My diving Sunday; 1st time to Hantu

Sunday was another terrific day… I, Audrey Tan Shue Ting, went diving without Hus (instructor) on the trip… Being put totally in charge of Deroy, Linden and Jarek… the only thing was, I had never dove in Hantu… Although that was scary, we had an instructor and a dive-master from Big Bubble Centre to guide us.

Haha.. then that made it really easy. We started with mac breakfast, then a good 2 hours wait at RSYC (republic of Singapore Yacht Club) for the boats to arrive. That was boring, and make me sleepy.

When the boats finally arrived, we boarded and set sail… dove at 1440hrs. we dove in our buddy team as instructed by Hus, I buddied Linden and Deroy with Jarek…

Linden and I lost our group at descend on the 1st dive… He couldn’t descend because he was a little too buoyant with full wetsuit… So the both of us dove on our own… although I was a little scared, I presented myself calm… Always look good… For the first time since my advance course, I navigate using compass alone. I’m always blessed to be diving with Hus or other more experienced diver… I wasn’t too bad… I was not lost as I know I had to compensate the distance with the current… *weet, I’m so proud of myself* I couldn’t wait to tell hus when I ascended and looking at the boat from a distance… Like a child getting a report card with excellent results to show her parents… I was thrilled…

The visibility in P. Hantu… is abt 5m upon descend, considerably good for our waters, it reduced to 2-3m halfway thru the dive when current began to build up… green water.

The 2nd dive is at 1640hrs, vis was 2-3m, we dove in a group… nobody lose nobody… Great!!! The boys could hold their stops with current, so proud of them being Open water students, less than 10 dives… They’re so going to be great divers…

Kudos to our very strict instructor, nasty and harsh words…

Diving @ P. Aur

Today is a not so sleepy Monday, but a lazy one. Hus and I just came back from Pulau Aur last evening abt 2030hrs.

We’re away for diving AGAIN!!!

I took a half day leave on Friday cos I was really really sleepy. The journey to Aur is a long one from past experiences. You might not get enough sleep for the diving Saturday.

Hus picked me up from work, and then I accompanied him to finish his lunch before I headed for my cosy bed. I slept for abt 1 plus hour, before I woke up to do ironing. Gosh! I haven iron for the past month. 2 hours of ironing was tiring… where inconsistency pays.

By 5pm, we’re getting ready for the weekend getaway! HOORAY!

FIL picked us at about 6pm and send us to Upper Circular Road, The Riverwalk to report at our trip organizer/ dive operator “Friendly Waters”. The coach picked us up at 8pm and we headed to 2nd link into M’sia. Tanjong Layman Pier to Pulau Aur’s “Divers’ lodge”

It takes us appx 2 hrs to reach the pier, so it’s sleeping time. Then we’ll board the boat "Semudera Dream" and continue sleeping for another 4 hrs before we docked at P. Aur. This time I could sleep pretty well on the bus and the boat so I lack no sleep… Hus always sleeps well, so I think he dun have any problem.

Divers' Lodge

Home - drawn Map of Rooms Locations

This is the bridge that leads us to most of the places on the island and Divers' Lodge.

Bridge to the Door to the Lounge

to the Meal / Dining Area

This is the Kitchen that prepares our delicious buffet meals...

-this is how we go to the dive sites-

we have to climb up and down that ladder and it's mostly boat diving.

Everyone climbs down in their swimwear to a

speedboat, which is not too speedy.

to the Boat "Sumudera Dream" to dive.

Saturday was a whole day of diving. The 1st dive was just me and Hus, I dint wanna put on my wetsuit so I dove with rash guard and neoprene shorts. Grrr… I was cold. Then the 2nd dive, Huib (a dutch, read as Hawb) joined us. I was still cold… I sat out of the 3rd dive cos I wasn’t feeling terrific, I couldn’t identify the cause of the problem. Maybe I’m just super scared of cold.

But I was guilty during my rest time, I decided to go night diving with Hus. I put on my wetsuit even though I was unwilling, but night dive can be freezing… Hus said the temperature was ordinary, but I trembled under wet suit and rashguard. I feel totally useless. Sigh!

