Tiomaannnnnn

It was in-between study week and exam week, and I took 4 days off to Tioman for my, very possibly, only dive trip for this year.

First time staying at Barusa (?) Resort at Tekek, and diving with Tioman Reef Divers. The experience wasn’t too bad; the dive shop wasn’t too small, but everything was neat and tidy and all the spaces were made use of.
Couldn’t have asked for more!

Andy Yap, my buddy. (=

Just a little bit into the trip, someone told me, “hey, you know full-moon was just over?” And I thought, “SHUCKS. That means currents and huge surges!” Look at the waves pouring onto shore!

At least, visibility was quite commendable

The usual – some new, some old
Juliet, Ivan, Jackie, Jimmy, Alvin, Andy, Gary, me, Ferris

Haha. Me playing with the clownfish! This is bad example, but for all the time I’ve been diving, this was the only time I got to touch the clownfish. =D

The 5 who were game enough for the 6th dive. Everyone else gave up after the 5th.
And guess what.. in the ambition to catch the sight of a whale shark, we went somewhere notorious for its currents, and it lived up to its name! My inexperience with currents had me fighting it like crazy.

(=

Shadow play

Where’s our ferry???
We’d been waiting for our ferry for 2 hours. One thing that dive trips have taught me is to embrace the concept of being “lan-lan”. If there’s nothing you can do, there’s nothing you can do but to make the best out of the situation. Thankfully, the company was great! We had fun talking, eating sunflower seeds and peanuts, reading CLEO, cam-whoring. (=

At the ferry terminal on the way back, the weather was humid; in bid to catch the ferry, we didn’t have a proper lunch; there were many people jostling around and we each had huge bags to carry; and we had to wait 3 hours for our ferry.

I thought out loud, “why did we put ourselves through all these just for Tioman??”

And Jackie answered, “this is called ‘quenching the thirst’.”

.

.

Indeed.