Rig Wreck, Rig Reef and Elryn Wreck

Bubbly bubble coral shrimp

On 17th August this year, Emily and Ricky decided to bring their buddy who just got back from UK to a dive trip. This blog is a special dedication to Lawrence. Hope you had an enjoyable time diving with us. =)

Here comes the photos... after lots of bugging from Ricky! :P

Ricky & Lawrence

Note the kettle in the picture is found in Elryn Wreck

Ricky - Lawrence - Emily (can u look at my camera and not yours? :P)

The Threesome! - as in buddies in diving. Hee Hee...

Bibii(Ricky) - LawLaw (Lawrence) - GeeGee (Emily)

So how was the dive? From Lawrence's smiley face... I guess the dives were satisfactory! Must be the cool DM trainee that assisted the dive... ;) Hohohoho...!

Dive Marathon - 3rd September 2006

How does 2 day dives, 1 sunset dive and 1 night dive sound to you? Good? It was simply WONDERFUL! Haha.. Linda, Sebastian and myself decided to do that yesterday. It was totally cool and we were not exhausted until after the night dive!

We had decided on our sunset and night dives at Bolkiah, I was still deciding on my day dives at Rig Reef until yesterday morning. I woke up early and couldn't sleep back. Then... I thought.. Oh What the heck? Just do it! (as Nike says)

It was a beautiful day, sun shiny with 4 open water students! It was really memorable diving with them! Not that I've dived with them before. We just met. But, the memorable part comes in funny as I observed the way they dive. It reminded me of how I was before, on my first open water dive. Haha... Struggling, panicky, bad buoyancy and out-of-air fast! Haha...! So so interesting. On the 2nd dive, they were so happy to see clown fishes! Just like me before...! I just went.. Oh goodness, nemoooooooo so cute! hahah... Memories...!

We were led and supervised by Ing Ing the DM trainee and Norman was conducting the course. Linda and Sebastian were observing while I was free "Fish" wandering around and saw lots of nudibranches!!! A BIG FAT ONE and a super tiny one smaller than my fingernail! Linda passed me her camera on my 2nd dive and I managed to take some pictures.We spotted a big trumpet shell with a "snail" inside, titan trigger, a pair of harlequin sweetlips, snappers, a pair of blue-ringed angelfish, lots of moorish idols, lots of nudi branches, flatworms, giant clam, goatfish, played with a goby and partner shrimp and more... Oh.. Not forgetting.. NEMO-ssssss... :)

On the 3rd dive, the current was getting stronger. Azli the Instructor went down and came up telling us.. "Later... go down slowly.. lots of fish.. don't scare them away..." All of us went.."Woo-HOOO...! Let's go..!" Within minutes, we headed down and hoping to meet the giant groupers again. Unfortunately, the groupers had decided to feast on Vietnamese cuisine at the Vietnam Wreck. (as quoted from Cute Manta)Doh! We tried our luck again during the night dives (my fourth dive for the day!) and had gave a plan to bang our tanks to wake the groupers up, probably might be sleeping inside the wreck. At bottom, no one dares.. Haha.. Only occasional banging when spotted something cool. We spotted some goodies though.. lots of puffer! Baby pufferfish, a giant starry puffer, a map puffer and more... There was a school of barracudas with one big great barracuda, lion fishes, crabbies, lobster, cleaner shrimps, hawkfishes, scorpion fish and more... Saw the remains of the toilet in the wreck and we did a good 3 minutes penetration inside the wreck, led by Azli.

Our divemarathon ended about 10pm and we left for the shore. It was a longggg day and I could not believe that I've spent more than 12 hours in the middle of the sea, above and underwater! Haha.. Nonetheless, we had heaps of funs and Linda and her dear dear are already asking for the next one... Hmm.. This coming weekend??

Comments I received:
from dj faith
thats a pretty site . really .i mean you are great
March 19 10:02 PM (http://focmcloud95.spaces.live.com/)

Burn's Patch & Rig Reef - 6th August 2006

Are you ready to see the pygmy seahorse? "I AM...! Me Me...! I want to go...!" Basically everyone was replying along the same line, eager to see the pygmy seahorse. We ascent and examined every sea fans that we can see as potential spot for a pygmy seahorse. Sadly, we didnt get to see any. But, it's okie... that means more diving to look for the seahorse...! We spotted lots of nudibranches at Burn's Patch.

