Diving in Tenggol

It has been a year since the last time I was in Tenggol Island. Exactly one year ago, I was there to get my Open Water Diver. It was the first time I experience scuba diving, and the first time in Tenggol Island. This year, I was there again to go one level higher in diving certification which is the Advanced Open Water Diver.

Tenggol Island and the dive store

In Open Water, I was trained to scuba dive, exposed to what diving is all about and familiarize with the equipments required to scuba dive.

In Advanced Open Water however, I was trained to know my direction and navigational skills in water. In addition to that is on how to handle stress in deep and night diving situation.

3 weeks ago
(My god! It has been 3 weeks since i get back from a holiday? I don't even realize it had been so long until i take a look at the calendar)

On Fri morning, we were at the jetty in Kuala Dungun waiting for the boat to Tenggol Island. There had been some development in that place since a year ago, a new bridge had been completed. It was a different place to board the boat compared to last year.

At Kuala Dungun jetty. Background: The new bridge

Half an hour later and we reached the island. Had 2 shore dives on the first day, the first was some sort of a refreshment dive coz too long never dive ledi, people tend to forget important info.
Second dive was a lesson on navigational dive. Given a compass, need to navigate our way while we're underwater. Underwater navigation is important to ensure that you can return to your boat after the dive.

Nothing much, just syok syok take picture of the gauge...this is at 70ft depth

The first 2 dives wasn't exactly for fish or coral observation. They are merely for us to get back in shape. In between dives, we get to chat with the other 3 divers who joined us for the shore dive. They were Irish, Lin and Tiara. Meeting people is part of the excitement in scuba diving apart from getting closer to the unfamiliar underwater world. By the end of my trip, I have had my tiny network of friends expanded a little bit more.

The sea is full of a variety of fishes and abundance of soft corals

For the next 3 days, I did 5 more dives. Including a night dive, 2 deep dive, one drift dive.

Night dive was of course done at night. Some people might wonder, "what is there to see at night?" Equip with a torchlight, divers go for night dive after the sky turns dark. As it was so dark in the water, you only see where your torchlight shines and that means full concentration at a certain spot. No distraction = good. Also, at night you might be able to see a different set of fishes from the day time. During my night dive, I saw many tiny prawns hiding in between corals. When shone with torchlight, their red eyes reflected which makes them easily 'spottable'. They are so tiny that you were not able to see them in the day time. Or maybe they don't appear in day time. *i don't know

The photos

One of my favorite activity while diving is taking photos

I am constantly finding ways to improve the quality of my underwater photos. I find it very challenging to take photos of fish as they never stop to pose for you to take pictures of them. They are ever so fast in swimming and they never stay still. Photos of fish will usually come out blur because of the movement.

Blur fish photo such as this is what i usually get. This is a Five-banded Wrasse

I hereby wish upon a star. I wish I could invest in more advance underwater cameras. :)

This is a leatherjacket. I find the name interesting, why is it being named leatherjacket? I actually thought my instructor was joking when he told me the name of the fish. This fish can change its appearance to match the background

Some fishes camouflaged among hard corals to protect themselves from predators. I will be very excited if I managed to spot any camouflage fish among the corals.

Batfish usually are seen in pairs. They are real curious little fellow that would swim alongside divers to check them out. The good thing about batfish is that they move very slowly, and that means I can take nice pictures of them.

Nice little pair of batfish

I was told that I can see baby shark if snorkeling at this particular area, so I went snorkeling at one of the evenings when I was free. True enough, I did manage to get a shot at the Blacktip shark, it was just a baby, slightly longer than arms length.

Can you see it? Right in the middle of the photo. It was swimming so fast and it wouldn't swim near to me, this is the best shot I can get.
There were some seaweed hanging off its side fin.

Other than moving fishes, corals that are not moving caught my interest too. Things can be so amazing down underwater. It is a different world altogether.

Some kind of sponges. It looks like a keropok to me :)

It would be nice to be able to touch and feel the corals with hands, see how their texture feels like. However, I do not dare to touch them coz they might be poisonous. Getting a feel of the fire coral on my knee last year in Tenggol did not leave me with any happy memories.

The loner, standing on a sandy bottom ALONE!

On the dry land, lizard is one of the creatures I feared the most. They are so disgusting...yuck!

Deep in the water, there's the underwater version of lizard too, they are called Lizardfish. I guess it is so named because of their similarity of sticking to the wall? (coral if its in the water)

Lizardfish in camouflage mode, can you see it?

Enough with the fishes and corals. Let's see some human photos.

This is my dive master, Roland. He's too bored during the 15ft safety stop and he started blowing bubbles.

Roland having fun

Safety stop is a stop made during ascend at about 15ft depth for 3 to 5mins. The purpose is to breath off excess nitrogen from the body to prevent decompression sickness, which can lead to death. I ain't joking.

It was during this trip that I notice Roland and Ronald actually share the same spelling. Sometimes I confused myself whether my dive master was named Roland or Ronald. *another blur incident of mine

Ending the post with a photo of me :)

Quote (by me):
"Diving is no danger than driving if instructions and safety precautions are observed"