diving in malapascua cebu island

i felt a little nervous prior to this trip to be honest, because it was such a long time since i last dived and i have never dived without mel by my side. thank god for the great recommendation we had wilmar from exotic dive as our DM. he was the best!

this is the infamous Thresher Shark that we have come all the way for. we saw a total of 5 sharks in 2 sightings. the sharks were swimming really close to us on our second sighting.

malapascua is such a small island such that everyone we met was either wilmar's friends or cousins or neighbours! they took us around the island on their bikes for just a small fee and it was really fun. i have always loved riding on bikes.

wilmar was sporting enough to strike a cheesy pose with us.

beautiful sunset behind us marks an enjoyable end to our trip.

was a great decision to dive this time. weather, accommodation, food and people were all good here. and it is to Philippines - a country i have never visited. i hope to keep visiting places i have never been!

ngee ann poly open water in tioman

for the first time i'm on a 'business trip' - ie: i'm part of the dive crew and not a regular paying customer. brought a group of ngee ann poly students up to tioman for their open water scuba diving course over this weekend. i'm also using my personal dive gears for the first time, yup i bought a full set of dive gears for $1,600!! oh well in a way i think it's worth it because i dive much better now compared to using the rental gears...his name is Donovan and he's one of the students, DAMN BLUR.. but very cute. haha...how blur?? - he forgot to attach the hose from the air tank to his BCD. and he was frantically asking us "why dont have air one??"... =_=|
CJ and me the ralf tech gang! we both think our wetsuit is very cool. haha.CJ and me and our supposedly 'boss' for the trip...but i think i bullied him too much! hahmel, me and cal -- our sifu (cal was our open water instructor)and... back to work on monday with a chao tar face...

when the buying stops, the killing can too

A shark finning protester hung herself to the ceiling of a shop window with shark hooks pierced through her skin. The stunt was part of the company's campaign to end shark's finning.A Lush spokesman said: "We are trying to change people's perceptions about sharks as a lot of people still associate them with Jaws.

"There was only one person killed by a shark attack in 2007, and yet we killed 100 million sharks for their fins last year, so we are clearly a bigger threat to them than they are to us."When they are caught the sharks are pulled from the water, their fins are sliced off, and they are kicked back into the ocean, so they sink to the bottom and suffer a slow death."please, let's all stop eating shark's fin. when the buying stops, the killing can too

and my head is still in place!

overall it was a pretty good trip. i quite like diving with Scubapeople, at least the resort and food was decently good.my advanced diving course went on quite well. except for the navigation test which i sucked big time. so it's proven that i have zero direction sense both in and out of the water!!we sighted a group of 5 cuttlefishes swimming around us and this is the "grandpa cuttlefish" (according to melvin, cos he thinks his skin is like so wrinkled so he must be very old now)and a cute baby turtle!it's so funny that my hair here looked like Guile from Street Fighter I.his name is CK and i always thought he looks very cute! hehehe. LL you think he's cute? (apart from the fact that he's younger than us lah)this camera costs a jaw dropping $12,000! my god. it belonged to a guy who was diving with us and the pictures he took with this camera was AMAZING.this is CK's brother. he's also my buddy throughout the course. he's so 'man' and always there to help me when i'm in trouble. such a sweet guy! it's interesting that the last time we met was in a TKD tournament when we were still secondary school kids. and now we meet again as friends and fellow diver.glad to have dived with some great people! you guys made me like diving again.

prelude to tioman!

tonight am going to Tioman for my advanced diving course!

last night was listening to all the scary stories about how people have died after their heads being cut by the propeller of a passing boat!!!!

ding! ding! ding! ding!

that sounds like something that'd happen to me!

hahaha.. and all the divers who were at this "discussion" all agreed. LOL.

weekend Tioman here i come! and hopefully i come back with my head (still intact).

older by another year and not by choice part 2

**LEISURE DIVE TRIP IN TIOMAN**
was treated to this leisure dive trip by my buddy Mel. i am amazed at how the group trusted me so much to drive up to Mersing at night despite the fact that they know i dont have my astig glasses with me, it was night time - i cannot see, and i have absolutely no sense of direction. they can even tell me to speed faster because they want to get there in time to eat at the very nice Chinese restaurant which closes at 10... before going to sleep at the back of the car. my friends rock! -- eh but my driving skills is buay pai one ok. :Pwe stayed at this resort for 3 days 2 nights, of which 2 days 1 night had NO ELECTRICITY. thankss arr, go shower also much bring handphone in to double up as torch light. no heater for hot water also. #$%^&it was such a conincidence that another leisure diver in this trip share the same birthday as me, exactly 20th July.. i didnt know her before this trip though.the 4 of us dived as a group.some of the DARK SEAL Diving Team members were also in this trip!hope to go for another Live On Board trip with my friends at work. just found out that many of them dive as well, i think it will be pretty interesting.

you know you have been nice when...

you get a surprise message on Facebook that says:

"hihi sis, i would like to ask u whether u r interested to join me for a diving trip on the 18-20 july...?

i would like to celebrate ur birthday with u at pulau tioman this year bcos i was out from singapore last year & not able to celebrate for u...

ur birthday present is ~ u don't have to pay for this trip, i will pay for u as a leisure diver as ur birhday present this year!"

Mel Aug,

**and what does this mean? -- I AM SO GOING TO DIVING THIS WEEKEND!
haha it's amazing how impromptu things can get with me, inform on Tuesday, Friday depart. ALWAYS READY TO GET OUT OF SINGAPORE-- i think i should be in Army leh, mobilization sure very fast.

my first LOB

this is my first Live-On-Board (LOB) trip with MV Seaborne to Pulau Aur. and i loved every single thing about it. why? because basically you just sleep-dive-eat-sleep-dive-eat. and of course when i say eat, it also includes sea sick pills.

we were a big group...11 of us. 2 ang mohs who were also booked on this trip found out that they were the only 'outsiders' five minutes before we boarded the boat. haha. poor ang mohs...but ok lah, at least we never outcast them! we will always remember to jio them to eat when the meal is served.one of my diving kakis told me that this is a sea cucumber that has just vomitted. hmm...why do i have a feeling that they are pulling my leg?so happy! i took a photo with nemo!man look at this murray eel hiding under the coral, it is quite a big one! abit scary cos by the time i saw it, my face was one nose length away from the eel.well, we don't really know the name of this coral but T calls it the the Christmas Tree Coral cos it looked like small colourful christmas trees.the last time we spotted a sea turtle but forgot to bring camera down. so this time we were lucky enoughto see one again.all the meals on board were very delicious. everytime we come up from a dive we were presented with fruit platters, sandwiches and all sorts of snacks.this is the genius behind the magic wok! he is one of the boat crew who doubled up as the cook. a super multi tasker he is...can cook, charge tanks and pack our dive gears all at the same time. and no, his food has zilch chance of getting burnt.took this photo after lunch, so paiseh ah all my FATS coming out from my bikini, that's why must hide behind someone!we got to go on shore for a while cos the guys needed to re-stock their cigs. i didn't go though cos i fell asleep while tanning on the sundeck.JK the dive master! i was assigned to be his dive buddy this time. he is very good! i felt damn safe partnering him. he said: "don't worry you don't need to look for me cos i will look for you one lah"


come, tell me that i look more and more like a diver pro now. haha.

argh, no...i know i just look like a cambodian. or thai.

whatever!!