Upon surface, we took turns one by one to get up to the boat. I was 2nd in queue. When i got up, i saw reddish water dripped down from my face down to the boat. I was scared. I tot my nose was bleeding. I turned back to the sea and asked Anny. "Anny is my nose bleeding?" Anny said she can't see as her mask is fogging. I asked Angel instead who is just behind Anny. Angel replied "No. BUT U R BLEEDING ALL OVER UR SKULL! It's all over your face!" Then I laughed when the rest were shocked. I knew then it was my hair colour. I just coloured my hair red! Haha... I jumped back down to the sea and rinsed my hair. Hehe... When Anny got up, she told me... "When i heard you asked if your nose is bleeding, I knew from that point of time that i need to quickly get up to the boat." I was touched. I told Anny that it was so sweet of her that she want to quickly get up to check and make sure i am ok. (Anny is a doctor). Then, she replied, "No.. blood means shark. So i must get up quickly!" Dohh...!

On our 2nd Dive at Rig Reef... we descent and found a small patch surrounded by sandpatch... the only special thing i can remember is a juvenille titan triggerfish. Then, buddy Lee Ming asked me to pair-up and cross to sandpatch, see if we could find anything interesting. The moment we "enter" the sandpatch, we spotted a sting ray! Not Bad..! Haha... Then we swam a straight line trying to see if we can spot any other coral patches... We cant see much and I signalled to her to go back... She agreed and we went back to what we think is the reciprocal heading... Unfortunately, we didnt mark our compass and the current must have drifted us for a bit. We could not find our way back. We decided to surface. Upon surface, Jessie (boatman) together with Hj Zainal came and took us back to the anchor line. This time, Hj Zainal asked us to descend using the anchor line and it will lead us to the correct site. We decent and found a school of parrot fishes feeding! It was beautiful... We sort of followed them and observed... We spotted a few boulders and I signalled to Lee Ming to check those crevices out to see if we can spot any sharks. Haha... Towards the end of the dives, Lee Ming spotted a BIG titan trigger... it gave me a chill, reminding me of my experience in Koh Samui where a titan trigger bit my fins like a DOG!

Weather hasnt been so promising lately... I hope I can do at least go for a night dive and day dive before I begin another Land Adventure!Oh Mr. Sun .... SUN... Pls shine down on me...!

Comments I received:
from zyan
yalo... no see pygmy seahorse, i no see titan trigger :( and our buddy system very special... one north one south... supposely one buddy group 7 diver end up 3 different buddy group.. :p
August 10 10:15 AM (http://zyaneric.spaces.live.com/)

Rig Wreck & Rig Reef Night Dives - 6th July 2006

The weather has not been promising but we have been craving for night dives so much that we decided to have it on last thursday. We could not believe our eyes when we saw how calm the sea was. We were delighted. After a bit of a hiccup on the coordinates to use, we finally found the rig wreck. Thank goodness for Hj Kula's Fish Finder. There was 10 of us excluding Azli, our guide for the evening and his helpful assistant, Uwais.

There was a lot of first time in this dive. It was my first night dive on a wreck dive site. And, it was also the first dive using my own set of COMPLETE gears. I was soooooo excited over it. Beautiful view and experience!

At Rig Wreck, we saw beautiful corals which had grown on top of the desserted oil rig wrecks, a big chubby puffer, lots of shrimps and other fishes. At the reef, we were really lucky to see a seahorse. (Yes! 2nd time we spotted a seahorse!). The seahorse was spotted by Reza not long after we descent from the anchor line. SWEEETTTTT.....!! We also saw a scribbled leather jacket, parrotfishes, crabbiesssssss, shrimpsssss and more...! Azli saw a coral catshark! Damn! hehe...

We finished very late after those 2 dives, approximately 12am! We were exhausted but filled with lots of good memories. Memories of the beautiful underwater sites, of Reza's regulator's O-ring which decided to burst on him when we are planning to dive, Angel lost Norman's torch when we completed our first dive, Rachel could not find her brand new virgin torch, Tat almost lost one side of his Force Fins (Yes another fins, luckily he managed to grab hold of it when it came loose), Lee Ming having sea sick even after she took her sea sick pill (poor gal), Bitch Manta has decided that his Mares wet suit is too hot that he decided to make the hole bigger for conditioning purposes (haha!), Rachel's two on-loan torches decided to fail on her (low Batt!) and many many more.. Hmm.. I wonder if those are beautiful memories, but they are sure something that I would like to remember to put a smile of my face...

Well done, Anny & Tat! You guys had done your first night dive... and hoping for more?