Hello 
I was on a boat last weekend. A mad rush to pack on friday evening and then slipping through crazy traffic, across the mountain range, stopping for chinese food in a tin shack on the side of plantation roads and ending up onto a lonely jetty on the east coast of malaysia. A weekend of living on a dive boat with a mix of people – teenaged virgin divers, old seadogs, bunch of people doing their rescue diver course, singaporeans with expensive underwater filming gear Captain, famous chef mary and the boat crew.
Up early in the morning to view clear warm water (31 celsius), blue skies and coconut trees. Tropical diving awesomeness, with colorful fishes everywhere and water visibility 30m? That means, as clear as swimming pool water. If we weren’t diving, we were napping, eating or jumping off the side of the boat. Ok, slight correction. This trip, I was the ONLY person jumping off the boat. I did have several “coaches” telling me to arch my back more, point my toes and watch out for people flushing the boat toilets (!!)
Unfortunately I didn’t get to go in the little boat to explore the island and snorkel in the mangroves. Instead I was practising towing, resuscitating on the surface”unconscious diver”, “hysterical diver”… and all that fun stuff for rescue diver certification. I learnt several things, firstly it’s fun to be towed on your back by people “rescuing” you. Secondly, it’s fun to be entertained by noisy people who make many jokes about head jobs, neoprene and orgasm sounds while being rescued (^^) And lastly, if you have to resuscitate an unconscious diver on the surface of the water, keep their head above water and tow them back to the boat, the person would be dead by the time you get there, if they weren’t already dead when you pulled them to the surface.
Hmm.
Back to the colourful fishes. Did a night dive next to the island, with obligatory bioluminescent plankton arm waving actions… think leo dicaprio’s “beach” movie (^^) Last dive really made my trip, finally got to swim with a turtle, see a shark and poke my camera at some moray eels. Because we all did a 1 hour dive, almost ran out of air, came up with 4-5 feet swells rocking the boat threatening to bash our heads in with the metal platform, teenaged divers swimming amok all over the place… who later became extremely seasick teenagers lying half dead around the boat….
Good times.
Enjoy the pic! x
Shi