5 Inches Away from ‘Death’

I am thanking God that I am still alive now!

Today, I was doing my 20 basic skills  for my Dive Master Course. It’s the skills that you will need to demonstrate to the student if they are learning diving.

20 Basic Scuba Skills for Skill Evaluation
1. Equipment assembly, adjustment, preparation,
donning and disassembly
2. Predive safety check (BWRAF)
3. Deep water entry
4. Buoyancy check at surface
5. Snorkel-regulator/regulator snorkel exchange
6. Five point descent (SORTED)
7. Regulator recovery and clearing
8. Mask removal, replacement and clearing
9. Air depletion exercise and alternate air source use stationary
10. Freeflow regulator breathing
11. Fin pivot (neutral buoyancy)
12. Five point ascent (STELLA)
13. Remove and replace weight system on the surface
14. Controlled Emergency Swimming Ascent (CESA)
15. Hovering motionless for 30 seconds
16. Underwater swim without a mask
17. Remove and replace weight system underwater
18. Remove and replace scuba unit underwater
19. Remove and replace scuba unit on the surface
20. Buddy breathing stationary and swimming (donor and receiver)

I was doing my Fin Pivot skills. To do that, you want to make sure that your legs are spread out while laying on the bottom of the sea face, facing down, and your arm on your chest. You are suppose to breathe and your body will move up and down with your fins still on the sea bottom.

Before starting the demonstration, I was in a kneeling position. When it was my turn, to show the demonstration, I face the bottom of the sea and start spreading my leg.

That is when I saw my instructor swam towards me and push me away then pointed out to something on the sea bed. So I looked at it but  I didn’t know what it was. Then it suddenly hop slowly. Then I knew that it was an animal but still didn’t know what it was.

My instructor took out his slate and wrote something on it. BABY STONEFISH!

When I read the slate, I put my hand on my chest and gave him a thank you signal.

It was just 5inches away from my knee!

This is the most venomous fish known. It reaches up to 35 cm in length. The sting causes excruciating pain and a tremendous swelling rapidly develops with death of tissues. The severity of the symptoms depends on the depth of penetration and the number of spines involved. The effects of the venom are muscle weakness, temporary paralysis and shock, which may result in death if not treated. – http://library.thinkquest.org/C007974/2_1sto.htm

We took a few minutes just to look at the Baby Stonefish hopping with its little fins. Looked funny! It was just maybe 10cm in length. The tail was curve to the right.

To some, I maybe exaggerating, but that is how I feel about it.

This is a photo I took from the internet of a Stonefish.

Doei!

Rachel Raymond

www.mshachi.wordpress.com

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Shadowing and Separated Underwater

It has been a busy day today but a fun one! Today I was shadowing Simon, to three different reefs. Lobster Wall, Sea Ventures and also Awas. It was a great dive I would say. Lobster Wall is one of my favorite dive spot so far. The minimum depth is 25m/82ft and maximum depth is 40m/131ft. The visibility today is not so bad. It was around 15m I would say. Normally you can see Lobster of course, but so far, I have not seen any yet there. It’s funny because with the name like that, you expect to see lots of them. 🙂

You can see Frog Fish, Nude Branches, Scorpion Fish, Green Turtle, Crocodile Fish, Octopus, Cuttle Fish, Orang Utan Crab, Pygmy Seahorse. I have only link the creatures that I have taken photo of. I can only bring my camera only on certain dive during my training. So I am yet to make my fish photo collection yet.

The good part about diving in Lobster Wall is that, most of the things doesn’t stay in the same place like other places. So you will have to find and spot them while diving, which adds fun and challenge to the dive itself.

The second dive I went to was Sea Venture Platform. It is a wonderful muck diving spot. It is 12m to 18m depth and the visibility on a good day is 20m and for today it was 7m-10m. It was not so great. There are lots of Murray Eel, Scorpion Fish, Trumpet Fish, Lion Fish, Parrot Humphead Fish, Frog Fish, Nude Branches, Lion Fish, Crocodile Fish and alot of other small creatures.

