Rough Yet Crazy!

I think maybe city lives are giving everyone hyper-tensions... found out that ppl nowadays hard to get crazy when the photographer was yelling "Oooi! Act crazy la!"... The max u get is only 2 thumbs up! Is that considered crazy post nowadays?? Huh!! XD

Tenggol - The Swimming Pool

"Swimming Pool" is just a name assigned by DMs over one of the wonderful dive sites in Tenggol. It was the Coral Garden if I am not mistaken.. It was the dive after the White Rock incident... and though hands beared with scratches and blood, a diver just can't stop diving. The only thing I had in mind at the dive was some fishy feeling that some bigger predators might be attracted by my fresh juicy hand. Hahaha ! :D

Swimming pool as its name with the max depth of 25M but we only went for a 12M dive since there are some "fresh graduates" tagging along with us. After the dreadful dives made for the day, it is really fascinating to get ourselves soaked at this little pool where calm water and fine visibility is easily available here. As for some buddies like Buddy Steve whom had been extensively busy guiding Buddy LaiYin, and both acting DM Marcus and Alvin had been playing chasing up and down with Buddy Elaine. That gave Buddy Kim Seng a totally peace of mind to get his cam set and brought us back some fine flora and nudi-branches pictures which Tenggol promised to all its divers.

Thanks to the one and only dive site in Tenggol that brought us calm surface and 100% visibility with no drift at all.

B&N Gathering

Yo Buddies,

We had a little get together on 21April09 7pm at B&N, a little nice restaurant, where we call the owner 'Uncle' as introduced by Lai Ying (LY). Buddies who turned up are 'big mouth' Marcus, 'cool' Kelvin, DM Kim Seng aka Andrew, 'feisty' LY, 'PK' Hoi and David 'kojak' Loke. Did i miss anyone out? Hmmm, yes, a late comer, Simon 'says'. No, no, not that kind of late comer, i meant, he came late. I meant he turned up much later.

What were we doing there? Err, it's a restaurant, so we ate. And the food is pretty good - must try - lamb cutlet, caesar's salad, and for dessert, bread and butter ice-cream. Place is a little tight, it's not a bad thing coz we can all snug up and be cosy. Mosquitos are rampant, makes Tenggol looks like Disneyland. And the booze? If you fancy drinking from the can, then this is your thing! They don't have draft and they don't have bottles. But who cares as long as you have good buddies, nice conversations and great jokes!

What were we doing there? The real reasons? We were downloading pictures taken by Kim Seng, David and Kelvin. We are compiling all the pictures to determine which ones to go into facebook, which ones to go into safetystop.com.my website, which ones to criticize and laugh at and which ones to use as blackmail. So Marcus have the complete pics and he will distribute to whoever can belanja him makan. The more expensive the place, the faster he respond.

By the way, there will be a dinner on 8May09 for our buddies and family to get to know each other. And of coz to celebrate our 'survivor' buddies who was given 2nd chance to life. This is a good celebration so that we don't take things for granted. Count our blessings daily!

Next stop - Sipadan or Perhentian? Bali or Komodo island? Give me your polls buddies. We have to start planning already. Cheers!

PULAU TENGGOL

we have sucessfully deployed a mission, a mission that required our courage to overcome our fear..... we have heard alot of pulau tenggol deep, swipe current and the rough terrain but we have survived.... tho we have gone thru alot, but we have gather wisdom and have become wiser when we dive next trip.... the dive site a superb.... the coulourful corals and fishes are amper....

the deep dive

tho this not encourage as an open water diver but this the experience once should have... remember do your deco stop at 15 m and 2nd safety stop at 5 m. I HAVE BEEN THERE..... please remember DCS guys NO JOKE....... HAVE YOUR DIVE COMP READY.....

the currrent

i have been inform the current is strong at all site... try to find a drift dive rather than against the current.. thats something the DIVE MASTER should have done but we have a rather COWBOY DM we have pay our price but what have happen is to be learn as lesson for future....... the experience that cannot be bought....

the dive site

the most enjoyable and most appriciated site is the check out dive site which is the turtle point.... the viz was good aleast 10m, the fishes, corals (hard and soft) was plentiful...... the drift was good and most of all we enjoyed....

the resort

the most funny resort that i have ever stay in my whole life.. there is no current from 8 am till 7 pm.... wat a joke.... there is no food after 8 pm and most funny things is no ciggie and beer serves at all time.....

the rooms

is ok i guess.... no comment on that except heard that its haunted.....errrrrrrrr

overall

the trip was enjoyable coz all the buddies are be able to gather and have a good time...... till the next trip we shall wait...................

Tenggol ROCKS!

