Monday, September 05, 2005
ups and downs
I went diving this weekend. Atlantis Bay Resort, Pulau Aur, 2nd to 4th Sept. Back to the spot where I first got my Open Water, this time, to get my Advanced. For those who don't know, here's what you need to do for PADI Advanced Open Water: learn to navigate underwater (I believe they do this in NAUI Open Water...at least, I saw people with compasses walking around with pails on their heads during Dive Camp), do a night dive, do a deep dive, and a multi-level dive. Most of which I'd done before, rather illegally I might add. But then again, rules are made to be broken generally right?So, some eventfuls before I wax lyrical about the beauty of the undersea world. (By the way, most people travel overseas for a holiday. I do things differently, I go under the sea...)
This trip, I went out with a whole new group of people, but one remarkable thing was, I wasn't the youngest guy around this time!! It was a 13-year-old kid. Lucky boy. I mean, if I had the opportunity to dive when I was 13...man....I'm how envious. And I'm terribly impressed, I mean, he came out alone. And how many 13 -year-old kids would forfeit a school holiday to go diving alone with a bunch of strangers? Or to that effect, how many parents would let their 13-year-old son go diving with a bunch of strangers? My parents still aren't comfortable letting ME go diving. Okay, he got seasick and all, but hey, for a 13-year-old kid, he dives better than some people I've seen. At least he doesn't panic underwater. Or murder cute little Nemos.
And talking to the people on this trip, I realised I've really gotta make use of the time I have in NUS to dive dive dive. I mean, yes, I'm broke and all now, but at least I've still got the energy and vitality (sorta...). Past a certain age, you may have the money, but you probably can't find the time, or take even longer to recover from a dive (one of the guys told me he usually aches for 2 days after returning from a dive, which totally shocked me, cos I never knew you'd have a bodyache after diving....)
Some other notables:
We got dropped at the wrong spot (current was pulling us away from the reef rather than towards it) so instead of climbing back on board and shifting location, we opted to be lazy, hang on to a rope and let the boat tow us. Important: Never do something that stupid ever again. Reason being, while it's considered good fun to be dragged behind a speedboat at insane speeds, most of the time the ropes have a nice handle covered in rubber. And not a thin nylon rope that slips through your grasping fingers. So, the next time you see Jackie Chan or some other Hollywood star get dragged through the water by a speedboat and hanging on to a rope, and still find the energy to climb up the rope and back on the boat, remember, it's all FAKE!!! Because merely hanging on to a rope towed by a fishing boat was the most hellish ten minutes of my diving experience. And looping my fingers around the rope nearly got them removed.
Night dives are fun. You lurk in total darkness, and save for the glaring underwater lights everyone is using to see and which makes everything underwater seem as bright as day, the sea is pitch dark, and a far cry from the sunlit corals of the day. Okay, so I'm rambling, but the main thing is, a night dive is really fun, although really cold as well (I actually wore a wetsuit for once, cos it was raining and I was freezing so much in the last dive my extremeties were numb). You get to see a lot of fish sleeping (meaning you could theoretically sneak up behind them and get a free dinner, not that I'd do it of course!) and a whole lot of other stuff that don't come out during the day. Only problem is, it's quite a solo dive, cos whenever you try to show somebody what you just saw, it probably already ran away cos your light startled it. And there's no point going around without a light, cos you can't possibly see without it. So, I guess it's a lose-lose situation, and hence we might as well just enjoy the dive and forget about being friendly...
I'll post the pictures when I get them from my friend (the disadvantages of not owning an underwater camera...), and yes, I've finally managed to upload pictures on my blog again! (for those of you who have been wondering why my posts've been so boringly wordy, fret no further!) So I'll let the photos speak for themselves and save myself the trouble of remembering what I saw. Because I'm lazy. And sunburnt. And very sad.
Sad because life is full of ups and downs. Which is a good thing, because if you didn't go up and down, you'd never be able to dive much. Sad because the roof of the boat was leaking so I didn't get much sleep. Sad because I'm sunburnt. And because I have no more money but I still want to dive. And buy diving equipment. Sad because there's no hot babe who's diving with me (but alright, that's understandable). And lastly, sad because some Malay fisherman (or fisherwoman) out there has my FREAKING OAKLEYS!!!! Yeah, I'm rather distraught here. But I can't really blame anybody other than myself, because I accidentally left my shades overnight on the boat. And just because it was safe to leave the dive equipment on board....didn't mean that it was safe to do the same with shades...apparently. And I got to see some magic in the bargain! I left my shades in my mask case, and the next morning, the shades had transformed into....a hairpin! WOW.... But nevermind. I lost my shades. Which cost a lot. But I learnt a lesson. And life is fair. The person who stole my shades will wake one day to find himself drowning in pork. Or with a pig in his bed. And so there.
I dreamt of you again. I wonder what it meant. But now you're gone, and I won't see you for quite some time. So I wonder.
wen was dreaming at 1:38 AM