Today we saw a huge Murray Eel, Trumpet Fish, Beautiful Lion Fish, Parrot Humphead Fish and Scorpion Fish.

The current today was pretty strong and in the middle of the dive, the visibility went bad. There were 5 of us diving, Simon and myself and 3 customers. 2 of them are Instructors themselves and their friend is an AOW.

After 20 minutes diving, the 2 Instructors got separated from us. The emergency Procedure is to find for your buddy for 60 seconds and if you can’t find them, you should ascent. Simon went to look for them and couldn’t see them. So Simon brought us to 8m and he went to the surface to look for them for 3 minutes but didn’t see them surfacing. Was a tough call but since Simon know them and they are Instructors themselves, so Simon brought us back to 12m not to spoil the other divers dive.

Although I was just shadowing, I could see that it is not easy to bring people who are experienced to dive. They seem to ignore some important practices or procedures. In this case, they should have ascend and get back together with the group then we can go down again together. But they decide to just stay down under and do their own thing, which is not good for the guide who is bringing them. It makes everyone worry and also make everyone wait for them. Some people…

The third dive today was in Awas.  It is a sandy bottom, and today we went till 18m just to find the Flamboyant Cuttle fish which has been spotted 2 weeks ago. Although it was a sandy bottom, but you can expect to see alot of creatures too. There were LOTS of Blue Spotted Sting Ray, Snake Eel, Porcelain Crab, Shrimp, Nemos, Yellow Seahorse, Flounder, Cuttle Fish, Bat Fish, Unicorn Fish, Stargazer, Puffer Fish.

I guess diving is not about to just see things, but also being able to spot it gives you a satisfaction.

Doei!!

Rachel Raymond

www.mshachi.wordpress.com

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Great Diving and Cashless!

3rd October 2010

In the morning, doing the normal routine, preparing the boats to leave for Mabul. Today when I arrived Mabul, Mike (my instructor), told us that we will have our 400m swimming test!!! To get 5 points(highest) we will need to swim 800m under 6mins! I am so used to swim in the pool and I could do 50m for 2 minutes and meaning that will take me at least 8mins in a pool to complete 800m. That is excluding currents and waves! meaning I will only get 4 points. My buddy Dan managed to get it in 5mins plus! Good for him. Of course I managed to swim in 5 minutes too. But only 200m of course! It was so tiring and the waves was like 5m high…and everything….(just kidding) I thought I was going to die! So I quit when Dan stopped and I will need to start swimming in the morning to practise for this swimming exam of mine. And to think that it was not a problem in the beginning????? For the rest of the morning, Idid the theories and also discussing the knowledge reviews with mike. He is very experience and very positive. Instead of feeling scared of doing my DM, I feel somehow motivated after hearing him talk and explaining everything! I got 100% for my test today which is good!

In the afternoon, we went diving in Frogies Reef. It was beautiful! I took some photos and trying to do what Dan taught me about taking photos underwater. In the morning he taught me some basic principle of underwater photography. But to my disappointment, my battery was almost dead because I forgot to turn it off in the boat! But I managed to take some photos which is amazing to me! There was a Nude Branch that was quite big and too bad I was not in time to take the photo of that Nude Branch.

Crocodile Fish – Saw 2 of them today! In this photo was the biggest one I ever saw!

Green Turtle – Their sizes are out of control! They are huge!!!! It is one of the sea creature that you can expect to see in Sabah when you come here for diving.

*I will check again their names. It is a family of sea horse.

Anemone Fish – NEMOS!!! There are beautiful! They can’t seem to stop swimming in and out of the Anemones. I took at least 10 of them and its only one photo you can see their face! Hehe.

Murray Eel* – I will look for which Eel this is. I am still learning to remember all their names. The first 2 photos are the same eel but small, and the third photo is a bigger eel and I dare not go closer just in case it jump and eat my camera!

Cuttlefish – It was sleeping when we spot it. The second photo shows that it was swimming away. If you catch a cuttlefish, you can see that their colour changes all the time. Even after they are dead, you can actually see the colours are still changing too. Yep. Sailing when you are sick of canned food, gives you different experience.

