Into the blue

Oh gosh. More than 2 weeks without a post! Well, I've been quite busy. Have to prepare 5 properties for rental and one more needs maintenance. It never rains but it pours eh? Been quite busy and other time is spent just chillin'. I've been frequenting 1 Utama quite recently and just wandering about. I've bought more books for my new hobby/sport/passion which is of course, recreational diving. Quite unlike the morbid first book, Diver Down, I've bought a book on identifying reef fish and one more on dive sites in Malaysia. Identifying fish can be quite ridiculous. Two fish which look very alike can be two different species altogether. And the same species can have varying colours as well depending on location and environment. My mother and sister who are birdwatchers, I'm sure, are secretly pleased that Nat and I have about the same headaches they do when it comes to identifying species.

It's an expensive hobby. We've already blown thousands and have to be prepared to blow thousands more as we're slowly buying our own equipment. Nothing would suck more than dying or nearly drowning using someone else's equipment! I'd rather we own and maintain our own equipment. I know Nat feels the same.

So anyway, the plunge has been successfully taken as Nat and I are now certified open water divers.

To illustrate The Plunge:



That is me, by the way, doing the back roll off the boat.



Happy faces no? Dripping wet but very happy I assure you!



Dive buddies! I'm in the foreground, Nat's in the background.



This is a Teira Batfish. It was one of my aims to get to see this fish during the trip. Here's one being cleaned by a cleaner wrasse. There are little blue and yellow damsel fishes in the background.



Nat waving at the camera. The diver disappearing to the right is me!



And that's me. I'm sure you've noticed the visibility wasn't so good this dive and lots of floating particles.



Hovering vertically head down. If you're wondering what the white thing floating by my elbow is, it's my writing slate. It came free from my cummerbund.



As a test of bouyancy control, we took off our fins and tried to run on the bottom. Not easy! That's me giving my fins a cuddle.



You can pass the theory and practical tests but you're only officially done with the snorkel test!

Life Will Never Be The Same

I''m back.

Firstly, Nat and I are now certified divers. We did it!

It wasn't the easiest of things. I had to find my comfort zone and learn to handle myself, my equipment and my immediate environment. The first time I went back below the surface (and the very first time in open water) I struggled a bit. There was a bit of mental block about sinking beneath the surface and breathing through the regulator. There was a role reversal here. Nat had a few problems in the pool whilst I had none. She happily went below the waves and I was stuck for a bit just below the surface trying to do everything at once. Breathe through my mouth. Coming to terms that I can't inhale with my nose, even if I tried I couldn't because of the face mask. Trying to equalise the air space in my mask (water pressure and air compression tightens the mask to the face) and equalise the air spaces in my ears. All at the same time! LOL! I was confused for a little while. We finished the open water tests and I'd like to think we did well. In total we did 4 open water tests dives, 3 leisure dives and one games dive. 2 of those were shore dives and 6 were boat dives. At the end of the trip, we pretty much found our comfort zones and are very happy to be in the water.

Secondly, Life Will NEVER Be The Same Again.

Our second leisure dive took us to Tokong Laut which is a rock which rises from the sea floor to just above the surface. This is a healthy reef. Visibility was good and there were thousands (and I mean THOUSANDS!) of fish of many many many colours and varieties. A lot of corals and anemonies. There was once we stopped and we were totally surrounded by hundreds of fish. It was absolutely beautiful. There is one thing looking at pictures of reef life in a book. It is also another thing watching it on TV. It is a whole different ball game being in the water, being in this underwater environment, being there, seeing, hearing, feeling. I tell you, it is a wonder. Life will never be the same again. Life anywhere else in the world is not so diverse and so colourful.


