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Published: September 7th 2005
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Ooo moody
We're not going there are we (do you hear drums?) Arrived in Mersing to catch the ferry. The coach drive from Singapore was a little hairy - we think the driver was behind schedule, leading him to overtake at the most bizarre times (no visibility, blind bends etc). It was iether that or it's the Malaysian way - we'll find out later.
As soon as we got off the bus we were herded into a travel agents, along with 20 other westeners, by a couple of persistant locals.
We came out thee quarters of an hour later, and a host of Malaysian Ringits lighter. Unfortunately (we found out later) we'd managed to be talked out of our original plan to go to Salang and into a resort called Panuba - as the later was 'quieter' and still had lots of facilities and restaurants etc. In actual fact it was an isolated single hotel resort with one restaurant. When we say isolated, you could trek through the overgrown jungle for 25 mins to get to the next beach. And the first (and last experience of the meal at the resort was ordering fillet of fish (by the beach - what could go wrong) and getting something resembling flattened, breadcrumbed, processed
fish sticks.
So - the next day we got our money back for the second night and jumped onto a very expensive sea taxi to the 'busy' resort - Salang, along the coast.
Salang is still quite small, and isolated, but there's a lot more to do here with a lot more choice. Theres about four/five main restaurants and about the same number of hotels (which are spread along the coast line in chalet/beach hut styles). The beach is very nice but just into the sea you find it mainly coral and rocks - scars from which I still have on my left foot!
We decided that here seemed the best place to get adventurous again, and get a bit more sporty - so started checking out the local scuba centres. Theres quite a lot on this small resort but all seem well kitted out and well patronised. We opted for the first one we enquired in - Fishermans; it was organised, looked good, and was manned at the time by an English bloke with lots of qualifacations on the wall. We signed up for the day after the following day and went to the bar to
Gill on the sea taxi
Don't worry Mark was there too be excited.
The following day we were sitting in the same bar having lunch and saw the afore mentioned English bloke with his suitecase leaving for the ferry - not the best omen we thought. But as we hadn't paid any money yet we weren’t too concerned.
The main theme of our time here in Salang has been the scuba. We enrolled for a three/four day 'open water' scuba certificate. This trains you to the level of diving (within safe limits and guidelines of course) in an open water situation. We started the theory in our own time and did some of the exams on the first day. Also on the first day we did our 'closed water' first section where you get used to breathing underwater and sorting out your kit. We should mention that even though we didn't get the instructor we thought, the guy we did get was ex-military and excellent (thanks Nazree), and it was him teaching just Gill and myself which was ideal. Later on that day we were meant to be doing our first 'open water' dive - further out into the bay. We started this but had to quit as Gill
got cramp in her foot which wouldn't go, but it gave us the chance to do more theory (thanks Gill)!
The second day we had another session in shallow water, and then went for the first of our open water dives, down to 12 meters. This was lots of fun - doing bouyancy excercises (going up and down using your breathing), safety stuff like losing and finding your mouth piece and taking off/replacing and clearing your mask. There was loads of stuff covered in this session - and the next one, which meant on the third day we could go out for our proper open water dive - from the boat.
We set out the next day at about half past nine with three other divers and three staff (two dive masters and an assisitant), heading for 'Coral Island'. Now as the name suggests there was coral - lots of it, and other stuff like fish! We had two dives that day at two different sites.
The first dive was a bit choppy, which was even worse for Gill when her weight belt came off whilst jumping off the boat - she was so bouyant the instructor
At Scuba school
Pre dive beer - just kidding couldn't even drag her beneath the surface of the ocean.
Once this was sorted we went down to our target depth of 18 meters (quite deep)! It was a lovely dive - very peaceful - with loads of things to see. Besides the coral, which was beautiful, we saw a large morray eel, tiger cowrie, yellow box fish, a very large turtle feeding in the rocks and loads of other stuff we don't know. After the second dive we'd seen puffer fish, sea slugs (nudibranch!), hump head parrot fish, barracuda, and the highlight for the child in us - NEMO. As you may or may not know these are clown fish, but they are realy cute and really do sit in the anemones with their heads poking out watching you. The whole boat dive was great.
When we got back we did our final exam and are now qualified 'open water divers'. We are now looking forward to our next couple of dives when we check our finances and Gills very painful ear infection clears up. We will probably have to move on in the next few days so may do the next dive in one of the
Thai islands but we'll see.
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