After a few months of "ding ding dong dong" preparations and divers roll call, on the 9th of April, 2009, SafetyStop buddies landed our feet first time ever on this mysterious piece of land on the east coast of Penincular Malaysia, Tenggol Island. Based on so many reviews and readings on the net regarding about the island marine lives and of course, the superb nudi branches species surrounding the island, we are so desperate to set out fins into the nearby water to check them out one by one. Thanks to Scubatex Ahmad, our honourable DM for this trip, we were able to set for 10 ultimate challenging dives this round.
Why I used "challenging" to describe Tenggol? For divers whom are out there haven't been to Tenggol before, "Tenggol Diver" would be a foreign term for you and me even. But the moment you set your fins into the checkout dive point the House Reef, you will find yourself drifting slowly towards the direction to the north - Welcome to Tenggol, dudes! Tenggol is definitely a great training ground for divers who are looking forward for drifting and currents. Out of 10 popular dive sites, 9 out of it are currents drifting dive sites. Not even talking about the famous "Tokong Laut" (Highway) which of course we didn't go due to the stunning DM remarks on it (4 hours to Pulau Kapas and 48 hours to Pulau Redang if you mistakenly carried by the highway currents out to the open sea), all other dive sites are surrounded by minor currents as well.

As for this blog, I would first elaborate my memorable and my favourite site for this trip - "Tokong Timur" The White Rock.

You do not need to descend to 21M to find the beauty of the White Rock corals as all that really impressed me are located just nice at the depth of 10-12M. We were dropped off at the current breaking point and descend to 10M (initially suggested to be the gathering point by DM). Unfortunately it was the north current that particular time and after descending, we lost visibility of each others. My vis is only about 1M and luckily my buddy is still sticking with me. So we keep thrusting forward maintaining as the reef on our left in hope to meet with others. Though we had ran out of each others but the views are just simply amazing that I do not panic at all but appreciating whatever heading my way. We caught some angel fishes (both yellow and blue), great foundation of anemones, great corals wall structure (like some sort of Sipadan Island mini version), group of small groupers, and stuff.. After about 30 minutes dives, I ended up finally with both Buddy Jimmy and Buddy Calvin but we are still no sight of the rest. So we decided to keep up on our own adventure expedition until I finally saw 2 more divers passing by DI Kim Seng and Buddy Lai Yin. But they were heading the other way round. Since the scene was superb, the three of us decided to move on. This is where our legacy begins.

By the time my air reached 50Bar, I knew its time for me to do my safety stop which I thought we already had made a round trip around Tokong Timur. Unfortunately, we haven't! I had to hang on to the coral rocks in order to do my safety stop because the underwater current keeps pulling me away. So as Buddy Jimmy and Buddy Calvin. By the time we ascend to the surface, we was astonishingly found ourselves on the other side of the island and the boat was not there. I was shocked and mind is totally blank since it was not something I expected. The worst situation is I am out of air (already touching 0 bar) and mask is off my face. We had no choice but being splashed by the strong waves on the surface towards the rocks. Then we made another wrong judgement as human instinct, we thought we could just climb up the rocks to cross over to the over side of the rocky island to reach for our boat.... this is totally OUT-OF-MIND!!!! B. Jimmy was swimming in front towards the rocks followed by me and B. Calvin at my back. Then a huge hurrican waves started to spinning around from my back towards B. Jimmy. We were being pulled and pushed continuously towards and back from the rocks. Then I saw B. Jimmy successfully got himself off the water and sitting on the small rocky foundation. At this moment, I got to grab tight at the rocks thinking that I could climb over through that path. Then another "washing machine" waves started to roll from my left where I saw B. Calvin had been rolled in by it coming towards me.... With my eyes closed, I was being threw out of the rocks and rolled over to where B. Jimmy sat. I could still remember my gears and tanks banging into the rocks as I rolled over and over again. By the time I could held myself up, another wave came around and gave me a lift into the ocean again. But this time, I was on the other side of the rocks where our boat lies. Praise God! It was really an amazing grace for me to survive the hit... But both of B. Jimmy and me were still awaiting for B. Calvin to climb over... but he did not! I was so terrified that something bad might already happened to him... After realeasing our divers help sausage, I saw B. Calvin successfully climbed over and I was so relieved at that time.... A few scracthes on our suits, gloves and ourselves reminded us that there is no joke to be a "Tenggol Diver". Reviewing what had happened to us, I would strongly recommend all divers out there whom like to challenge Tenggol, please reming yourselves about Buddy Breathing technique and stay away from the rocks.

Though we ended up with this experience but the three of us still looks forward for another dive at The White Rocks!

GOOD THINGS COMES TO THOSE WHO WAIT!

Well folks, 2 more days to go!

It seems like forever since we last planned this trip. Now we're packing, getting new gears, our mind already underwater when we show up for work, and yes, looking at the clock brings new meaning - it's like being in prison and counting the days when we will be released.

We will take a fun drive (6hours) to Dungun, a boat ride to Tenggol and viola! we're on adventure mode. I heard that the titan trigger fish are pretty mean, lots of nudi branch, sea fanfares, some reef sharks and if we're really, really fortunate we might witness a whale shark coz it's mating season.

SO for those, who can't make it, sigh, what can i say except next time mate!

Wait for our stories ya, cheers!