemasters were fairly new, very very inexperience. They requested us to follow their many ridiculous rules but they themselves did not seem to stick to basic dive procedures. If we were all new open water divers, it could be very dangerous to follow these young inexperience divemasters. For eg, they did head-counts, when the number didn't match, they just abandon the head-count instead of looking or waiting for the rest of the divers who were not in sight. So what's the point of head-counts?

But then, can't really blame them... Some of those divemasters are university students. Went there to look for a temporary job. That's why they are very inexperience. They weren't even divers when they came for a job. Unlike Tioman or Manado dive centres there are permanent divemasters or those who have worked there for many years. But what I don't understand is why aren't there experienced divemasters around?

All in all, it's a disappointing trip. Not only the dive centre didn't provide acceptable-level service, the dive sites were disappointing. Sipadan is so famous. So called world class diving. But the amount of corals... were devastating to look at. What on earth happened to the corals?? Sipadan has been famous for so many years, never would we had imagine seeing such a devastating state of coral life... But there are many people out there think Sipadan is worth to go still. I don't understand...

Many dives I was so bored that I played around by swimming in different styles... If not for the pelagics (sharks, turtles, dolphins, whale shark, etc..) that visit Sipadan, it would be... ... ... I don't even want to think about it...

This is a post from my own point of view. Guys, please leave some comments to add your thoughts or if you disagree with anything above, anything at all, just leave some comments ne~
Michelle

Sipadan Mar '06 (1)

2006-03-26T17:57:00.000+08:00

Our trip summary to Sipadan (1 day Kuching) from 28/2 - 7/3/06. Please feel free to leave comments~

Photos here are marked with the photographer's name and camera used in the corner of the photos. These are only selected photos, please go to the links below to view all (and bigger) photos.
Andy's photos
Gabriel's photos
Winnie's photos
Michelle's photos
and er... I am still waiting for Alex's photos....
(28th Mar update : SS's photos)
Shirley S's photos
(4th Apr update : Jacky's photos)
Jacky's photos

Here we were waiting for the time to pass........ took 3 flights in a day, what we've done that whole day was wait..wait...and wait....

This is Kota Kinabalu Airport, an airport by the sea.

We arrived at Semporna, Sipadan Water Village's office, waiting for them to load up our gears and luggage to the speedboat. Gabriel dozing off.

I forgot to use force flash... SWV speedboat's driver was very courteous, kept turning back and gesture the ok sign to us, asking us if everything is ok. He saw me struggling to keep my balance to take a photo, he actually slowed down and let me take the photo. Then I realised I haven't turn on the flash.. but "paiseh" to ask him to slow the speedboat again. So, this'll do. haha..

Here's Sipadan Water Village~! Each of these is a room. Too bad I didn't the photos of the super big and cozy room.. What a pity......... I miss the resort, and room, resort's service. I think we all agree the resort's service was very good, but not the dive shop. And the staffs lined up to welcome us.. I felt like the scene in "The Fifth Element" where Lilu (Mira Jovovich) and Coben (Bruce Willis) arrived at Flostent(don't know how the heck to spell it) Paradise and were welcomed by garlands of flowers. Even though they didn't actually welcome us by flowers but everyone of them was saying "Welcome~ Welcome~".

Oh by the way, Gabriel and then Winnie as well, called me Lilo because of this. Lilo and Lilu.. about the same ya? hahaha...quite appropriate feeling then. hehe...

We were led to the lobby and was given cold face towel. COOL~! Really "cool". And also a very nice honeydew juice as welcome drinks. After the very lengthy orientation about the resort and its service, we hurriedly went to our rooms and got our gears out and ready for our first dive~!

But we did our check out dive ONLY after another VERY LENGTHY "orientation" about the dive shop and RULES AND REGULATIONS... blahblahblah blahblahblahblah...... Maybe not all of us feel the same but I personally felt that I had arrived at a diving boarding school... So many things to remember..

Anyway, Sipadan/Kapalai/Mabul were full of friendly turtles~ They weren't bothered by divers AT ALL. Perfect models for our cameras.

How can there not be nudibranches?

The ever lovely frogfish. We went so close to it and it still remained there. I wondered whether it was thinking that we can't see him, or her. LOL...

An underwater Colgate commercial by Hazel~ She almost ran out of breath for I couldn't press the shutter through my glove thus I took a looongg time before finally took the shot ... hahaha...

Sharks. Quite a few of them. Some had a glimpse of hammerhead sharks.

