Tioman Sep 07

Another short Tioman trip gone. My friends, Philip, Andy, Alex, Ah Pow and me, we 5 people drove up to Mersing last Sat morning. Philip being the driver had to wake up at 2+am (if not mistaken)... I got out of the house at 3:45am. And the light in my landlord's room was still on! Don't they have to sleep? Hmm... I wonder what they were doing...

We are in Singapore and it's quite safe, but you can't help feeling scared waiting at void deck alone at 4am... Then, a car came, a car with lots of stickers on it. Someone in the car (I can't see the face) was waving at me. I thought... oh man... ah beng car with ah beng in it waving at me, at 4am... what should I do...?? But... it turned out to be Alex..... Whew... hehehe... We then call the car "blink blink car". You'll see why...

We stopped by the petrol kiosk in JB. It's really quite scary to be at petrol kiosk at such an early hour (actually, "any hour.."), having known so many crimes happened at petrol kiosks... But I have 4 big guys with me, I supposed I was safe. hehehe.

We reached Mersing at 6:30am~ Our boat was 7:30am. I want to have roti prata at Mersing Hotel there. Then Philip happily drove into one way lane and didn't seem to realise it. hahaha.. I think Philip thought we were joking. It was super cold that morning! Like, mm..in an 22 degree aircond room. The fog was super thick~ My camera was deep in my backpack... didn't take a photo of it.

We reached Tioman really early too~ Speedboat didn't make other stops and headed straight to Tekek. Reached there before 9am if I remember correctly. We had to share boat with others so have to suit other's timing. Headed for first dive at 10:30am. We have 10 divers on boat, and guess what, 9 cameras!!! Geez... have to really queue for a long time to shoot something. I didn't like to queue... so I rather swim around looking for some other things to shoot. Didn't take good photos this trip.

See all photos here : Tioman Sep 07

The usual nudibranchs.


Visibility at Chebeh that day was great~


This is the only one photo that I am satisfied with. But, colour is not so good.

Alex was very kind to lend me his strobe!!! Even feather stars became very pretty with strobe! I never bother to look at them usually, except when looking for crabs hiding in it.

Tom, the divemaster.

I didn't know Tioman has this whip coral shrimp until Andy showed me!!!! So happy!!! It's bigger than I thought, about 1cm long I think. Only managed to take one photo of it. Andy has got more, and nicer photos of course! (DSLR~~ I will get one if I hit lottery.. hehe)

This is with strobe. But over exposed. Didn't know how to adjust.
Check out the cicada~ First time I saw a real cicada~ They are always hiding among the trees isn't it?

and.... TA-DA!!Blink Blink Car~
Plus me~
Pardon the blur photo... it's difficult to shoot in the carpark.. flash not strong enough, without flash, the photo turns out blur to due hand movement, even with "stabiliser"..

This photo at Tioman was taken in June. The sea looked very pretty that day. Nice blue~ There was a tornado almost formed right in front of us!

It was really funny on Sunday morning. I shared a room with Alex, the air-cond kept on making noise... The noise will become louder and louder, then it went back to normal and then become louder again. On and on. We slept until 6+am , suddenly "BANG"!! Something sounded it has exploded! Then it continued "pi-li-pa-la p-li-pa-la..".... It really really sounded like the very old air-cond has exploded and things scattering on the floor. Alex and I awoken by the noise.. we looked at each other.. I got down from the bed and walked towards the air-cond. Suddenly "PI-LI-PA-LA" again... I got a shock and jumped away from there... so funny.. But it was nothing in the room. So weird.. we continued to sleep.

I told Andy when we had breakfast. Turned out he also heard the same thing. He also thought it sounded like the air-cond in his room exploded, but he chose to continue with his sleep. hahaha... I really wonder what it was.. . I wanted to check out the back of the room where the compressor is, but it's not accessible. It was so funny.