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The weather on the island was great. Although a bit dry and warm the breeze helps to cool you down just nice. For the past few days I have been gazing at the open sea of Layang-Layang hoping to catch a glimpse of dolphin’s pod. Even though still none for the moment I am sure the time will come when we get to enjoy their playfulness chasing the wave and race the boat.
Today however we were finally given the green light by Jasper to do one dive to check out on one of the best dive site on the resort, the infamous Gorgonian Forest. After an hour of last minute check on our my dive gears which seem very happy to give me some troubles such as regulator free flowing and the BCD inflator that never seem to work, we were finally ready to take our first plunge into the site.
With Averil as the leading Dive Master and me and Nelly as the member of the team we planned a short 30 minutes dive. The boat trip was a bit choppy from the channel to the site.
Approximately around 10:15am all of us were already underwater. The Water temperature was just nice at 27 centigrade. Current however was fast and steady. We chose to enter the water a bit further behind to have more accuracy on the entry point. The first 5 minutes we were swimming towards the blue water with anticipation of bumping into something great. Surgeon fish lining up with the blue background along with school of fusiliers indicating presence of currents. Just after about a minute later at 27 meters, we finally spotted a scalloped hammerhead shark gliding gracefully amidst the fishes and seemed curious at the sight of three of us. It stayed around for a minute before decided we were not that interesting(that hurts). Luckily, it made another circle before heading towards the reef leaving us drifting to the other direction. It was amazing. To make it better, one gray reef shark approached from behind to have closer look at us.
10 minutes later, after heading back to the beautiful reef slope we were greeted by a school of bigeye trevally underneath us along with few white tip reef sharks lazying on the the reef. As if those were not enough we spotted 2 eagle rays gracefully glide over us followed by a devil ray.
Once we were approaching the Point however, we were facing a bit of a down current which had sent us out again before pushing us back to the slope. Again, it brought us to another smaller school of bigeye trevally just over the top of the slope.
All the excitement have made us realized of how much you don’t realize the time as by then, it was already time to end the dive. It felt short.
I am still anticipating for bigger surprise as for tomorrow, we will dive into one of my favorite site, Wrasse Strip the site full of surprises and beauty. Come back again for more update on Layang-Layang action and surprises.
It felt like I have not done any writing for months now due to the limited time online thanks to all the festive weeks of February. My Chinese New Year celebration went really well and the family dinner just happened to be on the same date as my birthday. So I could actually take it as my 30th birthday gift. The days after happened to be chain of partying events and getting pissed in much civilized way if you know what I mean.
Anyway, after all the parties and the freelancing in Kota Kinabalu, it was finally time to go back to Layang-Layang Island Resort for another 6 months. The only downside to this was the waking up at super early in the morning! Not joking, we had to be at the airport before 5 in the morning. The best thing was I live 1 hour and 30 minutes away from the city so early morning means 4 in the morning for me.
Honestly, it is all worthwhile if you are heading to this island of paradise for avid scuba divers and underwater lovers. Arriving on the island at around 8 in the morning, I was greeted with the fresh breeze I have not been breathing into my lungs. It felt great. It could be even better if you are only here to enjoy your dive holiday.
The first few days were all about preparations. All of the stuff I had mentioned in my previous posts were completed. It was fun to be a part of the incoming action and excitement next month.
Today however was what I really had in mind since I stepped on the runway 4 days ago. We were finally ready to do our dive in Layang-Layang water. It was not exactly the kind of dive you expected to be, it was actually more of a search and recovery dive. The mission was to locate all 10 mooring buoys for the dive boats to anchor on. The water temperature was just around 27 centigrade and just nice for me. The visibility however was slightly less than 10 meters since it was inside of the shallow lagoon. I am very sure the visibility can be better as much as triple of I had in the lagoon. The dive started around 2:30pm with maximum depth of 12 meters and ended successfully at 3:45pm.
If we are not to busy tomorrow, we might be able to do 3 dives around the dive sites to do some checking on the reef condition and might even bump into mantas and sharks which is going to be really cool. Stop by my blog site again if you are curious about the dive sites.
See you on the next posting.
After a week of resting from doing any dive or teaching I was finally offered by a friend to teach 4 enthusiast diver to be on Friday. It was a great news since I still have few weeks before going back to Layang-Layang Island again for another 6 months of bliss and excitement. The only down turn for this course was the weather. The last open water course I conducted was great. The weather was on our side, the visibility was amazing for Kota Kinabalu water (10 to 15m).