Hus and I cut short the diving trip by packing away our dive gears at the end of the night dive cos the morning dive on Sunday was a little early for comfort. It's at 6.45am, early and cold. We had more sleep on Sunday for the return trip. We had a filling lunch and headed back for Singapore the same way we came. We soon fall asleep after the boat set sail, but the nap was a short one hence I woke up feeling pretty bored. Hus and I read our own books to kill time.

this is the boat, Sumudera Dream, we spent 4 hrs to P. Aur and 4 back to Pier, Tanjong Leman

We watched 2 movies on the return bus-ride. “rush hour 3” and “Evan Almighty”. I thought rush hour 3 wasn’t very interesting, the storyline was bad, only the humor and the NGs were worth the time. Hus and I thought we wouldn't spend $8 to see it in a theatre. “Evan Almighty” is a pretty good film, it sets you thinking about the way you live your life. It’s the sequel to “Bruce Almighty”, it just get you thinking about your spiritual health. Sadly, we couldn’t finish the show before we need to alight the bus. I think we missed 10% of the show… =(

So do you think we’ll watch it in the theatre for the 10% or even buy a DVD for it… I dunno man!

A good diving evening

Routines, routines, more routines… how I dread it? Wake up early this morning to come to work again. At work, I collected the same samples, recorded the same results and eat at the same time… Knock off at the same time. The job feels like best for retirees, nothing too exciting. It's ONLY MID-WEEK, i'm dying!

This pales in comparison with the evening I had. Hus and I went diving in Outram Sec again. I was trying out diving in doubles, a.k.a. twin tanks… It was really fun for me to try it out the first time and need not carry the tanks on me until the water… The stability was remarkable in twins. Of course not too far off my AGIR single wing, but a whole lot of difference in Halcyon single. But the buoyancy control is very very different, a bit of air introduced and released makes a great deal of depth change.

The twins weren’t too comfortable for me as my body is shorter than most divers, hence my head wasn’t resting well on the manifold (the metal tube that connects the 2 tanks together). I couldn’t look in front, I can only look down. If I try to look in front, I’m out of trim. That’s very frustrating.

Being in good trim is very impt, especially to me, a good trim makes you look good and different under water… the body should be parallel to the floor/seabed, a straight body from chest to knees. It’s not that easy in doubles. I would love to grow taller, if not, a doubles that suit me well!

Other than that, the water works are fine. Hus was drilling me on drills. The basic 5s, valve-drill, out-of-air and they repeat and repeat. Just to make sure that they went into my head and stayed there for LIFE!!! Hus was an instructor under water, so that I would be able to be capable enough to buddy him on tech dives in future (still far from it). His expectations are only reasonable in a high risk hobby like diving deep.

Well, I wasn’t smooth as I was on land. Dive skills I mean; cos my whiny and bargaining spirit were still clearly displayed in water. I did my drills pretty slowly so that I will recall every step without missing any one of it. Hus said being slow is not acceptable when I argued to be calm instead. Well, you choose to be slow and steady or hasty and miss. I think when training with Hus, the former is preferred cos he’ll start to nag at my mistakes when we’re on land again, then he ridicules, laughs and mocks repeatedly. Till I’m more familiar…i shall still be slow.

Hus was nice yesterday; he bought me a rash guard so that I dun have to squeeze into my tiny wetsuit. He was a husband when he did that. Then he was patient and nice in the water, which is rare, that he’s an instructor. He rarely uses positive feedback with me (as a wife) so I enjoyed his mentorship last evening.

We’re going Pulau Aur this weekend!

Sunday

Hus and i went to church in the morning. Nothing too unusual through out the day until the evening, I went grocery shopping in the rain with dad’s van. *weet* grocery shopping has never been easier with a vehicle… I dun need Hus to drive me there and

make him impatient when I have to go to 3 shops to get different things at each lowest price. Hee!

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Me and the twin tanks... it's abt 26kg on my back...

Hus appeared together with my diving instructor at my place late in the evening. I had to finish doing my laundry and start on the basic of technical diving

–Equipment Configuration.

Pretty smooth for me since I’m not under stress and on LAND. I’ve heard a lot of discussions and got a personal tutor, that’s why I’m quite smooth as my instructor went on. Lesson ended abt 12midnight… *nitez*

Another blue day awaits me! I woke up with multiple eyelids… sharks! Signs of fatigue… and aging… I hope it’s the former!

Friday... Saturday

Hus was on 1st shift on Friday, so he picked me up from work and we headed home. We took a while to decide what to do for the evening; we took a long walk to Holland Village from our place.

We cut across Singapore Polytechnic to get closer to Buona Vista… That part was like the nicest part abt the whole walk that day. I was feeling totally nostalgic. But while I was enjoying that part, Hus was pretty uncomfortable as he thought he looked too old to be a student. SP’s structural design also unsettled him; it’s not too hard to get lost in it as it’s an old school so the buildings are built at different time. It built on a slope therefore from the 3rd floor of one building will lead to a 2nd or a 1st of the other…

AWW… I miss campus life.

