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Published: June 10th 2009
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Dayang 09
Dayang May 09. A happy and fruitful trip Its strange how things come together and how travel and learning something new brings people together. Thomas and I have been talking about learning scuba diving for years but never found an agreeable time to do so. And then, it all came together within 2 weeks. My work trip got postponed, JL's hol trip got postponed, Thomas and Dennis had an available weekend and so off we went. 3 guys and a gal off to Dayang for our padi open water beginner course. We had taken our pool and theory the previous weekend under a a very jovial and humourous instructor. Pity he couldn't come with us on our open water dives.
Things got excited as the weekend neared. Slightly fearful of the drills in the open sea, the unknown and breathing underwater from an apparatus stuck in your mouth, knowing that a panic attack will probably kill you is not a comforting thought. But we kept our minds open and were determined to learn this skill and get our certification. I paired with Dennis while thomas paired with the very talkative JL. Yak and yak from the causeway all through the night, but it was good company
Flying
Me behaving like an idiot and enjoyable. We stopped over for some supper before heading to Mersing Jetty. There we got a first taste of the very stern and fierce looking Stan; our dive instructor. Yelled at me to get in line while waiting for our boat and he refused to let Dennis go pee! Hmm..first impressions....did we sign up with the right dive school? I mean we are here to have fun man. Nevertheless, we were quite amused.
A long and ardous 4 hr boat ride with the air con blowing at full force into my face, I had quite a torrid time with the cold and the uncomfortable seat giving me a backache. Our dive instructors Stan and Keith obviously very seasoned travellers to this part of the world made themselves really comfortable lying across a row of seats. Smart asses. We reached the island of Dayang in the wee hours of the morning. We dived into our bunk beds to get some sleep.
Awoke the next morning to have breakfast by the beach. Dayang is a small island surrounded by clear blue waters, tall trees an rocky cliffs. We were housed in a small beach side accomodation. Opposite
to us was the bigger Pulau Au. We were excited and a little nervous for our first open water dive. Our boat took us out to see and we prepared our equipment. Lots of screw ups but we learn from our mistakes. Took a deep breadth and down we went. Kinda cool breathing underwater with the feeling of weightlessness in another world. The drills were boring but were part and parcel of all open water courses. That was this big Angel fish staring at us, probably wondering what the heck we were doing. Wasn't feeling too good towards the end of the dive. We surfaced after an hour and headed back for lunch.
The 2nd dive involved more drills, buoyancy control and navigation. It was here where I returned my lunch to the ocean by puking underwater. It was kinda frightening when I couldn't clear my regulator. Took some gulps of water before managing to clear it and breathe again. I must have puked another 4 times, I was feeling cold and started to shiver. This certainly wasn't very pleasant but I figured I shouldn't give up and just hung in there. Figured it was either the currents
The Island
bikini babe in the background ...heh..its a nice place with clear waters or the regulator in the mouth that caused my discomfort.
3rd dive was where things started to turn for the better and it fun from here on. No longer required to do drills, for the first time, we finned around the area and saw pretty corals, schools of fishes and other underwater life. Saw this school of longish shimmering baracudas swim past. Appreciated its beauty underwater as it shimmered under the rays of sunlight underwater. It was nice. Also saw the nemo looking clown fish. Surfaced feeling good. From here on , the 4th and 5th dives were great. Saw turtles, tons of fish and this really huge school of bump head parrot fish. They were huge. Much like those Luohan fishes pple rare. We had fun taking pictures with the underwater camera.
This dive trip was good fun and a good experience. I had a blast with Thomas, Dennis and JL. Liked the feeling of a laid back short getaway over the weekends. I guess I am already looking forward to the next dive trip.
Cheers
People's Elbow
JL elbowing my face in the water. !@#@#%#$^
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