Monday, September 19, 2005
Aur (Sebukang) - NUS Dive Club Trip 1!!!
I'm aching all over. Especially my heart.Just got back from another dive trip, this time with diveclub and while the dives were good, the rest sucked. As I commented to some of the learner divers, everything that could possibly go wrong is going wrong, except for the dive equipment. Such as the fact that the tide was too low, and we had to wait at the jetty for 5 hours for the tide to get higher so the speedboat could come in to bring us out to the big boat. Such as the fact that my first dive was 2 hours later than it ought to be, so I missed out on a possible dawn dive (not that I would have done it, seeing as the water's freaking cold, but it's always nice to have an option open). Such as on the return trip the bus had no aircon. And we had to wait for it to be repaired. And it broke down again after the causeway. And the place we wanted to eat dinner at? They were having a wedding banquet. (But I learnt something new...in Malaysia, their wedding dinners actually start on time, and end before 9! I wonder...is tardiness for weddings just a Singaporean phenomenon?)
And everything that went wrong? We came up with a one-size-fits-all irrefutable argument for it. It's all the new comm's fault....
Anyway, my first two dives more than made up for it. Here's an excerpt from my dive log, edited of course.
Dive 1 (Sebukang Bay): Saw moray eel. Eel posed for a shot. Saw 2 cuttlefish. Played with
them. They posed for a shot too. Saw a cute little turtle. Turtle was shy.
Dive 2 (Lang Bay): Saw moray. Someone kicked up lots of sand. But moray didn't hide. Saw BIG turtle. Like, the size of Mark. Big turtles swim really fast. Saw school of barracudas. Pretty sight. Saw triggerfish chasing bumphead.
As for my other dives, they weren't particularly noteworthy. I should've just stayed on land and played mahjong. Especially since my mask kept flooding (and I still can't figure out why...)
On my boat ride back (I lost at mahjong and had to take the smaller boat, but hey, at least I got to see flying fish!!!) I had a insightful conversation with this IANTD instructor. Btw, IANTD stands for International Association of Nitrox and Technical Divers, which is a different form of diving, like there's PADI (the commercial one), NAUI (the NUS one), and SSI (the other one). IANTD's rather technical, cos instead of air, you breathe a mix of oxygen and nitrogen (yes that sounds like air, but trust me, it's different), and that allows you to go deeper, stay underwater longer, and have a shorter surface interval. Basically, there's a higher composition of oxygen in the mixture. And that prevents you from getting decompression sickness and nitrogen narcosis. Strange and obscure diving lingo? Basically, those are bad things. It sounds really fun. But the course is like $600 plus. And that's not including the equipment you'll probably need. But I might learn it one day. Suffice to say, we spent about 4 hours on the boat discussing diving (he was talking, I was listening, mainly because he's got 13 years of diving experience and I have 6 months) and I learnt that he's really lucky, because he's a full time diver, and his work is diving. And he gets paid to dive. And I wish I could just do that as well. Throw away law school and spend my life sailing. (this goes back to a long discussion I had back in JC....)
It's really strange what you learn on dive trips. Like where the good dive sites are. And how much you still don't know about the underwater world. And how girls these days are awfully odd. Like how they refuse to let you carry their heavy dive bags when they're obviously struggling and you're just watching with nothing in hand. But hey, who's complaining? Chivalry's dead anyway. Hooray for feminist rights. Or maybe I didn't ask enough times. Someone once told me about the 2 question rule, which is like when you ask a girl something, you have to ask twice or more. So she can politely refuse the first time out of form's sake. But maybe I got it wrong.
I also learnt something new. You never know what you really have until you lose it. Like love. And affection. Like how you've always counted on someone being there for you, such that you end up taking said person for granted, and totally neglect the person. And when said person leaves, you realise how much your world relied upon that person, and there's a gap that nobody can fill. And no matter how much you try not to think about it, the emptiness is always there, like an ache that won't go away. The empty seat beside you, the echoes of lost laughter, the missing camaraderie. Well, it happened to me too. My Oakleys, I miss you so....
Moving on, you get strange dreams on the 4 hour boat ride there. Like my friend dreams of manta rays. And I dream of staring at the sea, seeing flying fish and enjoying the waves. Oh wait. I wasn't dreaming. It's funny sometimes, how when, staring at the sea, with nothing in your mind, the things you thought you forgot come back to you. Like the dreams you once had. Like how you planned to be happy sailing around the world and with nary a care in the world. Or to be a beach bum and spend your days suntanning. For that brief 4 hours, reality's suspended and you're a kid with dreams and hopes again, and the horizon's endlessly stretching forth. It's like you're on a high, eventually, you're gonna hafta hit the earth hard, but while it lasts, savour the moment. Then you get back to Singapore, and the dreary reality hits. There's no time for dreams here, no time for clowns who have their head in the clouds and listen to Disney songs all day. People have to study hard so they can earn big bucks in future.
You're a law student, with a closed memo assignment due today when you're still happiliy blogging away.
wen was dreaming at 2:02 AM