Dolphins~~!! Hundreds of them~!! but it was very difficult to take photos through underwater housing. Can't see the LCD screen at all so they just anyhow snapping the camera. This is one lucky shot. Alex took nice photos of a mother and calf but he hasn't give me the photos~ There were many pairs of mother and calves. It was a fantastic encounter~

Pickachu nudibranch~

SWV divemasters diving into the sea with some German women who, one of them was sun burnt like a roasted pig... We couldn't help "marvelling" on her "roasted" back...

And our very own Hazel.
Another roasted... nolah, not roasted yet... hahaha... Shirley T's burnt hands... very funny...

Sipadan Mar '06 (2)

2006-03-26T17:29:00.000+08:00

Shirley S with, er.. are those sea grass or coral? (28th Mar update : Gabriel said these were hydroid~! SS, were you aware of it that you're so close to these stinging fellow? I didn't know at all... lucky didn't touch them...)

Hazel, Winnie(if not mistaken) and Shirley T with friendly turles.

Octopus.. cute~

Philip (if not mistaken) with the octopus. Can you see the octopus?

Let's play... "Locate the animals":

Cute little shrimp. (29th Mar update: This is anemone shrimp)
Eagle ray. (28th Mar update: Andy said this is not eagle ray, anybody which species is this?)

Ever so colourful ribbon eel.

These looked like stalactite, very beautiful.

Sun rise. Another day of diving began~

Played with tiny hermit crabs during surface interval. These hermit crabs, small as they were, they have strong grabs... One of it(not the biggest in this photo) "took" a tiny tiny piece of Andy's skin...

"海带海带海带..."

Clockwise from top left Philip, Yok Sau, Brenda, Jacky, Andy, Hazel, ST, Winnie, SS, Me, Gabriel and Alex.

Sharks. Look at the background... devastating.. all dead corals.

Crocodile fish'es eye. At one point I was very close to it. I wondered did it ever bite anyone...

Evening came. Night dives at SWV only cost RM35. We were ecstatic that it cost that little but after our check out dive at the house reef... we understand why it cost so little...
This juvenile was very camera shy... kept turning away from me when my camera is focus...

What shrimp is this? (28th Mar update : This is cleaner shrimp. Ohhh.. this is the one that one female diver in a documentary opened her mouth and let this type of shrimp clean her mouth.. hehe...)

I've never seen sea hare till this trip. They are very big~!

I forgot is this called dragon seahorse? (28th Mar Update : This is harlequin ghost pipefish, not seahorse. hehe...) (29th Mar Update : ghost pipefish is also under seahorse family)

Hermit crab's close up model shot.

Is this a squid?? So cute~~~~

The mandarin fish which fell in love with human (Andy) instead of the male of its own species. So Andy and Alex didn't manage to see them mate. (28th Mar Update : The mandarin fish who was lying on Andy's arm was a male, not female... it was a "gay night"...)

Sipadan Mar '06 (3)

2006-03-26T17:12:00.000+08:00

Beautiful sea of Sipadan. Oh, it should be Mabul. I kept forgetting that this is Mabul.

Another white tip shark.

Bobtail squid!!! Oh my God, I didn't see this... Damn adorable...!!!!!!!

Is this a white mantis shrimp?

Leaf fish is quite cute also.

What eel is this? (29th Mar update : This is a male ribbon eel. Female is blue with bright yellow. Old female becomes uniformly yellow. Ribbon eel reaches sexual maturity as male and then change their sex to become female along with changes to their colour...) (complicated life...haha..)

Another nudibranch.

Beautiful Shirley T. Nicer shots was in Alex's camera. It's too dark in this photo.

Gabriel in his yellow trunk... hehe....

Shirley T, Hazel, me and Shirley S.

Scorpion fish.

A pink leaf fish~! So beautiful~

Very beautiful lionfish. (28th Mar update : This is a juvenile.... now I know...)

Is this a top shell?

The dive centre.

Sipadan Mar '06 (4)

2006-03-26T17:00:00.000+08:00

Gabriel took this adorable photo. Cute little doggy followed its owner fishing.

We were surprised to see that such a small area is being populated by sooo... many people on Mabul island. It seemed to me the number of children exceeds that of the adults.
They liked visitors a lot. Everywhere we went, "Halo~! Halo~!". And loved to be the subject of our cameras.
Such a primitive but beautiful hut. I can't help thinking that this is the rich one here...

Hazel with a very plump baby, which is so rare in the village...

This is a "National Geographic" look... This boy was the only one who didn't get all excited when we were taking photos of him. And he never smiled. I wondered his pet was a bird or a chicken... a bit bald.. He was very protective over his pet, wouldn't let other kids come near it.

Sunset~

There was a boy sitting in the hammock. When Gabriel tried to take a nicer shot, other kids were hurrying to come into the picture...

