EAT SLEEP DIVE

Day 1

And so once again, the EAT SLEEP DIVE adventure begins on a beautiful 27th night in the month of May.

Pretty packed up place, with lotsa ppl heading down to the coasts of Malaysia, queing up in line waiting for their coaches.

And here we are, 9 of us on a journey with barangs of dive bags camping outside the bus agency booth. An hour passed, and so did another, and another. After 3 hours of frustrating waits and being entertained by a quarrel between a customer and the agent, the bus.. arrived.

We were of cuz seeking compensation for this big delay, probably a free trip to gentings? :)

okay off we go, and it was long tiring journey through the night. 10 hours of ride by the way. Man, my neck ached real bad.

Day 2

We arrived at the jetty appox 1pm if i rem correctly. We have to take another 30min of boat ride to the island of perhentian. And to our surprise, its a speedboat we're taking.

And off we go! Our driver's a real F1 dude.
Overtaking boats all over and making us going WHOOO real loud, running over currents causing butts going up and down. Absolutely amazing.

Yes, we arrived safely at the island. Beautiful coasts along the beach as expected, (SG beach pure crap compareed to this) and yup, we're greet by the ang moh owners and of cuz our nice Dive Master.

We were pretty luck to get new rooms that was jus opened, jus off the coast. Compared to Pulau Aur, these rooms were heaven. And yup, like the usuals, we headed for the buffets laid down for us.

After around an hour, time to gear up for our very FIRST DIVE!

It was a Shore Dive, where we entered the waters from the shore instead of the boat. A pretty simple dive to get us used to the water. A 50min dive, saw a huge Bumphead Parrotfish, visibility wasn't that good, probably cuz its the full moon season.

We rested for about 2 hours, being treated to huge delicious cookies and amazing coffee before our 2nd dive.

This time it was in open waters. A 10min speedboat ride out to the waters. The dive site's called Sigi Bay.

I don't really enjoy this dive cuz it's pretty boring and my head's thumping pretty bad due to lack of sleep the previous day.

So after another 50min of dive, it was dinner time. Everyone was pretty shagged by then. After dinner and a time of chicken wings and wedges for supper, we headed back to the room for a time of Poker/Mahjong. By the time it was Mahjong, a few of us knocked out, including me.

Day 3

The next day is probably the highlight! Man i love every single dives!

We were supposed to gear up at 9am but didnt manage to wake up until our dear Dive Master came knocking on our doors at 850! Totally awesome, brushed our teeth and off we went to the dive shop. Suit up, grabbed our tanks, plopped our regulators on it, checked our air gauge, got our weight belts, and off we go on board!

Waking up feeling refreshed never seems so easy when you're heading for a dive. Our first dive was a Wreck Dive. TOTALLY AWESOME!

It was a pretty big wreck, though its still considered small wreck. A different experience, saw the ship lying on its side, with its huge propellers, cabin windows and etc. indescribable.

I saw the biggest puffers in my life, rare box fish, angel fish, yellow barracudas, and a bamboo shark. Man, i love the ocean.

We ascended and headed back after about 60min of dive, and went for our breakfast. About 3 hours of interval time before we headed off to our next dive site, The Tiger Rock.

Its basically 3 huge rocks and we dived around it. It's pretty challenging cuz the currents are strong. We had to fin like double the strength, draining! Sea urchins were everywhere, saw super cute species of nudibranch (they're smth like sea slugs), shrimps, and a porcupine fish.

The cool part was going through this small little 'cave', really dark and buoyancy have to be good or else you'll bump ur head all over.

Our very last dive was at this site called D' Lagoon. Very relaxing dive, beautiful sandy sea bed, very good visibility. Its like diving in the underwater world.

Saw lotsa amazing species, like the tube worms, christmas tree worm, yellow box fish, golden trevalli etc.

By the time the dive ended, it was around about 630pm. Was planning to go for night dive but in the end it was cancelled.

So off we went for dinner and also supper. The cool part is just about to begin.

4 of us were just strollling along the beaches after supper, admiring the stars and all when suddenly, our dive master came and told us she spotted a sea turtle laying eggs. The island is known for turtles to lay eggs, and they have a team of conservationists to take care of the eggs and all.

And so, the excited bunch of us took off and went to a spot by the dive shop and indeed, IT WAS A REALLY HUGE SEA TURTLE digging up the sand. We had to be really quiet, no noise, no lights, no nothing or else we'll scare him away. After a few min, quite a number came to see, but i guessed it sense smth, and off it went, back to the sea, crawling real slowly.

Amazing sighting. What a beautiful creature.

And the night continues with a time of poker and we slept around 2am.

Have to wake up by 630 cuz the boat's leaving at 730. Wished it could be longer, but once again, life has always been great when diving.