[Play] Leetel Feeshes
Some weeks back I completed my SCUBA Open Water in Pulau Aur, which is roughly 65 km off the coast of Malaysia. It is a jungle-strewn pair of islands, shaped like an empty pair of brackets, with nothing but some dive huts and some fishermen. No electricity, no phone reception, nothing. You, the South China Sea, some fish and some coral
As I had completed the confined water sessions two (rather than the one) week prior, I knew no-one. Absolutely fine, bar not knowing how they would behave under water. I soon started chatting to randoms without shame, as is my want, and the four hour bus from Singapore to Mersing flew by. Collapsed into bed, with a six o'clock start in the speedboat-ferry out to Aur
Despite hitting a serious chunk of flotsam on the way we made it to Aur intact (though one of the outboards was complaining heavily) and were on the dive boat preparing for our first dive when a turtle surfaced a few feet away to play on the surface! Beedy-eyed but beautiful :)
Our first dive was mainly to acclimatise us with being in open water. We descended on a line, hung about the bottom for a while, oohed and aahed at fish, and came back up. Except it was far more exciting - being buffeted about by the deep swells, struggling with the pressure differential at 12m (our pool sessions being to 2m at best) and ensuring we were aware of our surroundings in an extra dimension! It's strange how anchored our perceptions are by something like gravity - for example, up needing to be up not left. Our instructor, Luc, was excellent; he made sure we understand the whys as wells as the whats
Our second dive was a chance to practise some of our skills, like replacing our air or mask underwater. We were becomming more comfortable underwater, enough that I can tell you we saw a stone fish, some clown trigger fish, some green trigger fish, a clown fish and some other pretty things. One of the group with me saw a ray, but without my glasses I missed it; I spent an inordinate amount of time simply staring at the coral however!
Our third dive was practising navigation, finning and the like near an area of broken coral. We spotted more stone fish, a box fish, lots of clown fishes and random other beasties - enough that if I'm going to do much more I should get a fish spotter's guide. After this it was back to the huts for a couple of beers, some revision and debriefs; kind of suprising how knackering poncing about in the water is!
Next morning was more skills, including surface skills such as replacing your entire kit bar the wetsuit. Cue people falling off their tank, spluttering and drifting more than I thought we would. At 18m our fourth dive was at the extent of our permitted depth and we were lucky enough to see a shoal of about a dozen giant bump-nosed parrot fish - each perhaps 1-2m in length!
Our final dive, as qualified divers, we set the depth and the route within the contraints of the site we were taken too. It was a lengthy dive along a coral bank in the main channel, surrounded by shoals of sergeant major fish and parrot fish, the former nibbling at you were they got confused. We also spotted a gray puffer fish and some more trigger fish before surfacing and heading for home
It was a long speedboat-coach-taxi journey home, especially with the farce of the Tuas border crossing into Singapore. But we were grinning all the way :)
As I had completed the confined water sessions two (rather than the one) week prior, I knew no-one. Absolutely fine, bar not knowing how they would behave under water. I soon started chatting to randoms without shame, as is my want, and the four hour bus from Singapore to Mersing flew by. Collapsed into bed, with a six o'clock start in the speedboat-ferry out to Aur
Despite hitting a serious chunk of flotsam on the way we made it to Aur intact (though one of the outboards was complaining heavily) and were on the dive boat preparing for our first dive when a turtle surfaced a few feet away to play on the surface! Beedy-eyed but beautiful :)
Our first dive was mainly to acclimatise us with being in open water. We descended on a line, hung about the bottom for a while, oohed and aahed at fish, and came back up. Except it was far more exciting - being buffeted about by the deep swells, struggling with the pressure differential at 12m (our pool sessions being to 2m at best) and ensuring we were aware of our surroundings in an extra dimension! It's strange how anchored our perceptions are by something like gravity - for example, up needing to be up not left. Our instructor, Luc, was excellent; he made sure we understand the whys as wells as the whats
Our second dive was a chance to practise some of our skills, like replacing our air or mask underwater. We were becomming more comfortable underwater, enough that I can tell you we saw a stone fish, some clown trigger fish, some green trigger fish, a clown fish and some other pretty things. One of the group with me saw a ray, but without my glasses I missed it; I spent an inordinate amount of time simply staring at the coral however!
Our third dive was practising navigation, finning and the like near an area of broken coral. We spotted more stone fish, a box fish, lots of clown fishes and random other beasties - enough that if I'm going to do much more I should get a fish spotter's guide. After this it was back to the huts for a couple of beers, some revision and debriefs; kind of suprising how knackering poncing about in the water is!
Next morning was more skills, including surface skills such as replacing your entire kit bar the wetsuit. Cue people falling off their tank, spluttering and drifting more than I thought we would. At 18m our fourth dive was at the extent of our permitted depth and we were lucky enough to see a shoal of about a dozen giant bump-nosed parrot fish - each perhaps 1-2m in length!
Our final dive, as qualified divers, we set the depth and the route within the contraints of the site we were taken too. It was a lengthy dive along a coral bank in the main channel, surrounded by shoals of sergeant major fish and parrot fish, the former nibbling at you were they got confused. We also spotted a gray puffer fish and some more trigger fish before surfacing and heading for home
It was a long speedboat-coach-taxi journey home, especially with the farce of the Tuas border crossing into Singapore. But we were grinning all the way :)