Today however, has been raining for almost 3 days now. Even though it was not as bad as 2 days ago, the drizzles just kept on showering even now as I am writing. The sea was a bit choppy in the morning with a lot of annoying surge and murky water. Amazingly, the rain and the swell did not shut their excitement which had provided great help to me and my assistant. Even the 27 centigrade of water and the less than 2 meter visibility failed to stop them.
Fortunately, the water got much calmer right after lunch when we were set to plunge into another session. even though the rain still went on, visibility improved to 5 meters at least and the session went well in the end. They all managed to complete and had gotten more than halfway to open water diver certification. Well done guys. Another day tomorrow and you all will be proud to claim yourself as scuba divers and join the colourful diving community. Maybe one day I will get to dive with them again somewhere in the globe where there are infinite possibilities.
A friend of mine bought a pair of running shoes the other day and ended up hating them after 3 days and kept on complaining. I asked him the reason for all his ramblings about his newly bought branded shoes and he said the fittings was bad. The first thing came to my mind was the big question “Did he even tried the shoes first?” And yes, for being such a brand conscious, he spent his money on a good brand that did not give him what he expected. So what had he learned from the experience? Good brand name does not necessarily means great product for you. What I am trying to say here is you have to try some products before you can decide whether to invest in them or not as the results may be different for different individual.
The same thing applies when you decide that you are going to buy a pair of diving mask for your personal use. There are of course many great brand names out there for you to choose. However, the question is which one fits you the best. In scuba diving activity, other than having a great diving skill, you also need to have equipment personally good for you. Mask play an important role. Bad fitting will only allow water to keep sipping into your mask making uncomfortable dive.It does not matter if you own a cheap pair of mask if it works perfect for you. You saved more and you gain more benefit from it. This is one piece of equipment that needed to be tested first before buying, just like a wetsuit.
When you learn scuba diving, your instructor or the long video presentation will give you important tips on how to buy a right fitting mask. Of course I will share with you here as well. It is by far the easiest method to determine your personal fitting. Put the mask on your face, inhale through your nose and hold it for few seconds, look down, if the mask doesn’t fall off you just found a right fittings for you. One more factor to consider is to make sure the lenses are tempered glass. Why, in a very unlikely event, should the lenses break it will only crack all over instead of shattering into your face. Next, check the nose pocket, is it comfy? Does it cover your nose well or is it too small for your nose? Keep testing until you get the right one for you. Remember, for you personally.
It does not really matter if the mask have double or single lens. At this point, you are already sure that you have found a correct fitting mask. So what’s left for you? Choose your colour if you should, get an extra strap or get a prescribed lens if you have to. Want a more sophisticated mask? Try the full face mask if available but I would not recommend those to newbies as it needs more experience and of course they cost more than a normal pair.
That is all for now. Hopefully this article can help you and others too. I did the same thing as I wrote and I had a blast with them until now. Enjoy your dive activity and yes, dive safely, that is the only way to enjoy it. If you want to do more things underwater, go upgrade your level or just keep collecting experience by diving more.
School days have started and the morning drive to work finally got super busy again. I kinda missed those half empty roads at 7 in the morning. But after seeing all those school children so excited to start their first day at school, I think it was not that bad. The road congestion of course can be avoided with strong will power to wake up and start moving literally earlier than usual. I am just thankful that I don’t normally have to rush to work due to the flexibility of being a freelance dive instructor.
Anyway, I have this habit of observing others especially while trapped in a jam. It is very interesting for me to see how many things a people can do while seating in their car during the jam. Some may be seen sending text from their hi-tech mobile phone. Some even try to catch up loss time by taking breakfast in their car. Most will just sit tight and listen to their music or doing some reading. Most would probably be smoking in their car as well.
Talking about smoking in the car, I did noticed one car with 2 children and a lady whom I guess is their mother. A normal sight of parents sending their kids to school. However, something was really wrong after I saw smokes coming out of the car. Being such nosy dude, I made a closer look and to my surprised the lady was smoking, while the 2 kids are in the car! Such an unthinkable action by the lady made me decided to write this post.
What was she thinking? To make things worst, I begun to spot more adults who simply light up in their car while having children in as well. Again, what in the world were they thinking? I myself is a smoker but smoking while having children around especially in a confined space like car is totally wrong! Maybe they want the children to follow their smoking habit at a very tender age. Maybe they only have less than quarter of their brain working. Maybe the brain doesn’t work at all. Some even spotted smoking while holding their babies in their arms! How outrageous.
I don’t think there is need to explain about how smoking affects children as we all know that already. I just want to know are these smoking adults realize how their actions may effect on the children. Or are they just being ignorant. Guys, send me a comment or two about this issue or anything you wish to share with me.
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