Tioman Dive Trip - 150808

A Sea Turtle

Michelle, Jasmine and me on the dive boat.

Me with the rest of the leisure divers on the dive boat.

Jasmine and me. (Had to hold her hand so she won't go shooting to the surface.)

Me and a fellow diver surfacing after a dive.

Deserts before lunch... haha

A Nudibranch. (A Sea Slug)

A Sea Turtle. (Again)

Breakfast on Tioman Island.

Jasmine and me.

Jasmine and me again.

NO! Its called a clown fish, NOT NEMO!

Jasmine and me. (Jasmine trying to clear her ears)

Sixty feet below...

It has been an eventful weekend. Michael Phelps has made history by securing 8 Gold Medals in this year's Olympics. Winning 1 Gold Medal is a difficult enough feat on its own, let alone winning 8 Gold Medals, breaking 7 world records along the way. Michael Phelps is truly a freak in the water. Closer to home, Singapore has finally won a Silver Medal in the Olympics. Its been more than 50 years since we last won a medal in the Olympics and it couldn't have come sooner. Congrats to the ladies of the Table Tennis team which brought home the Silver Medal. Woo Hoo!!
Anyway, I just got back from another weekend of diving. It was an interesting weekend for diving. It was Jasmine's first leisure dive trip. On our first dive Jasmine had a lot of problem descending. She did not seem to be able to sink. When she finally managed to get to the bottom, she had trouble keeping her buoyancy. I don't really blame her as it was her first ever leisure dive. The dive master made me hang on to her hand the whole dive so that she won't go shooting to the surface. It was really difficult and by th end of the dive I was suffering from narcosis from all the going up and down trying to get Jasmine to stay neutrally buoyant. I was feeling light headed and was having a terrible headache. After lunch I decided to stop diving to get some rest. Jasmine carried on diving with the rest of the group while I took a short nap to clear my head. After dinner we watched the Arsenal match and then I went back to rest for the next day dives. Thank goodness I felt so much better the next morning and diving was excellent. Saw some huge puffer fishes and a really big jelly fish.
On the way back to Mersing from Tioman, the boat we were traveling on ran out of fuel. Can you believe that? No petrol in the middle of the South China Sea. Were were floating around for about 20 mins before help came. We eventually made it back to mainland and got home safely. Interesting trip.

Olympic highlights

Its the 2nd day of competition at the Beijing Olympics. At this point of time as I am writing this, China is in the lead with 4 Gold Medals. Michael Phelps has won his first Gold Medal in his pet event, the 400 meters Individual Medley, in a world record time of 4 mins 03.84 seconds. Will he reach immortality by surpassing the record of 7 Golds in a single game? Watch the drama unfold over the next few days. The Olympic Games have been exciting thus far. I happen to catch the men's boxing prelims last night and I think this is so far the quote of the Olympics:

Commentator: "Julius Jackson is taking more hits than Google at the moment..."

Huume Dee Yaa, Huume Dee Yaa

"I love the whole world, I love the whole world..."

Go check out Discovery Channel for this song. Its a promo for all the cool shows on Discovery Channel and also a save the world awareness advert. Bloody cool.

Save the World!
1. Leave the car at home. Take public transport.
2. Recycle.
3. Switch off all appliances when not in use.
4. Take a shower, don't fill the tub.
5. Stop littering in our seas.
6. Stop poaching the endangered animals.
7. Stop killing sharks for their fins.
8. Stop polluting the atmosphere which contributes to global warming.
9. Switch from petrol to CNG.
10. Spread the word, Save the World!

There is one thing that till today I still cannot fully fathom. Why are there so many poachers in the world still willingly killing all the endangered animals? I know that the demand for these endangered animals are very high. Tusks of elephants, skins and animal parts of tigers and other wild animals. The question is, don't they realize that once they have killed all these animals they are never going to see one again. They will be gone for good. Its scary to think when environmentalist tells you that there are like 400 Chinese tigers left in the world or like 1000 brown bears left in the world. What will we do when these animals are all finally killed or they all just die off. We will never get them back. Just like how we are killing the sharks for sharks fin, eventually there will be no more sharks in the world. Go figure.