Mission Acomplished - #1

Good Day 'o buddies!! Glad to say we have made our first open water dives in Tioman Island, Johore Malaysia. Wow! Not only to mention the underwater lives and pubs are fantastic, the water there are superb!

We all arrived in the very early morning around 7PM, me and my buddies Buddy Alvin and Buddy Marcus checked out the local store for their "roti canai" and teh tarik kau-kau. I checked into my relax gear (short pants) and we moved to the jetty for the ferry to enter the island. Somehow the tides were too low and the boats are not managed to get their butts to the jetty entrance which have left Marcus, Alvin and me strangled at the jetty waiting for another 2 1/2 hours.... Finally we moved on at 10:30AM and I had no choice but just snoozzzzzze my way to the island (damn tired of the overnight drive). Once arrived, we checked into our "luxurious" hotel room which consists of 2 twin-sharing bed (just the bed and nothing else) and a 5-Star bathroom with a pail of cold water which used to bath. (Ha! Ha! Buddy Marcus already stucked there - why do divers rooms always not equipped with hot water system). Yo, bro, divers don't even bath if it really comes to a situation like this..... agreed, divers??

So, we just geared up and roll out to the first and 2nd sites for some check-out dive and all I can say is "Its totally refreshing and mind clearing!". The moment I dived in is like everything troubling your mind has to stop for the while.... and I just refreshed and woke up with full battery charged.... Then SI for 45 minutes and gear up again for the next dive.... However, I can't make far for the second dive due to the overnight driving and current over there.... But still better than Marcus.... hehe.... sorry la bro, you have a tough time for the first 2 days having your buoyancy control and air consumption like buffalo.... hehe But one thing for sure.... Alvin's air consumption is really damn cun! and to all our fellow June 2008 Padi graduates, we finally got the chance to meet sea turtles and moral eels... big ones!!! Haha :D

The 2nd day after the long night sleep.... sorry Alvin for sharing bed with me and had to be tortured by my 400hp engine snoring... we are totally recovered and finally having lots of fun diving through the Sea Fan Canyons, Malang Rocks tunneling and finally landed at Labas... where we saw a lot of yellow tails and bat fishes. We thought that we will be able to dive with Buddy Calvin and Buddy Hui but due to some boat arrangement problem.... they were late and couldn't catch up with us.... However, we can still smell the satay feast and big buckle of tax-free Carlsbergs at ScuBar eh??

We finally have to leave for 3rd day - after 2 conservative dives sessions and Marcus finally got his buoyancy and air consumption cun, we have to go back.... He was so sad.... but as we all knew, he is a good father.... so desperate to go home to see his son.

For this Tioman Mission I would conclude that we are quite satisfy with what we have been through learning at Sampoerna and the skills are totally came in handy. We are looking forward to build a divers community in Malaysia and link up as many divers as possible to put on some good diving trips and enjoy what God has naturally created for us under the ocean. Let's put our hands together and spread the news.... this blog site to as many ppl as possible.... please ask them to share their diving experiences and comments.... and also cheap promotion packages if anyone should have - so that we can share the good fruits together....

Finally, we thank you so much to the DM Eddie, Arif and Farizah(sorry if I misspelled) and all ppl from Scubatex to manage this trip for us and introduce us to a few more new diving buddies, Syed and the gang.... (sorry guys didn't get all your names in my log book but I will update asap from Arif, ok). Lets gear up and dive, buddies.....

MIDE - A Success

Hi Buddies,

Wah Lao! MIDE is really another diving success event for Malaysia. Buddy Hui, Buddy Yong and me were there the first day they kicked off at around 5:30Pm (just after Buddy Marcus and Buddy Alvin left la... no fun missing you guys) and just imagine that crowd was fantastic! We started to stroll around at the PADI booth then moved on to some diving packages booths. They had been promoting hard on many locations and I found a few good spots myself. Pulau Tenggol was one of the nearest to us at the east coast with around 20 dive sites.... which are all fantastic! Of course, we can't miss the very special Borneo dive sites that includes of Sipadan, Mabul, Layang-Layang, etc.

Then we checked out some cool gadgets from Beuchat, Tusa, and of course, Buddy Marcus's favourites - Marez booths. There have been plenty of BCDs, 1st stage, 2d stage, thus wet suits as well.... Finally, me and my Buddies decided to invest into our own wet suits since as you know my huge giant size XXL is hard to find.... so we keep surveying around.... (which pissed off some of the shopkeepers though :p) Suddenly, we caught a crowd in one of the booth bargaining and checking out a lot of goodies.. So we stopped by and SHIT! Its really good bargains over there.... We got our wet suits , masks from them - and I even almost grabbed my boots and fins too.... but hold the horses reminding myself that I really want to go for another dive.... so gotta save some "bullets".... Scubatex - Thanks for everything....

After the expo ended (almost 7:30PM), then we went out as what we originally "planned" (Hey! Where are you guys liao??) - we went for some drinks and already started to plan for the next dive trip..... HeHe! Don't miss this - if you really like the ocean.... come on! Let's Gear Up and Dive, buddies!