~min~

posted by admin on Mar 30

Had a relaxing wkend at Bali… so relaxing until i was lazy to blog too.. hahaha…

It was quite a big group - 7 OWCs, 1 DSD, 1 RC, 4 leisure & 6 non-divers. Crew - Me & Suresh. Chris decided to join us on Thu evening and bought his 1 way ticket to Bali over the Lionair check-in counter at 4.30am Fri.

The guys played cards the whole night. i only lasted until 2am b4 i zzzed for 2 hrs n woke up extremely grouchy.. grrr.. so luckily there was suresh n chris to face the 3 customers who flew with us.. K.O.ed on the flight and woke up to a sunny Bali! n i was slightly chirpy… K.O.ed again on the car ride to Padang Bai and woke up finally ready to start the wkend…

after settling logistics n lunch, dive 1 @ Blue Lagoon (2+pm) : bright n sunny but water surface was abit choppy. Managed to bring 5 students down the line but current suddenly picked up n even i couldn’t pull 5 students back to the line.. so wat the heck, jus go with the flow lar.. n we were quickly swept out to the wall.. even tho i was busy managing the students, but we drifted past lotsa fishes! looks good! but poor students were too nervous to enjoy.. so in the end we ended the dive and waited for boat to pick us up.. n thank u S for being a super-zai rescue student who was on standby all the way, ready to assist any panicked diver.. hahaha

dive 2 @ padang bai again (4+pm) : super flat, super calm.. while descending to tie buoy and a small fat SHARK with a remora swam past!!! TOTALLY COOL!! hahah.. but dunno lucky or unlucky dat none of the students got to see it. anyway, nice sandy bottom for students to “show-off” wat they’ve learnt in the pool.. some were good, some abit slower.. did a short 5 mins tour w 1 student (the rest with suresh n chris) and i was quite contented to see some fishes including a school of juvenile barracudas followed closely by a school of jacks.. not bad at all for 5 mins..

dive 3 on Sat morning @ blue lagoon (again) : nice & flat conditions again. skills again. i did 4 CESAs (maybe cos i lazy n always pick the easy students who happend to b nearby). Brought 50bar student back to the boat (it was a suresh n chris tour again). Brought Mr Buoy back to the boat.. Air check. ok. attempted to relocate S&C tour grp but not easy cos there were suddenly many many dive boats n divers ard.. but saw many garden eels, many fishes and even a lone squid. Was just abt to give up when i saw familiar fins n boardshorts at the surface so i ended my 3rd dive accordingly.

dive 4 erm still at Blue Lagoon but another corner : same format. cleared skills. sent 4 to join the suresh tour. 2 joined the chris tour. the 1 w equalisation difficulty followed me. still qte nice n relaxed tho we lost the chris tour after a while. after 50 mins, we did our safety stop w a giant (maybe confused) school of surgeons, sweetlips, snappers, fusiliers, drummers, rabbitfish, 1 big but definitely confused star puffer, etc.. at 5 m, i was holding onto my SMB and totally amused as i recognised the various fishes which were all swimming together!!

final fun dive @ ……………… (can’t rem name but it was the wall jus outside blue lagoon n we ended the dive back at blue lagoon too) : very relaxing leisure dive (other than the fact I had a few over-excited or blur divers who almost followed the wrong dive leader (cos at least they turned back 1/2 way) and 1 whom i had to chase after n bring back.. we saw leaf scorpion n 1 diver almost gave me heart attack when he reached out n tried to touch it. luckily i faster than him.. den another joker tried to poke the peacock mantis shrimp with his spg n got a slap on his hand from me.. oh, the mantis shrimp was running amok out in the open cos it prob got scared by a baby lionfish dat crossed its path under the ledge.. quite interesting… cos initially i cldn’t see the lionfish anymore n was horrified for a moment cos i thot the mantis shrimp ate it! anyway, i think i saw alot more fishes but cos i haf been so nuah n can’t rem properly now.. hahaha..

anyway, we had a relaxing no-fly sunday cos we found 2 local cabbies who brought us to super yummy bak-so and mee soto ayam, a very good massage place which wasn’t too ex (US$40 for 120 mins traditional oil massage) and a nice chill out pub with pool table and dart machines and tasty fries, chicken wings (must request the bbq sauce to be served separately) n calamari with cheap beer.. it was truly good fun!!

followed by the expected K.O. on the flight back and super black face… hahahaha.. but it was a good trip and i definitely look forward to seeing some of these students again!

posted by admin on Mar 27

posted by admin on Mar 10

It was a relaxing weekend with nice students and divers and surprisingly good conditions

Dive 1 @ Pulau Lang was wonderful as usual. We were the 1st group there and rewarded with sightings of 3 pairs of cuttlefish, 2 big morays, 1 turtle, school of juvenile barracuda, curious batfishes, GIANT lone barracuda and no triggerfish :D the only missing residents were the bumphead parrotfish.. but guess we were too early and missed them cos Perry who was there slightly later than us did meet the bumphead family.