Titan Triggerfish

It was here that I saw my first sharks! :) I saw three in total. It was brilliant! I loved it! I also found out another thing. Recreational divers aren't scared of sharks. No sir. Recreational divers are scared of trigger fish! Hahaha! Trigger fish a territorial and extremely aggressive during nesting season. They attack divers without warning and without provocation. Consider this, trigger fish eat crustaceans and coral. They have very very sharp, strong and hard mouths. They can take chunks off divers and they have. Their bites can also be ciguatoxic. Ciguatera isn't something anyone wants to mess with. On a previous dive I had seen a small trigger less than a foot long. This time, on Tokong Laut, we came across a Titan Trigger which was at least two feet long. It was really really beautiful. I remember going "Wow!" more than "Oh shit!". It was absolutely fearless. It stared down five divers and refused to budge. That's when we decided to turn around and go another direction! Nat was the last to leave and when she noticed everyone had turned around she left plenty quick too!. She was finning like hell and thinking, "Oh SHIT!" LOL! Titans are the largest of the triggerfish species. It can grow to 30 inches. Which is a lot of triggerfish!

On a previous dive we saw bumphead wrasses. They were huge! Three feet long. They came to check us out and came to within 3 feet of us. It was fantastic.


Humphead Parrotfish

The most memorable fish I saw were the bamboo sharks, the triggerfish, humpheads, batfishes (big ones too!), blue spotted stingrays and various parrot fishes, butterfly fishes and angelfishes.

And of course we found Nemo! And nudibranches! We saw nudibranches! Woooooo!

There are photos and videos of our trip. We just haven't gotten them yet. There are photos of us underwater. There are also hilarious videos of us trying to run underwater on the bottom without fins, playing rugby with a mineral water bottle loaded with sand and of course, of our snorkel test! Will post them when we get them.

I am so pleased we did it. It's opened up a whole new world. We are well and truly hooked.

On the way back, I bought a t-shirt near the boat jetty. Its slogan is: Scuba Divers Go Down Longer!

And they do y'know? LOL!

Buzz

I haven't felt this for a while. The buzz the day before. I'm so buzzed about the trip, I can't sleep. Unlike Nat - who is blissfully in the arms of sleep! I'm off to Perhentian - today; and I figure in about 12 hours, I should be lunching on the island possible having already made the first off-shore dive.

I'm just waiting to see if checking in at the airport is going to pose any problems. The scuba gear bag alone which contains (you guessed it) only scuba gear weighs 16 kilos, nevermind our own personal luggage. Air Asia has a limit of 15 kilos per person and you can't combine baggage weight with other persons according to their website.

That sucks.

That's like having a meal at Mum's Place in Damansara Perdana and discovering that you've had an excellent meal for four which came to over 70 Ringgit and they don't and won't refill your iced water. The four glasses of water came to 3.20 by the way. No refills though.

That sucks.

It's just fucking cold water!

Black Canyon, which is almost as good and a lot cheaper, will. I heartily recommend Set A for two persons at Black Canyon. You get all the iced water you can drink too at almost half the price!

That aside, I'm goin' divin'! Yay!

There

Been busy!

Tomorrow, we're off for the diving trip!

Bzzzzz

Y'all have to forgive the slowdown in posts. I'm busy busy busy!

Asshole Gallery #2

What's wrong with this picture? Is the taxi really in reverse gear? Nope. This is one of the many many assholes who fuck about with their car lights array. Blinking reverse lights while braking. Reverse lights on when they brake. Reverse lights permanently on. You know the ones. You've definitely seen them about. This has to be illegal and rightly so. It's idiotic.



And here we are back to my pet peeve. Queue cutters! This is Jalan Damansara in TTDI leading to the LDP, opposite the Petronas and post office. The lane one the left is for people to turn into Damansara Kim where the Specialist Centre is. I noticed in my wing mirror, this asshole leave the queue at the back and drive up past everyone on the left. It's a nice car. I do love the new Camry but it's got a kurang ajar no road etiquette queue cutter at the wheel! The plate is WRA 1918. Might be and probably is a nice guy in person but is just another fucking Malaysian driver behind the wheel. Whassa matter? Whassa rush? Bad curry izzit?

