My diving trip

The story started when I visited the aquarium at Atlantis Dubai. I was thinking instead of watching these fish behind the glass, I want to see and touch with my own hand. So, I’ve planned to lean diving.

The main reason that leads me to this decision is that I want to conquer my fear on water. Ya, I’m hydrophobia, a very serious one. I never swim in the swimming pool before although I was thinking to do that long time ago. So, I 100% can’t swim. I’m afraid of height also. Last time when I went to Perhentian for snorkeling, I was scared by the depth of the ocean and lucky I can catch on someone before I panic. So, diving is definitely something I will never think of in my life until recently.

Some of my colleagues join this trip, lucky. Cheong, the master swimmer, Huan, JJ and his brother. All of them can swim and none are hydrophobia, only me is the problem one :s

We go to Mersing by bus from Bukit Jalil on Thusday night and we arrive at Mersing bus station around 4am in the morning. Very sleepy and we need to wait until 7.30am to take the first ferry to the Tioman Island. It took about 2 hours from Mersing jetty to Tioman Island.

Mersing jetty in the early morning

When we reached the island, I saw my sensei. Ya, she is a Japanese.

The first session is relatively easy. The class room section. After the class room session, we went to pool and I start to fight with my fear :s

The pool is relatively shallow, I can stand inside the pool, but once I wear my mask and put my head into the water :s I found that I can’t breathe! I spent few minutes to hypnosis myself that I can breathe using my mouth and there is plenty of oxygen in the tank. And finally, I manage to end my pool session successfully.

After having lunch, we went to beach and start diving from the swallow side and went into the deep sea. Ok, first time I put myself 5m under the water. I know I’m in panic mode cause I breathe very fast. And to control my buoyancy is not an easy job. I either sink onto the bottom on the sea or I float to the surface. So I was caught by me sensei together with Huan -.-

the divers and the sensei

shallow dive

Ok, don’t take me wrong, I not purposely one. I really can’t control my buoyancy.

The shallow sea diving is relatively easy and I’m continue to hypnosis myself for tomorrow session, the boat jumping session :s, god please give me strength.

evening view

Sleeping in a very cheap diver lounge is not easy when you need to sleep with mosquito.    

Breakfast session

So, the second day is a nightmare for me cause I need to jump from the boat into the sea :s

The first jump is called the giant stride, where you stand at the behind of the boat with all your equipment on and make a big walk and let yourself fall down into the sea :s Lucky I manage to do that with lots of fear. Saw some corals and fish. We dived into about 14m depth.

The second jump is called the back roll where you sit beside the boat with all your equipments on and “sleep” and fall into the sea. This is less scary since you don’t see the sea and you just pretend that you are sleeping onto the bed.

And the last jump is after lunch at the marine park. The water visibility is very low. Although the dept is shallow, about 8m, but the visibility really scares me. Accidentally my weight belt loosed and I drop 2 pieces of my weight into the sea. Lucky JJ and his brother help me to get it back.

So, finally I get my diving license ^^ but the instructor keep on remind me that I need more practices. So, I decided to learn swimming before I go to take the advance open water.

We stayed at Tioman for extra day and Huan, JJ and his brother went to extra diving by their own cost. I believe these 3 guys will be addicted to this game. I will definitely dive again but before that I really need to learn swimming at least learn how to float.

Small island in front of Tekek village

I'll be back

If you are interested to learn diving, you may use the following web for enquiry.