Salt * Wet * Fish

I’ve been to Pulau Dayang for at least six times, but never seems to be tired of it. For one, it’s a purely diver’s lodge, not nosiy children or family packs. For another, its has plenty of underwater live to admire.

Anyway, 3 weeks ago I went diving with Mako people in Dayang. None of the usual divers replied or could go along, but I liked it. I think its good to travel alone sometimes, so that you are forced to talk to other people and make friends, inside of keeping to your clique.

It must be the lowest diving seasion for only 4 divers went! 2 for their basic open waters and another advanced diver, whom became my dive buddy. There was only about 30 other people from other dive groups in Dayang for this trip. Now my dive buddy only did like 6 dives so far in his life and all in Dayang and we were to dive by ourselves in Dayang. What? No dive master with us! This mean that in a way, I have to lead the dive with my buddy! :eek:. I guess Patrick probably seen me diving before and knew that I was okay with it. Worst of all with so little people diving in Dayang, it means that if you get lost, you may not bump into anyone else in the waters who can help you.

I must say that throwing me into the deep ends really gave me a new learning curve in diving and navigating underwater. Good learning experience.

Day 1, dive 1: Telok Jawa

It’s a small beach behind P. Aur with sandy bottom. Good for beginners and checkout diving. Quite a lot of dead corals and fish life is moderate. So it’s a good place not to be distracted by the marine life and concentrate on
your diving skills. For those who dived with me before, you will know that I dive like I run, crazy finner!

Lesson 1: Diving is not about covering distance, its like looking at each product on a shelf of a supermarket.

Was adviced to do a square navigation. Okay, confident, dived in… After a distance, got disorientated, had to surface to reorientate… Decided that a straight line to and fro is that safest bet

Day 1, dive 2: Teluran

It’s a rocking cove, more marine live than Jawa, so had a nice time diving.

Day 1, dive 3: Pulau Lang

It’s the island between Aur and Dayang, along the channels. Its still one of the best places to dive. However, one must be wary of the strong channel currents at the ends of the cove. A bit out and you will be swept out to sea!

Lesson 2: Slow down and observe, you will see more. I managed to see a tiny 2 cm nudibranch only because I was checking out the sea grapes with the corals.

Patrick and the 2 girls were attacked by a relentless titan trigger, I forgot the sign for danger and just kept point my trigger finger to my buddy, asking him not to go, he did not understand me, but headed towards danger! I was wide-eyed and pull him back!

Lesson 3: revise and remember all underwater hand signals, esp. with your buddies

Lesson 4: You can attack an attacking trigger fish! Patrick apparently was pissed off the that stupid fish, that he used his jet fins and took the offensive. After a few tries the fish actually retreated!

Day 2, Dive 4: dawn dive, Pinnacle 2

A promising dawn dive unfortunately met with extremely low vis of about less than 5 meters and strong currents. The top of the mount is like 19 meters underwater. Me and buddy descended by the rope, me checked the compass and off with go, against the strong current. We were supposed to circle the mount and get back, but the strong current meant I could only go straight and return the same way. Today all the fishes must be still sleeping because its almost like a desert! Checked pressure and time and we headed back.

Got back to the place we thought was where we start (remember, there is only 2 of us around there). Damn, could not find the bloody ascend rope and air is at 70 bars already!! Heavy breath and a bit panicky now, especially having to hold on to the rock with such strong currents. We tried look for the rope again. Heard some tank banging sound, looked around but could not find anyone.

Lesson 5: Diving is not 2 dimensional, when you hear tank banging sound, other than looking around, look UP! Apparent, the other dive team saw us and knew that we were looking for the rope and was calling us to look up.

Now really time to panick, took out the safety sausage, pumped air into and it and up it goes.. ALL away, apparently I forgot to secure it to my BC!

Lesson 6: No point having safety equipments that floats away when you use them.

Super lagi panick, tank already at 50 bar and I am panting like a dog. Signal to my buddy that we have to do a free ascend upwards and skip the safety stop. Laid body horizontal and just finned slowly upwards, against
the current, hoping that I ascend around the same location. (Er… Am I doing the right thing)?

MIRACLE!! As we were going up, Patrick and the 2 girls swam in below us! Patrick knew we search for the rope, pointed in one direction and DAMN, it was only like less than 10 meters away from us!! How come we did not see it just now?

Lesson 7: When doing diving on your own, esp. on sea mounts like pinnacle. Take an accurate note of the depth where the descend rope is anchor. I thought it was 14 meters, hence, was looking around a 14 meters rock face, but it was 19 meters!

Lesson 8: Always familiarise yourself with the entry and exit point, don’t be embarrassed, swim around that area a few round to familiarise yourself with the surround and how it looks at different angles, so that you know you are there, when you are there.

Final pressure? 30 bars! Embarrassing!

Day 2, Dive 5: Dayang jetty

Jetty dive is one of my favorite, although its mostly sandy bottom, the water tend to be very clear around the jetty and there are a few nice clumps of corals and and lot of other marine life lives around the sandy areas.

Anyway, here’s there photos for my trip
http://kwongheng.fotki.com/dive_adventures/dayangaur/