Friday, July 15, 2005
Dive Camp 2005
Just came back from NUS Dive Camp, from 11th to 15th July....a week spent out on the sunny island of Pulau Aur (Sebukang), with just the sun, sand and the sea (primarily the sea, I don't really care about the rest) and most importantly, no work or handphones! That's the way life should be....I miss it already. Basically, four words can sum up my entire week. Sleep. Eat. Dive. Mahjong. The perfect life for a beach bum like me.
What was the week like? Well, you already know how it went for me. The rest of them (those who came for Open Water and not leisure) had to sit through boring lectures and pool sessions by the shore while I was playing mahjong, talking with the dive club people, and having a ball of a time....but I'm sure they had fun. Come on, I was all by myself, and my entire OG was together!
Oh, and I had a pretty funky group! It was called Amboyna (whatever that means...I hope I spelled it right). But what made us so funky, was that we spent all our time not playing along with the games, finding loopholes and shortcuts, and playing either Taiti or mahjong, and somehow, we still ended up second place! And got free T-shirts from DiveJunkie as well. So, we rock! (Friendly....friendly!) I can still remember, we had to do a skit, and the whole plot for the skit came about a few hours before we had to perform it. And it was done in between games of Taiti. And we still came in first. I have nothing more to say. ^_^
There were the usual complements of beach games, orientation games, fright night, etc etc, blah blah blah. I only liked frisbee. And suntanning. And stealing a canoe to go ride out in the water. Though I hated the fact that it was fibreglass (I'd totally forgotten how much fibreglass cuts sting!!!) But it was the feeling of totally chilling and lazing out in the sun with nary a care in the world other than avoiding a sunburn.
Right. About the diving. Heh. I can't say much. I think the pictures speak for themselves (when they're uploaded). But to sum it up in simple words, I saw a cuttlefish for the first time. I saw a stingray swimming through the water for the first time. I saw many moray eels. I saw many blue spotted stingrays. I saw turtles, stonefish, big fish, small fish, you get the idea.
The water in Aur's pretty clear. And very beautiful. But the food at Sebukang sucks, especially in comparison to Atlantis Bay Resort. And I hear the water at Redang's especially clear and beautiful. Next dive trip anyone?
Sea slug. With frills.
I can't see anything. Can you?
Pufferfish. Of course I didn't make it puff. I'm nice.
This fish changes colours as it moves through the corals. It's a chameleon-fish! (yah right)
School of bumphead parrotfish. Take into account they're about as long as I am tall.
Isn't it just so cute? I call them puppy-fish eyes.
What a shy fish. (It's a barramandi cod)
This moray doesn't look very friendly. More like hungry...
2 OGs and our lame forfeit (it's a candlelight dinner for two)
Lovely sunset. I took it. I've got more like it.
And last but most of all, my ultra-funky-cool OG Amboyna. Chillllwen was dreaming at 11:59 PM