Thursday, May 25, 2006
i've found my island paradise...
the salt on my skin, the wind in my hair, a song on my lips.that basically sums up my life for the past week. i'd add more details, but words fail me. and some memories are best kept close to be cherished (alright so i'm selfish).
but it was a great trip, and totally worth the money! great company (great dive buddy?), much merriment and laughter, and a total neglect of responsibilities, work and the mundanity of everyday life. not to mention all the rubbish and crap we came up with, like the saga of the hermit crab (and how the innocent diver ends up in danger), or the sighting of the white banded angelfish, or my personal favourite, the tale of the brown marbled grouper and the titan triggerfish hovering nearby. *grin*
the bus ride was awful, i must admit in all candour. 10 hours trying to nap and doze and sleep, halfway i woke to find my nose frozen (i bet i slept more in the last week than i have in the past month). but eventually we ended up on perhentian for our first 9 dives. flora bay, 5 star PADI resort, great facilities, excellent food, the accommodation was good (aircon, comfy beds, good enough for sleeping), and the dive sites were wonderful! only qualms i had were with the low visibility underwater (but that always makes for a more exciting dive) and the fact that i had to rig up on land and lug my equipment to the speedboat (but on another note, speedboat diving is damn cool! especially when it takes mere minutes to get to the dive site).
Dive centre at Perhentian
Me with dive buddy
Puffed up pufferfishie
One of the few nudibranchs I saw in Perhentian
School of small squid(sorry the photo's so small and blurry, they swim faster than me)
Dog-faced puffer
Yellow boxfish!(my new love, at least until I can get a decent frontal shot of the tiny ones)
School of razorfish(yeah they swim upside down)
Titan triggerfish(this is one mother annoying fish. unfriendly, ugly, and stupid)
Unicorn fish (see the 4 spikes on its tail?)(though why it's called unicorn when the spikes are on the tail is beyond me...)
Spotted boxfish(it deserves an honorary mention since trying to snap a shot of it caused me to lose my buddy. and resulted in my first black tip shark sighting in perhentian!)
Jenkin's whiptail stingray hiding under a rock(this ray is huge. but while the camera was mine, the shot was taken by my dive guide, Craig, who knew where it was, unlike me. nice shot though, isn't it?)
Nurse shark! This site had sharks crawling in every crevice!!(personal favourite dive site in Perhentian, Tokong Laut, i.e. Temple of the Sea)
Filefish/Leatherjacket(apparently so named for its tough skin)
Flutemouth (trumpetfish)
Shy hermit crab(yes, i know i could've turned it around, but isn't it cuter this way?)
The cuttlefish in Perhentian really know how to camouflage...
And the obligatory group photo underwater(good photographer, but bad vis...and in case you were wondering, i wasn't the photographer)
I LOVE THIS SHOT!!!Hermit crab popped its head out to pose for the photo just as I flashed.
Here's a shot of the dining area at night(yes, i was trying to make it look nice and failing completely...)
Zamzieba shrimp!(aka the very small green shrimp on the seaweed)
These saddleback anemone clownfish were out in the middle of nowhere, fighting the current and 3 avid photographers' attention. poor things.
I wasn't just taking a random shot, this is actually a fish ok....
Zeng my crab! Oh, this is a xenon crab.(just like the shrimp, tiny thing on the seaweed. dive guide VERY protective of it. his baobei)
I was bored. so I took a random clam shot.
Been there, done that. If you've visited this blog before you'll know what this is.
I was trying for a decent clownfish shot.I will try harder in future.
And here's proof I saw a turtle, although this turtle swims faster than me.(I saw reef sharks too, but they swim a lot faster than the turtle)
Another shot of a different zamzieba shrimp(Practising my macro shots!)
I forgot what this shrimp is. Some random coral shrimp. I just happened to see it while snapping at a giant moray. And thought it looked worlds cuter than the eel.
Such pretty colours! Blue ringed angelfish.(different from the white banded angelfish...)
These are common batfish.
This, however, is a Moorish Idol (remember the scarred fish in Finding Nemo?)See the difference?
And the lionfish just keep ignoring me. Couldn't exactly pick them up and turn them around, seeing as their spines are poisonous. But what pretty colours!
Yet another failed attempt at artistry...
Stonefish, this is. I think. Or I could be just kidding and it's merely a rock.
I can explain this. Really I can. See, the dive guide had this REALLY BEAUTIFUL sunburst shot. So I tried to imitate his masterpiece with my rubbish skill and fell dreadfully short(that and my dive buddy didn't know what the hell i was doing...uncooperative)
Giant ray hiding in rocks. I'd have gone closer, but it's never wise to approach a ray from the back. After all, there's a reason why they're called STINGrays.
Ooh...this stonefish is cute. Called a demon stinger, it crawls on the sand. Like a bug. Only it can sting. Hard.
Remember the razorfish from earlier? I got a clearer picture of a pair in Redang.
Now to show the relative size of the zamzieba shrimp.
Guess what this is? It's also from Finding Nemo.
This friendly group of spadefish kept playing with us, even when we tried to catch them for lunch. But they really swim in lovely formation, just not in this shot...
and so our adventures end....for now.P.S. The photographer apologises for his inadequate skill at underwater photography. All photos are minimised for easy loading, but otherwise unedited. Stay tuned for future postings with better pictures (if he ever gets off his lazy ass to learn to use Photoshop effectively)
wen was dreaming at 3:35 AM