Blue Water Wreck & American Wreck - 23rd July 2006

BW IV - The Manta's BACK! Haha....
Nice to be back to blue water again this month! It has been a hot-spot for divers lately. We were delighted to see the water was so calm, so clear and so BLUEEEE.... We geared up and headed down excitedly. We were looking for the school of batfishes but couldnt find any. Instead, we saw lotsssssss of barracudas, jacks and trevallies. I was surrounded by barracudas at one point that it gave me a chill down my wet suit! hehe... We met the usual residents there, namely the trumpet fish, the lion fishes, the stone fishes (this time i spotted a small one too), clown and titan trigger fish and more. Uwais and Joseph spotted a 1-metre long sting ray! (Dammit! i didnt see that one). Upon ascent, we spotted one batfis following us to our safety stop to say GOODBYE... Till we meet again at blue water....

This trip, we had the BEST surface interval picnic ever! Rachel brought curry chicken and bread, and tuna sandwiches! YUM YUM! Linda brought macaroni salad and egg sandwich. Elvin brought nasi lemak and roti telur! GOSHNESS... I ate till I felt that I needed extra weight to make me sink! After the sumptuous meals (hehe) we headed for American wreck. "Captain" Elvin took over the control of the boat to bring us there. Azli was the first to head down for the wreck, making sure that we are at the right place and set the anchor line to lead us straight to the wreck. He came up and briefed us that the current was strong and do not let go of the anchor line. We dressed in, backroll down and grab hold to the anchor line. When everyone's ready, we headed down. I took the lead, followed by Uwais, Linda, Joseph and... I cant see the rest... the underwater current was so strong that I literally horizontal while holding on to the anchor line. At about 10 metres, I stopped and I could only see Joseph, Linda, Uwais and Azli. Didnt even notice he was behind me. But... where are the rest? I could not see my Elvin, Sau Wei and Rachel. Azli signalled to ask me where are there. I signalled back - I donno. He signalled to ask us to descent and he will go up to check. We paired up - Linda and myself, Joseph and Uwais. We descent and the current is better. We heard the boat engine started, I suspect that they got drifted and Azli went to pick them up. We then went around the wreck, spotted nudibranch, cleaner shrimps and then I went around to look for bullets as promised to show Linda. Yes, I managed to find it and Uwais spotted a slate with condolences messages to the victims of the ship. At this point, we were reunited with the rest of the divers. Unfortunately, we had also reached our max bottom time and we need to ascend. I signalled to Azli and he also noticed that Rachel has lost her weight belt and could not sink. We ascent, to the disappointment of the rest.

Joseph has requested to do another shallow dive near a Red Buoy. We took abt 30 minutes break and then headed down for our 3rd dive. As advised by Azli, it is good for us to do the shallow dive as it will be like an extended safety stop after 2 deep dives. Again, the current is as strong but we have decided to do a drift dive this time and Azli will follow our bubbles. Joseph took the lead and we followed. Interestingly, this is the most relaxing dive as we hardly need to kick. Just let the current take us around. We spotted lots of gobies and some anemone fishes... We stayed for a good 20 minutes before surfaced to an island for yet another picnic! BLOATED....!

What did I enjoy most in this dive trip? The FOOD! Haha...!

Blue Water Wreck - 9th July 2006

Now.. I've got BW II - The Return... for Blue Water III... it will be... BW III - The Orange Cloud...

The day before BW III dive, it was pouring! Pouring so hard that DI Normie asked me to pray to wutever God i prayed to for good weather. Although I didnt manage to pray, someone must had because the sea was calm and the weather was just right! Within 25minutes or so, we arrived Blue Water and found the marker buoy...! Excellentttt.... The batfishes were alreday showing their fins to greet us. (Cute Manta tot that it was a shark. Hmmm....) After a quick briefing from DI Normie, we all geared up and back-rolled down.... We were happy to meet our "frens" there again; the batfishes, barracudas, yellow-tail trevallies, jacks, the huge stonefish, groupers, clown triggerfish, long-nose hawkfishes and others...We also saw some bones from either a big fish or turtle perhaps? While doing our safety stop, we suddenly saw wut i call " The Orange Cloud" that's coming towards the wreck. In my heart, I thought "OMG, was it a shark attacking some big fish that is bleeding?" When at surface, I asked DI Normie and he told me that it was a school of Krills! No wonder the trevallies and batfishes had their mouth wide-opened! It was as if they were saying "YAY..! FOOD! FEEDING TIME...!"

