scuba holidays
nowadays, most of my leisure trips revolve around scuba diving. people ask me if i ever get bored diving. no, not really. there are too many things to be discovered in the ocean to ever get bored. and on land, divers are really interesting creatures.
just came back from tioman. stayed at babura resort at tekek village and dived with tioman reef divers. there was a boisterous group of 22 hongkong divers.
this group was pretty crazy:
* they were putting in 5 dives a day consecutively for 4 days, sometimes coming back only at 10pm to have dinner.
* one of them excitedly and proudly showed me pictures of a bloated porcupine fish which was agitated by the divers. i was flabbergasted and speechless... the porcupine fish only inflates itself when under extreme duress and this is highly stressful for the fish.
* one of the divers pulled the tail of a juvenile nurse shark. no wonder the sharks have all gone into hiding...
* they shone bright torches on a turtle sleeping in a cave causing it to panic. it tried to squeeze its way out of the small cave and getting stuck, reversed back to find another escape route.
* one of them innocently and animatedly said that she luuuuuurrrves shark's fins soup. i whipped out a wildaid leaflet on things you never knew about sharks and hope that she will be a new convert.
before you walk away thinking the worst about hongkong divers, let me say that they were adorable in some ways. here's some funny acronyms i learnt from them:
MBA: Married but available
BMW: Be my wife
ADIDAS: All day i dream about sex
adidas came from a 58-year old gentleman who is a teacher of physical education in a chinese university. what sort of physical education... hmmm... i wonder.
this is my 4th time diving with tioman reef divers. familiarity is a nice feeling. every trip, i find out something new about the divemasters' lives. akemi is reeno's wife and takes very good care of the divers. everytime we return from a dive, there will be hot teh susu and fresh fruit waiting for us. in the morning, there will be breakfast of donut or roti canai. she's japanese and has 2 boys. reeno is the boss of the diveshop and knows the divesites very well. he's a pretty private guy. abect is 28, from kalimantan and worked in tioman for more than 10 years. he used to go fishing with his parents at natuna when he was young and it was common to see whale sharks and manta rays, which the fishermen called 'ikan hantu', meaning ghost fish. tom is 33, a malaysian and worked at the diveshop for some 7 years. on days when there are no customers, the divemasters turn into construction workers. they have to mix cement and construct a new building which will be their new staff quarters.
i am back in singapore now. suffering from a hangover. need to breathe nitrogen again to feel alive.
ps. if anyone wants to dive tioman, give me a yell. can help with the dive arrangements at the very nice, homely Babura Resort/Tioman Reef Divers.
just came back from tioman. stayed at babura resort at tekek village and dived with tioman reef divers. there was a boisterous group of 22 hongkong divers.
this group was pretty crazy:
* they were putting in 5 dives a day consecutively for 4 days, sometimes coming back only at 10pm to have dinner.
* one of them excitedly and proudly showed me pictures of a bloated porcupine fish which was agitated by the divers. i was flabbergasted and speechless... the porcupine fish only inflates itself when under extreme duress and this is highly stressful for the fish.
* one of the divers pulled the tail of a juvenile nurse shark. no wonder the sharks have all gone into hiding...
* they shone bright torches on a turtle sleeping in a cave causing it to panic. it tried to squeeze its way out of the small cave and getting stuck, reversed back to find another escape route.
* one of them innocently and animatedly said that she luuuuuurrrves shark's fins soup. i whipped out a wildaid leaflet on things you never knew about sharks and hope that she will be a new convert.
before you walk away thinking the worst about hongkong divers, let me say that they were adorable in some ways. here's some funny acronyms i learnt from them:
MBA: Married but available
BMW: Be my wife
ADIDAS: All day i dream about sex
adidas came from a 58-year old gentleman who is a teacher of physical education in a chinese university. what sort of physical education... hmmm... i wonder.
this is my 4th time diving with tioman reef divers. familiarity is a nice feeling. every trip, i find out something new about the divemasters' lives. akemi is reeno's wife and takes very good care of the divers. everytime we return from a dive, there will be hot teh susu and fresh fruit waiting for us. in the morning, there will be breakfast of donut or roti canai. she's japanese and has 2 boys. reeno is the boss of the diveshop and knows the divesites very well. he's a pretty private guy. abect is 28, from kalimantan and worked in tioman for more than 10 years. he used to go fishing with his parents at natuna when he was young and it was common to see whale sharks and manta rays, which the fishermen called 'ikan hantu', meaning ghost fish. tom is 33, a malaysian and worked at the diveshop for some 7 years. on days when there are no customers, the divemasters turn into construction workers. they have to mix cement and construct a new building which will be their new staff quarters.
i am back in singapore now. suffering from a hangover. need to breathe nitrogen again to feel alive.
ps. if anyone wants to dive tioman, give me a yell. can help with the dive arrangements at the very nice, homely Babura Resort/Tioman Reef Divers.
posted by nan at 10:05 PM
3 Comments:
Reeno was my AOW instructor.. Did nothing much during my course.. instead they asked me to be 'assistant divemaster' when they got too many customers! LOL.. and I like to talk to Akemi in Malay rather than English! Always like the homely feeling there.. Wish I have time to go back again! -MS
really? means he thinks you're so good that you don't need to take AOW. (^.^)
btw, bluebird, you do know that your blog name means some bad word in hokkien, yar..... like your blog and added on to my list. why is it dbh30cm?
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