Sun & Salt Baked. I am all that yummy goodness!

Back from Tioman, say hello to PADI's latest certified Advanced Open-Water Divers! The first Tioman trip ever, and we had a lovely stay at Paya Beach Resort. My last dive was at least 10 months ago before this trip, so... I almost forgot (how typical :p) how to rig up the tanks and all. Thank goodness it didn't take too much effort to remember.

During the familiarization dive that we went down on, I swear it just felt so damned good to be back in the water. Hello, underwater forest! Hello, every creature that decided to stick its head out to greet these alien-looking figures finning around so awkwardly in their premises. There were quite a number of firsts that happened on this trip too; nosebleeds (imagine my horror), night dive (awesome view greeted us when we got out of the water), deep dive (25m this time round), square navigation (I think my divemaster will be laughing at me for a long time to come, for whatever I did down there lol), feeling the slightest surges of the currents, the nudibranches and a big-assed cuttlefish.

Nosebleeds

I was a kiasu newbie who was so afraid of not equalizing enough as we ventured deeper into the waters, and so, I guess I somewhat 'over-equalized' (if there's such a term) to compensate for my worries and unfortunately, broke some capillaries in my nose. 

Didn't realize it until I surfaced and being the newbie I am, started thinking to myself "oh shit, I must've broke my ear drums or something" when I saw all that blood on my mask. It didn't hurt one bit, but the blood just sort of freaked me out a little. Heh. Lesson learnt, I'm never going to equalize so hard and frequently in future.

Night Dive

Armed with an additional piece of equipment, the almighty dive torch, we made our descents as a group. It was clumsy and awkward, to say the least. I was definitely not used to the complete darkness but I sure hope I'd do better the next time round! It was mainly a sandy-bottomed place, the site we went to, and we tried our luck spotting whatever we could find on the seabed. Got quite a shock when I felt a ticklish sensation on the hand holding the torch and I saw more than tens of dozens of pink-coloured phytoplankton/baby shrimps/baby fishes buzzing around, bumping into the torch. Whatever that was, they were light-seeking and quite a mini tornado formed wherever the divemaster's torch shone.

When we finally surfaced from our dive, in the instructor's words, we saw (in the instructor's words) the most beautiful sight in the night sky. Okay, not so much of the aurora borealis (yet), but it was cloudless and half the galaxy was up there sparkling for us. It's an awesome feeling to see such a beautiful star-studded sky when you've just had a great underwater experience.

More funny stories soon okay!

ps. I'm missing the jaw aches already.