During our surface interval, which is also OUR feeding time (haha!), we saw a liveaboard ship - The Dive Master from Thailand. The DM from the DM boat came and greeted us. He then told us at 34metres which is bottom right after the descent line, we can actually see black and yello frog fish! We decided to look for it. Me and Eugene was searching for frogfishes when suddenly we heard ring-ring... it was Elvin's ringer and he spotted something! I turn to look for him but Chang's fins was stirring up too much sand and the viz went very bad. I couldnt see a thing and just wait for the sand to settle. I then saw something.. what i tot really look like a frog! When the viz got clearer, i found out that it was just a metal from the wreck and my imagination! I must be thinking too hard of frog fish! haha.. Elvin then pointed at a cuttlefish. So he rang becos he saw the cuttlefish... Doh! But, oh well.. better then seeing nothing and spending less dive time at 34m.

We went to Rusukan Kecil for our 3rd dive. The current was sooooooooooo strong that Angel couldnt complete her underwater navigator. Anny managed to pass her Advanced skill! Yay..! We got up after like 15 to 20mins... we were drifted and could not swim back to the boat. Thank God for the "Storm Whistle" that we managed to call Hj Kura to the rescue! Haha...

Wonder what the next episode of blue water will be called? Next dive... night dive anyone?

Blue Water Wreck - 25th June 2006

I would like to call this dive... episode Blue Water II - The Return...! :) Hehe

It is indeed another good dive trip at Blue Water. The journey there is always painful. Longggggggggg ride.. this time it takes us longer. It felt like 50mins ride there. I cant be sure as i didnt keep track of the time. To make the ride more painful, the wind was strong causing current. After the choppy ride, we finally spotted the buoy tied to the wreck. We were delighted, excited and cud not wait to get into the water.

The viz was excellent! As we descent from the anchor line, i was once again mesmerised by the beauty of the wreck with the backdrop of blue blueeeeeee blueeeeeee water.... Sweet! It was such a pretty site that i felt that i might miss something when i blink my eyes.

On the first dive, we spotted a school of barracudas, yellow fin jack, batfishes, lion fishes, 2 trumpet fishes, 2 white-eyed morray eels and long-nose hawkfishes (Eugene told us that these fishes usually eats the pygmy seahorse, so if u c them, that means u cant see pygmy seahorse ). The batfishes were so cheeky and playful that they followed us to our 5 metres safety stop, playing with us, swimming ard us making the 5 mins safety stop felt so short. There was also a small golden-coloured fish (pai seh i dunno wut it is called) that claimed territory at the buoy line at abt 6 metres. The first dive was so good that we decided to return for a second dive. Chegu, Dk and a few more divers on the 2nd boat decided to go to Kuraman instead. Imagine changing tanks with the current so strong? After some tiring tanks exchanged (thanks to the guys especially those future DMs :)), we went down for our 2nd dive. It was again an excellent dive, the special sea creatures spotted were cleaning shrimps and a huge stonefish about 1 feet long. We also spotted a sleepy lionfish. Hehe... The underwater current was strong on the 2nd dive and it felt really short but tiring.

After the dives, we headed to Kuraman Island to look for the other boat. We had fried chicken wings, noodles and milo kosong to keep our body warm! :) hehe... We rested there for about 3 hours as the wind are strong and we had to wait for it to settle down. Linda played with a tortoise who then decided to pee on her hands. hehe... Eugene were happily playing with the dogs there and had been given a new nickname as Papa Gene by Cute Manta. The Bitch decided to join in and started feeding the dogs. We met up with Clovis and his family who decided to spend their Sunday picnic at Kuraman.

Papa Gene was really happy with this site. I was glad to hear that and i asked "Will you come back to Blue water again?" He replied, "OF COS!" Hmm... I wonder when episode BW III will be out?

Comment I received:
from zyan
ni jiu suang lo... can go blue water wreck dive... i have to wait till mid of july.(http://zyaneric.spaces.msn.com/)June 26 9:33 AM

My reply to the comment received:
ni jiu suang lor... got us as ur pom-pom supporter.. nvm la.. after ur "NBA" tournament we will bring u again? but u pay urself ar... hehee... "wor yau juo xin cher"... vroom vroom vroom...! :P(http://keileem.spaces.msn.com/)June 27 5:54 PM