We're heading to Mabul Water Bungalow. Very cozy and luxurious resort.. Each room has got Astro. Shirley S and I both turned around at the same time, with the same expression... what a coincidence.. haha..

Group photos.
Clockwise from top left : Yok Sau, Brenda, ST, Andy, Winnie, Doreen, Philip, Suki, Hazel, SS, Alex, me, Gabriel, Jacky.

So then we went Kuching after Sipadan.

One of the many temples in Kuching.

This was the last day of our trip. Hope we will be going diving again very soon~!

Scuba FAQ

2006-03-18T22:02:00.000+08:00

What is SCUBA?
Is scuba diving dangerous?
What is PADI?
Do I need to pass a medical statement?
Do I have to be a great swimmer to be certified as a PADI Open Water Diver?
How old do you have to be to get certified?
For how long will I be certified?
Why do I have to get certified to dive?
How deep may I go?
Is it hard to learn to scuba dive?
Does it only take three days!?
What's in a scuba tank? Oxygen?
How long does a tank of air last?
My ears hurt when I dive to the bottom of a pool. Won't they hurt when I scuba dive?
Will the fish bother me?
I’m afraid of sharks - don’t they attack scuba divers?
I wear contact lenses or glasses - can I dive with them?

What is SCUBA?
SCUBA stands for Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus.
Top

Is scuba diving dangerous?
Not really. Statistics show that recreational scuba diving is about as safe as swimming. Certainly there are potential hazards -- which is why you need training and certification -- but like driving a car, as long as you follow the rules and use common sense, it's pretty safe.
Top

What is PADI?
PADI - the Professional Association of Diving Instructors - is the largest dive training organization in the world with affiliated dive centers and members in more than 100 countries. BSAC, SSI, NAUI are some other dive training organizations.
Top

Do I need to pass a medical statement?
Before you can enroll in your course, you must sign a medical statement that says you are fit to dive. If you had any pre-existing conditions, they must be signed off by a doctor.
Top

Do I have to be a great swimmer to be certified as a PADI Open Water Diver?
No. All you need to be is a reasonably proficient swimmer who is comfortable and relaxed in the water. The swimming requirement for certification is an easy 183 meter/200 yard nonstop swim (with no time or specific stroke requirement) and 10 minute tread/float.
Top

How old do you have to be to get certified?
PADI requires you to be at least 10 years old to become a PADI certified Junior Open Water Scuba Diver. A Junior Open Water Scuba Diver must dive with an Open Water Scuba Diver until the junior turns 15.
Top

For how long will I be certified?
Your PADI SCUBA certification does not expire. It is highly recommended that you keep in practice. You should dive more than once a year. You may take a SCUBA Tune Up from any PADI instructor. PADI offers continuing education classes which are very informative. Continuing with your SCUBA education is an excellent way to keep in practice and learn more safe diving skills.
Top

Why do I have to get certified to dive?
In the scuba class, you will learn how to dive safely and correctly. Your PADI SCUBA certification card is proof that you have taken and passed the SCUBA course. No reputable Dive Center will rent you gear, fill your tank, or let you dive at their facilities unless you are a certified SCUBA diver.
Top

How deep may I go?
PADI is a recreational SCUBA organization. The maximum depth for a recreational SCUBA diver is 130 feet. I do not recommend you ever dive the maximum depth. You should not dive deeper than 60 feet without proper training. In the PADI Advanced Open Water course, divers are shown the correct and safe way to make a deep dive.
Top

Is it hard to learn to scuba dive?
No, in fact, it's probably easier than you imagine -- especially if you're already comfortable in the water. PADI's entry-level diver course is split into knowledge development, confined water (pool) skill training and four scuba training dives. The course is "performance based," which means that you progress as you learn and demonstrate knowledge and skill.
Top

Does it only take three days!?
PADI courses are "performance based," which means that you earn your certification when you demonstrate that you have mastered the required skills and knowledge. Some people learn faster than others, so how long it takes you may vary. The PADI Open Water Diver course (beginning course) is typically split into five or six sessions with tremendous flexibility. The course may be scheduled over as little as three or four days, or as much as five or six weeks, or something in between, depending upon student needs and logistics. As a rule of thumb, most students complete their initial certification in about twenty-five hours.
Top

What's in a scuba tank? Oxygen?
Recreational divers breathe air, not oxygen. It's filtered to remove impurities, but otherwise, it's air like you're breathing now.
Top

