Tioman dives :)

1 April
Took a van to Mersing; reached at about 11pm. We went out for supper with the 3 instructors - Jack, Alex and John, while the other families went to rest for the night.

2 April
Woke up early to take a 1-hour catamaran to Tioman - Salang beach. When we reached, we were given a while to go put down our stuff in our rooms before returning to the dive shop. Then we went for our first real dive!

Wreck dive :) Nothing much; just the usual fish. Saw a big puffer though. Ascended too fast because buddy's mask flooded and didn't do a safety stop. Ah well. We're both still alive so that's fine.

After lunch on land, we went back on the boat for the rest of the day. Did two more dives, saw some cool stuff like blue spotted rays and some shrimps. Jack got attacked by a big triggerfish =/ It's their mating season and they're damn territorial.

It was drizzling when we got back up on the boat after the third dive. And there were two rainbows :) Plus it was close to sunset. Super pretty. We headed back to the house reef at Salang and waited for the sun to set before we began our night dive.

Freaky as hell. Did the lights out drill. We saw two lionfish. Pretty cool if it wasn't for the fact that I only spotted the second lionfish because I was an inch away from being stabbed by the sea urchin next to it. When we surfaced from the dive, all of us were amazed by the number of stars in the sky. The whole sky was seriously covered in stars. It's really beautiful.

So anyway. Dinner involved a blackout halfway. Electricity came back on after a while. Went back to the room so we could bathe [it was the kampung-style kind of toilet. You have a tub which you fill with water, then scoop it up to use for bathing]. With my luck, of course there had to be another blackout while I was bathing -.-

Electricity didn't come back on until several hours later? I'm only guessing because I already fell asleep.

3 April
Woke up feeling achy, which was a surprise. Even my jaw ached, from chewing too hard on the regulator.

Another 4 dives. I FINALLY saw a sea turtle :D At Malang rock. Too bad it was swimming away already when I saw it. Other sightings included giant barracuda, a scorpionfish, banded sea snake, eels, a big bumphead parrotfish, more blue spotted rays and the usual fish. Quite a number of nudibranches. And a ton of sea stars and sea cucumbers.

I went for the night dive alone with Jack because the rest of my family didn't want to -.- There was another group doing their advanced night dive [which was the one we did the previous night] so we went together. There was quite a strong current so it became a night drift dive which was scary and cool at the same time. Visibility was pretty poor. Apparently Jack kept pointing out a lot of stuff but I didn't see half of them =/ Had to abort that dive because my ear started hurting.

8 dives in two days :D Spent more time at sea than on land, until I got reverse seasick -.-

4 April
Mom forgot to wake me up for the final two dives. Otherwise I would've done all 10 dives over the 3 days :( Ah well.

Jack and Alex asked me to take the divemaster course. Maybe I will :)