I don't really understand the junction up ahead. I don't know why it's been fucked about with. What we have now is a three lane road becoming a 2 lane road just before the traffic lights. Which is a really stupid idea. Cars bottleneck, bunch up and argue for space at the lights. I don't know what is going on, maybe when they finish the works at the lights, it might make sense. But I'm not holding my breath.

Diver Up

As you may know, I've just taken up scuba diving. I'm going for open water certification. I've been frequenting book stores recently to obtain some literature (and colour pictures!) about diving or aquatic life. Book stores for some reason tend to be quite cold and after much shivering and swearing by the girlfriend I finally picked a book. It's called Diver Down, subtitled Real Life Accidents and How to Avoid Them, by Michael R. Ange. It's a book on real life incidents and accidents by recreational divers. Of all the books out there eh? I go and pick this one?

I do think it's rather typical of myself that I bought this one to be honest. I'm just not letting my mum anywhere near the book. Of the stories in the book, many of the divers concerned lost their lives, a few were permanently damaged and even fewer escaped permanent injury. None survived unscathed, all being damaged one way or another mentally or physically.

And I'm glad I bought it. It proves a few things my instructor had been saying. He didn't ever repeat himself much but that's cos he thinks we (Matt, Nat and I) are smart enough to realise what he's saying is mucho mucho importanto. I also now realise that I made quite a few mistakes during the confined water sessions. Our instructor keeps telling us to think. To figure things out. Stop. Breathe. Think. Act. In that order. There's only so much training and instructions can do. A diver must first be responsible for himself/herself.

It would be an interesting point to note that of all the stories, only one was due to Murphy's Law or the proverbial shit happens. An experienced diver suffered an embolism which paralysed him while he was still in the water despite not doing anything wrong. He survived.

Panic is the number one killer of divers. Not surprisingly, ego is number two. There are divers who were gung ho and macho and went beyond their limits and training and were killed in the process. Needless to say, they panicked at the end of it. Sometimes justice isn't served as one of these divers recovered completely but his girlfriend drowned and his divemaster will spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair. That must be a terrible cross to bear.

However, ego is not always apparent. New divers always consume air faster than experienced divers. A new diver, subject to ribbing from other divers for having to cut short his (and his dive buddy's) dive from a rapidly lightening air tank, was determined to stay down longer on the next dive. He ran out of air and died along with the new divemaster whose own tank couldn't support himself and the hyperventilating new diver to make it to the surface.

Regardless of how exciting, new risky endeavours should be taken up progressively and carefully with advice and learnings taken seriously from the more experienced. Divemasters and instructors can always tell the ones who are going to be high risk. They're the ones who can't wait to get the gear on. The ones who want a bigger dive knife. The ones who can't wait to go deeper, further, longer. The ones who go beyond the limits of their training.

My own instructor had a story about diving. An instructor had two new students with him in open water. He had a camera with him. One student signalled low on air. The instructor signalled back to chill while he got his photo and they'd go up. After he got his shot he looked back and the divers were missing. He did a quick search and then went up. The divers were on the boat. One was dead and the other dying.

My mum told me that she read in the paper that a student diver got washed away from the group by a current and drowned. That's probably because that was a production factory type training. My group will have an instructor, 4 divemasters, an experienced diver, 2 Advanced Open Water students and 3 new Open Water students. Rather than 1 divemaster for 5 students, we will be having a 1 divemaster to 1 student ratio. Sure, I'm paying almost twice the price but I have someone qualified to certify new instructors as my instructor. I like the philosophy of my dive school which is to teach students how to dive and to do it safely. Production line schools tend to be like Malaysian driving academies. They teach you how to pass the test and that's about it.

After reading this book and reflecting on it, I would like to be qualified as an Advanced Diver and to also take up the Rescue Diver course. Not that I plan to be rescuing anybody (and I hope to never have to) but it would teach me to deal with emergencies and situations better should they arise. I certainly don't want anyone to be looking at me to deal with things cos, 'You're the rescue diver!'. A diver is only as good as his/her training and attitude.