We had Thai Express for dinner, yummy! The walk was like a diving theory lesson, Hus was lecturing tech lesson during such romantic atmosphere… *sigh* but I enjoyed it… it kept my head spinning. I think my thinking process is quite fast because hus has never stop reminding me of equipment configuration and it has deeply registered in my head. Familiarity works on land.

I’m gonna try diving doubles on Wed… A little worried, I think I have problem handling the weight on land, I’m not sure abt in water… keep you updated…
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I fried my guo tie for hus for breakfast on sat… that made a huge mess in my kitchen.. It splattered so much bcos of the water trapped in the dumplings during boiling…

Look decent right?

Hus say the skin should be saltier, but over all it’s still okay… YES! at least he dint make some ridiculous discouraging remark. Love the Man! *wink*

After Hus went to work, I started on something really cool… Daddy picked me up and let me have his van for the day to drive around. He first took me to Katong to retrieve his lorry.

I was scared but excited..

Dad actually sent his van for a thorough check on Friday

so that i might have a safe drive, I'm so blessed!

This first drive from Katong to Jurong, I was really scared, was perspiring so much. I was right behind Daddy’s lorry. Even I drove along my favourite ECP, I dint have the time to enjoy it.

After Daddy topped up our tanks, I’m good to go alone. I then drove to KK hospital to pick Janna up. The road was pretty conjested… Gosh, with a hard clutch, I get pretty tone left calf… Hee!

I thought I was darn cool once I got used to handling that van… A small girl in a big Hyundai H100. *applause*

I drove to Marina Square, parked and lunched with Hus and Jan… That it followed by

RETAIL THERAPY!!!!

I bought 2 T-shirts… one writings supposed to complement Jan’s.

Hers says, “Dun Blame me. my evil Twin did it!”

And mine obviously says, “I’m the Evil Twin!”

Clearly, Janna is the evil one to make me buy the evil one… *duh!*

The other T-shirt says, “Men are like Lava Lamps, NICE to Look At, not too bright…” I love the words in this.

Then I also bought a pair of sneakers which I absolutely love. Converse; nice and casual.

and this skirt from Bods... it has pretty unique seams... that's why i bought it...

K-BASH!!!

Then Jan and I went back to CCK to pick Sista, Tao Rong and Deroy up for a KTV session at Chevron… It’s only for 3 hrs but we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves… unsung selections usually make us go singing again soon and we have more than a page unsung.

This is Sista and bro-in-law's 1st time on my driven vehicle.

1st Pressie for my 24th Birthday

TADA!!!

My 1st Pressie is from HUS! I was totally surprised! He said he will pick me from work yesterday since he's off, then he arrived a little late. Then when i got home...

This is on the bed... I saw this big box with absolutely no idea what might be in there..

It has 2 items in there... I thought i would be getting a Transformer car for birthday, but i got something better.

A doubles wing from OxyCheq - it's rather pretty and if any divers want to buy pls visit www.scubadirectory.com.sg/store.

For non-divers, this wing is to for diving 2 tanks, that's why the name "doubles". It's more for deeper, longer, or deeper and longer dives. Well, training is required though... I'm gonna be a cool doubles diver... Divers, Pls catch up with me!!! contact http://www.livingseas.com.sg/ or email: bonkers@singnet.com for a good instructor but at a higher price definitely, good stuff comes at a price... heh heh!

It's a Apeks ATX 40... for divers, i think it's self-explanatory. For non-divers, it's the apparatus you put into your mouth connected to the tank for breathing. expensive stuff...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1050588124316707966&hl=en -> see this to understand the equipment configuration... The pple dove the way we do as well. the equipment configuration and that's doubles with decompression bottles...

Pix looks awkward, there's nothing wrong with your eyes.

It's not the only happy thing, i got my card license le... I dun need to bring the paper certification around already... hee hee!

Then we satisfy Hus' crave for BBQ steamboat buffet... he's craving for beef, we settled this at Marina South cos i dint wanna pay so much more to eat the same thing at Seoul Garden. We dint eat alot since we've been over-eating for the past few days. We just had enough and left... a good dinner i should say but a quiet one. We just ate, dint really talk... looks like strangers sharing table... haa haa!

It's a good evening spent together... *bleh*