No Dive... Boo Hoo

Gawd! Was I pissed when I wrote my last blog? Sounded like it. It was full of soppy shit.

Anyways, so I'm back to being in a bit of a mood due to nitrogen withdawal symptoms. My planned dives in Miri did not happen due to bad weather. SIGH!

As my mum drove across the border to Miri on that fateful Saturday morning, it started drizzling and she said 'U sure u can dive in this weather? It's raining'. And I said 'Mum, you can't do anything but dive when it's raining'.... how wrong was I? 10 mins later, my phone beep with a text message 'Today's dives are cancelled due to bad weather'

Okay... sent a text to my sister and ask her to book me into a day spa. Might as well make use of the time to get myself properly relaxed and ready for the next day's dives. All dopily sleepy coming out of the treatment room my phone beeped again with a text 'Tomorrow's dives will also be cancelled due to bad weather'

F**K IT!

There goes another long weekend wasted. Worse still, my mates on the BM saw a manta ray. And the others on the WM saw a list of fishes you might hope to see in a lifetime in one sodding dive trip!

So now I'm desperately trying to squeeze in another dive trip before the monsoon hits the east side good and proper. I'm keeping my fingers desperately crossed. I NEED to get in one more trip before Australia.... *twitch*

Another Dive Trip.... Woohoo!

Just been out with a couple of dive buddies I met over the last couple of trips and met a few other divers. Must say, being a diver must've been one of the most sociable thing I've ever done in my life. Why?

Well... firstly, diving involves being (for the most of it) in warm waters where you would imagine your best holiday would be. The sun, the sea... ok, the sand might not be there but you could encounter it about 18 to 30 metres under water.

Secondly, for the hardcore divers, a liveaboard is the place to be in. Almost like being on unchatered waters, if you're lucky enough to be with a well-organised operation, more often than not you'll be the first boat at the dive site. Diving in water with anything more than 15m visibility and nothing but fishes and corals around you has to be the best feeling in the world. (Ok, maybe just for divers).

Thirdly, with all those perfect ingredients of sea and weather mixed into one boat and whole bunch of people who love nothing but to jump into a great big world of blueness with amazing creatures who breathe in a medium which we would drown in.... the bliss of being underwater....

.... what more can you ask for?

A get together of like minded people. The perfect place to get away from it all, your job, your friends (if necessary) and be amongst perfect strangers both breathing above and underwater....

For me, this is what LIFE is about....

I can't wait til I go on my next dive adventure.

*WHALE SHARKS..... MANTA RAYS....* ok, even nemo would be good enough ;)

It's been so long.....

..... since I last blogged. Life has taken over and I have better things to do than to write countless blogs.... Well, to be honest, a blog becomes boring when it's just words and no pics. Getting pics uploaded here is the most cumbersome thing ever. I have to upload each photo at a time and a great diving trip could take all night to blog. Much easier uploading pics to facebook.

Anyways, since last August, I have been on two dive trips and got my Advanced Open Water certificate. It all kicked off with our MBS Sept dive trip to Aur, again. That was my third time to Aur in 3 months. I'm not sure whether it's the variety of fish available that never fails to amaze me, or the fact that I'm still a relatively new diver that any place is just a good. I'd probably dive in my bathtub if I had one! LOL!

Here's me doing my safety stop and looking perma-shocked... and the one below of me getting a well-deserved snooze after our last dive. I've received quite a few pics of me sleeping. Obviously it's of great fascination to many. (Hope I wasn't snoring, teeheehee)

Then I went diving in Phuket and Phi Phi with the boys during the Hari Raya public holiday. Organising the trip was relatively easy as there were a quite a few dive centres to choose from online. The best bit about the holiday, other than the diving, was our hotel on Patong Beach which fronted the beach. At SGD$35 (GBP15) per night, it was a steal.

I was determined to dive everyday so I had 4 days of brilliant dives. I saw three leopard sharks and a graceful eagle ray flying along whilst I was doing my safety stop. Here's a pic of Sharkey.

It's a shame I didn't have an underwater camera with me as there were loads of interesting stuff in Phuket that I had not seen before. My favourite has to be the yellow boxfish. They are just so cute, far cuter than Nemo. And I saw a teeny baby one about an inch square just swimming along the crevice on Koh Doc Mai.

I did my Advanced Open Water course during the overnight trip to Phi Phi and I was stressing a bit with 5 chapters to read through whilst I was in Phuket. It turned out to be pretty easy and I had a great one to one during the whole course. During the final module underwater, my instructor's find strap broke so she had to buddy me up with someone else and she ended her dive. I think that warranted an automatic pass.

I think the funniest moment has to be when I got a bit confused over whether I should be doing the square navigation under water as I was told at the surface that we would do that the next day. When we got to the bottom, my instructor drew a square and an X on the sand and then pointed to me and drew the square again, I was wondering whether I should do it, did it half-confused and ended up doing a circle! Oh well, nevermind, I did it alright the next day.

I'm glad I booked my trip to Phuket again over the New Year's public holiday. I believe it's now nearly fully booked. I will be on the big Black Manta for this trip and we'll be sailing over to the Similan Islands for 5 days of solid diving. There would be nothing better than getting up early on my birthday, jumping into the water and be greeted by a whale shark or a graceful manta ray.

In the meantime, I'm off to Miri this weekend for little Emma's second birthday and 2-day dive off the coast of Miri. I've now bought myself an underwater camera housing with an arm and a leg. Although with my dad's connections, it only cost me an arm. Hopefully Miri being relatively quiet, it will have some pretty untouched reefs and I should have my very own underwater pictures to show. Feel a bit like a cheat posting up loads of underwater pics on facebook when I've not taken any of them!