I am rather pleased with comments filtered down to me from my pool sessions. It seems the instructors thought I was quietly confident and competent and doing better than I thought I was. A fellow student thought I did everything asked of me without fuss. So yeah.... very pleased with such feedback.

The reality of it is that I couldn't wait to get the gear on! Haha! BUT! I thought I should have a damn good listen to the instructor first. The last thing I want to be is to be in a book titled Diver Down, Part 2. I'd rather be in one titled "Diver Up, Who's Next?". Who knows? I might write it meself!

Spill and Overflow

Woah! Got to catch up with my blog! I have had so many things to blog about plus more pics for the Asshole Gallery (hahaha!) but have hardly had the time to do anything about it. Busy busy busy and it's gonna get busier with the handover of another apartment coming up about the same time with outfitting two other apartments. Also there's the pergola for the bungalow and the washing machine for the studio. I'm beat!

First! American Idol. How the hell did Michael Johns get voted off???? I'm waiting for Dread-head Boy to go but he's still there! What the #$%^&???? It's as Simon Cowell said, it's a popularity contest not strictly a talent contest. Didja see Stacey Ferguson on Idol Gives Back? Holy moly, that girl can sing. I really liked it when she sang with Heart. She sounded like a young Ann Wilson. And instead she gives us absolute rubbish like London Bridge and Fergalicious. Cos that's the kind of crap that sells and the people who buy crap like that is why Michael Johns is no longer in the running. I just saw David Cook sing Mariah Carey's Always Be My Baby. After that, his version of Hello and Chris Cornell's Billie Jean, if he doesn't win, we definitely know it because of people who like crap like London Bridge and Fergalicious. I have to say though, that Big Girls Don't Cry is a fantastic song. The rose bush growing out of a heap of manure.

And speakin' of crap....

Now! I just cut the grass today. Got the electric mower out and mowed the lawn. There's already cat crap on the freshly cut grass. If only I had a shotgun.... The smell of cat pee in the mornings and cat crap on my lawn. I had considered myself an animal lover but no longer. Dead cats sound like an increasingly good idea. Fertilizer anyone?

It's of constant amazement to me how badly people drive in this country. It has improved though. You know why? Because many many people in my generation went overseas for higher education. We learnt some sort of driving courtesy over there. Fuck the system that gives Malaysians a license to be in (and out of) control of thousands of pounds of fast moving metal. Anyone pay for your license cos you knew if you didn't you'd fail? Your driving school will even arrange it for you!

I'm now going to publish this posting and start on my next one.

Still Here

No, I haven't been neglecting my blog. Just been very busy. Will update on a heapo stuff soon. This is the 300th post! Woohoo!

Open Water

My PADI Open Water confined water sessions are over and it wasn't difficult at all! Next month I will be in Perhentian and by the time I come back I should be a certified open water diver. Woohoo!

The most obvious thing to me so far is how much of a mental thing diving is. Kids have less inhibitions than adults. They actually make better diving students than adults. They don't have the hangups adults have. So far I've heard the stories from my instructor. There are those who are convinced they will drown. Those who have to be coaxed to put their heads underwater. Those who are sure they can't breathe with scuba gear even though there's no reason as to why they can't. And. Those who are frightened of fish! It's a strange mix, diving and a fear of fish. But that's how much diving can snare you and keep you hooked. The Frightened of Fish One is going for advanced open water certification! Fish are one thing but there are sharks in the reef where we're going! LOL!

I have to say I'm really proud of Nat. She handled it very well. Although she doesn't think she did. She did everything she was asked to do and she did it competently. Trouble was she was comparing herself to me. I'm not good at a lot of things. There are only a few things I'm good at and these are 1. Outdoor activities, 2. Racing car video games; and 3. E***** ****y.

Hahahaha!