Tioman 20 - 22nd June 08

Day 1:
Journey to Tioman from Singapore means a 3-4hr coach ride plus a 3hr ferry ride and we reached the resort at 3am last Saturday. We gotta get ready for the 1st dive at 10am the same morning ^_^

Day 2:
Dive #1 - 6 meters of clear water, seeing the sea bed, corals and some fish. Wow.. Exciting and yet fearful, we made our very 1st virgin descend.. encountering sharp pain in the ears, we had to equalize - press the nose and blow hard so that the ear drums do not get blocked and pressure not exerted.. I didn't do very frequently but my dive buddy constantly reminded me to =)
We were required to do some skills (already being taught in the pool training previously) and being accessed. I was very clumsy in water and kept 'floating' around. The technical term is 'buoyancy'. I was later told that I need to control my breath well in order to control my buoyancy.

Dive #2 - almost 10 meters deep and gosh.. I could feel my ears.. of course, there are more corals and variety of fish swimming past us! It's simply amazing :p we tried to keep within our group; not to 'float' away uncontrollably. 'Bumping' around, I tend to kneel on some corals and touching them. Hence, I ended up with many cuts on my palms :( Vision was not that good and I was a bit scared.. clinging on to my dive buddy and we went hand-in-hand under the waters (in case we lost each other).

Dive #3 - I dropped my weight belt unknowingly and could not descend at all! Being tired and scared (as I could not see anything from the surface), I decided to give this dive a miss.. well, kinda fed up for being clumsy and stupid ^_^

Day 3:
Dive #4 - supposed to start off at 7am in the morning but we ended up descending at 9am (after taking breakfast). We were required to do some navigation under water and I didn't perform well :( kinda lost and blur.. *sign* When we went up to the water surface, the water was very rough and choppy. I felt like a downing victim from a capsized boat! The waves kept towering over us and we had to use our regulators to maintain our breathes properly. Since the weather was not too good, we stopped the session quite soon as we were all nauseous and vomiting. The boat was rocking like mad and I was having headaches..

Dive #5 - still having headaches, I decided to give the last dive a miss.. even when that means I would not get the PADI cert.. I am totally not confident at all and feel not qualified to pass the test. Out of 5 dives, we need to complete the skills and dive 4 times. I did only 3.. my dive master encouraged and advised me to go for leisure dive next time so that I can complete the course to get the certificate. Anyway I have completed the required skills!

phew.. tough but exciting and it's an eye-opener ;)