How long does a tank of air last?
This is a common question that, unfortunately, doesn't have a single answer. People breathe at different rates, and you breathe faster when you're swimming than when you're resting. Also, the deeper you go, the more you use your air, and, you can get different size tanks. So, the answer is "it depends;" this is why divers have a gauge that tell them how much air they have at all times. As an approximation, though, a diver sightseeing in calm, warm water in the 5 meter/15 foot to 10 meter/30 foot range can expect the average tank to last about an hour.
Top

My ears hurt when I dive to the bottom of a pool. Won't they hurt when I scuba dive?
Your ears hurt because water pressure pushes in on your ear drum. In your scuba course, you'll learn a simple technique to equalize your ears to the surrounding pressure, much like you do when you land in an airplane, and they won't hurt at all.
Top

Will the fish bother me?
Most fish will ignore you. It is very exciting to see fish. The larger the better. The prettiest and most abundant fish are in the ocean. The best place to see fish is near shipwrecks and reefs. Some fish will let you get close to them but will stay out of your reach. Some fish are curious and will follow you around. I have been diving for a long time and have seen many sharks, eels and barracudas. The sharks and eels are very shy and are difficult to see. Barracudas are curious and might follow you around making it easy to photograph them.
Top

I’m afraid of sharks - don’t they attack scuba divers?
In general, attacks by marine animals on divers are extremely rare. Some creatures will react defensively if you disturb them (keep your fingers out of that eel's den!), or they may be interested in any fish you have just speared. Few species of sharks are considered dangerous and even those are highly unlikely to mistake scuba divers for their usual prey of seals, sea lions, and large fish. Our most experienced instructor has logged over 800 dives in the supposedly dangerous Pacific Ocean off California, with no injuries and only one shark sighted. A diver is more "at risk" driving to a dive site than on the actual dive.
Top

I wear contact lenses or glasses - can I dive with them?
Diving is a visual sport - if you need more than the mildest vision correction above water, you’ll want it underwater. If you wear contacts, you can dive with them with minimal risk of loss. If your contacts are very expensive, try wearing disposable soft contact lenses just for diving; even if one were lost the cost would be low. If you don't wish to wear contacts, you can order corrective lenses for your dive mask for about $30-60 per lens (a dual lens mask is required). As far as vision correction surgery (RK or Lasik correction), the jury is still out, but DAN research indicates there is minimal risk of eye injuries while diving, so long as you properly equalize your mask.
Top

Fun Kaki's

2006-03-17T20:56:00.002+08:00

001 Winnie Law

Certification : PADI IDC Staff Instructor (retiring), TDI Deco Diver

Logged Dives : 1000+

002 Gabriel Ong

Certification : PADI MSDT (Master Scuba Diver Trainer) (retired), TDI Deco Diver

Logged Dives : 500+

003 Andy Goh

Certification : PADI Divemaster, EFR Instructor(Retired), Master Scuba Diver

Logged Dives : 400+

004 Ivan Lim

Certification : PADI Divemaster, Dan Oxygen, Nitrox

Logged Dives : 100+

005 Alex Lee

Certification : PADI Divemaster, Nitrox

Logged Dives : 200+

006 Philip Chua

Certification : PADI Divemaster, Nitrox

Logged Dives : 100+

007 Shirley Tan

Certification : PADI Rescue Diver

Logged Dives : 100+

008 Michelle Ng aka Lilo - Blog Administrator

Certification : PADI Advance Open Water Diver, Nitrox

Logged Dives : 100+

009 Hazel Lim

Certification : PADI Divemaster, Dan Oxygen, Nitrox

Logged Dives : 200+

010 Jing Chiang

Certification : PADI Rescue Diver, DAN Oxygen

Logged Dives : 50+

011 Jean Liang

Certification : PADI OWSI Instructor, DAN Oxygen

Logged Dives : 400+

012 Isabel Lim

Certification : Bubble Maker In The Q

014 Doreen

Certification : PADI Advanced Open Water Diver

Logged Dives : ?

015 Megan Chua

Certification : Bubble Maker In The Q

016 Brenda

Certification : PADI Advanced Open Water Diver

Logged Dives : ?

017 Jacky

Certification : PADI Open Water Diver

Logged Dives : ?

018 Yook Sau

Certification : PADI Advanced Open Water Diver

Logged Dives : ?

019 George Lim

Certification : PADI Divemaster, DAN Oxygen, Nitrox,

EFR Instructor (retired), Master Scuba Diver

Logged Dives : 300+

020 Tiffany Soh - Fun kaki

Certification : PADI Advanced Open Water Diver

Logged Dives : 40+

021 Freddie Heng - Fun kaki

Certification : PADI Advanced Open Water Diver

Logged Dives : 40+

022 Laura Heng - Fun kaki

Certification : PADI Advanced Open Water Diver

Logged Dives : 40+