Cool part of the dive was the 3 pairs of cuttlefish. Initially we spotted only 4 cuttlefish, of which 1 bigger male was flashing very striking red and white striped patterns.. (i wan my camera!!!) Waited a while hoping to see some mating action but dun haf leh… so we continued our dive to meet the morays, a small lazy turtle hiding among the corals who totally bo-chuped us (i wan my camera!!!) , etc.. on our way back with 2 curious batfish following us (i wan my camera!!!), we met the cuttles again and this time, 2 more frens have joined the party, with another flashing male… swweeet! (i wan my camera!!!) anyway, I was totally amused by a small cuttle which followed student T (i wan my camera!!!) and when I next checked on T again, this time I saw T following the small cuttle very closely and I REALLY WANT MY CAMERA!!! It wld have been a great interaction shot cos the small cuttle was fearless and looked suspiciously like it was flashing its patterns to attract T… hahaha…

Well, we were happy enough to dive with and observe the cuttles but Perry later showed us video of the cuttlefish depositing her eggs inside the corals.. damn good luck lar!

dive 2 @ Telok Jawa and dive 3 @ Pulau Pinang were so-so.. Visb at Pinang was bad compared to Lang and Jawa so we were hoping to see Mr M or Mr WS but they were prob taking their afternoon nap… :S

night dive @ Lang was quite nice.. boat capt warned us to stay inside the cove to avoid strong currents that will sweep us out of Lang bay.. so avg depth for my night adventure dive was 5.1m.. most interesting find was a greenish thingy with slight brownish patterns which I stared at for quite long b4 it turned slightly and finally revealed a recognizable snail-like shell.

dawn dive @ rayners was good too.. on our way to the usual sandy bottom for our u/w adventure task, we met the giant puffer and 3 baby lionfishes.. the rest of the dive, we saw many angelfishes, schools of fusiliers and juvenile snappers, turtle swimming to the surface to breathe, the lone giant giant bumphead was hiding under its usual ledge (always damn cool to see its BIG “face” and TEETH), blue-spotted ray, school of bumpheads.. students were happy enough so I was happy too

last dive @ dayang tip had excellent visb so it was a relaxing chill-out dive even tho the WS was too dao to come visit.. n i realised when i stared too long into the blue, i wld start to see spots.. maybe tis is whaleshark narc! hahaha…

overall John and I agreed that it was a relaxing trip with nice and easy customers but yet we were both really really really tired… OLD LIAOZ!!!

n the 09 season starts……………………………………………

posted by admin on Feb 23

Haven’t blog very long but this is too exciting not to record it down!

Didn’t bring my camera and saw many many many things!! Shall wait for Debby’s and Cindy’s photos.

Two 70+ mins dives.. (shiok ah!)

Things spotted:

1) at least 2 black-margined glossodoris

2) 1 girdled glossodoris

3) 1 ornate cadlinella (need to double check photos b4 confirming ID)

4) at least 7 ceratosoma, incl 1 baby one that was stretching its body out and swaying in the open with only its tail attached to the coral (dunno which type of ceratosoma tho)

5) 1 big ocellate phyllidia

6) many flabellina (din bother counting)

7) 2 flatworms - 1 big, 1 giant

1 allied cowrie

9) 1 big fat live cowrie

10) 1 carpet eel blenny (whose body really looked like an eel)

11) whip goby (ok fine, i will go check my fish ID book for a better ID)

12) 1 orange oyster (quite big to me)

13) 1 super super super super COOL and CUTE snakey bornella (jialat, i think i fell in love with it!)

14) 1 white tritonia (not sure abt this.. gotta wait for photos to check!)

15) 4 tiger-tail seahorses!!!! (yes, seahorses at Hantu is no longer a legend for me!)

16) 4-5 juvenile yellow tail barracudas

and the usual butterfly fishes, many crabs, gobies, etc..

so even tho I didn’t see the octopus Ivy’s group saw but I am already VERY HAPPY and SATISFIED with my two 70+ mins dives..

Many thanks to Debby for showing me black corals, purple sponge dat looks like a dandelion, serpent corals (some with numerous tiny flatworms which i would have thought were pigmentation!)

Thanks Jimmy for squeezing me and Cindy onto the boat yesterday!

Afternote: after googling for Snakey Bornella, realised dat cute feller is a resident at Hantu and quite commonly spotted.. yay!

posted by admin on Jul 15

http://divemin.orpheusteam.com/?page_id=94

~min~

Hantu 29 March 2009 - 5th anniversary full day trip!

Bali 20-22 Mar 09

Protected: a crack dat can’t be mended..

Dayang 6-8 Mar 09

Hantu 22 Feb 2009

Hantu 30 June 2007