1st photo – Box Fish *

2nd photo – Trumpet Fish *

3rd Photo – Decorated Crab (It was actually just above the smaller Murray Eel! If you look closely just below the yellow big rock, is the Murray Eel’s head popping out. )

*(I will re-edit the name after I get the full name of the sea animals)

In the boat, I met a lady and talked to her in the boat. She was a very nice American lady doing her Open Water Course.

After I got back from Mabul, I went to the restaurant and have dinner and saw her past by so called her to join me. So she joined me. She wanted to eat fish so I recommended another restaurant to her and told her to go first and I will follow in a few minutes time.

When I wanted to pay my bill, I saw there was only RM2 left in my purse! So told the shop owner I need to go to the ATM and withdraw some money. He was a nice guy and told me no rush. So I went to the other restaurant to put my things at my friend’s table.

When I wanted to withdraw my money, it say that my card was invalid!!! I had my food bills to pay and I have no money! I only had some Pesos and Singapore dollar which doesn’t help at all.

I was lucky that my friend insist to pay for my food and refuse to take my money when I gave her the amount of my bill back. I felt bad since it was just the first day we met!  God Bless her!

So called my bank and ask what the problem is and need to get that fixed because I am basically cashless! Will have to scout around for banks tomorrow evening.

Doei!

Rachel Raymond

www.mshachi.wordpress.com

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Diving in Mabul

Today was my first day diving Mabul with my camera! I was excited and I didn’t know what to take because everything was beautiful and I wanted everyone who look at my photo see what I saw underwater too! And to catch a fish on a camera is not that easy too since it moves ALL the time. I guess I am so used to take photos of people and they will pose for me. Not with fish!

Grouper Fish – 1metre long!

The moment I descent, I saw this Grouper Fish swimming towards me. I was surprise and didn’t know what to do with the camera! On and off it a few time before managing to take a photo when it was swimming away! Hah! The visibility was not that good because of the current and it was a sandy bottom as well. There was another lady who was with us kicking the sand to make things worse. Instead of swimming horizontally, she swam vertically, thus the sand kicking. I have a very experienced dive buddy (Dan) who is doing his Dive Master Course with me. His girl friend is an instructor so he has to live up to the standard.

Butterfly Fish

These are fishes that you normally will see around, but it still fascinates me from the moment I start diving till now! I just took it for my own collection as well to remember that I have seen it.

Nude Branches

One of the marine creatures that I love the most besides Nemo!!! These as I would describe are snails without their shells.

Decorated Crab

Frog Fishes

Lion Fishes – Venomous!

Advisable to stay away though Lion Fish are not aggressive in nature. Their sting is not fatal to human but will experience EXTREME PAIN, headaches, vomiting and breathing difficulties!!!!

Barracuda – 1m long

I was surprise to see this Barracuda alone and was the biggest I have ever saw. I was taking its picture when it started to swim towards me and you can see the eyes looking at you. That scared me a little bit so decided to swim away as fast as I could.

Trumpet Fish and Grouper Fishes sleeping at the bottom

This was towards the end of the dive. It was a nice experience and I have to practice alot with a camera at my wrist while diving!

Doei!

Rachel Raymond

www.mshachi.wordpress.com

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Sabah with Jason

It was the Gawai Holiday for Sarawak, Malaysia and Jason, my youngest brother had a 3 weeks off from school. So decided to bring him for a holiday. I flew back from Singapore a month ago and took him for a week holiday in Sabah. The plan was 4 days in Sabah but it ended up to be a week coz we missed the flight which we both didn’t mind obviously because we had a good time snorkeling and diving in Sabah. 

Jason reading his map

We stayed in Rainforest Lodge which cost RM25 per bed with breakfast. It was a 4 bed dormitory which was reasonably clean and had a small lobby/ sitting room where the guest could go online and watch tv. It is a really strategic place, location wise coz just outside the Lodge is an open air bar. 

The first day was spent walking around KK town itself. Got Jason to lead on where to go to explore the town. 

Then towards noon, we went to the tour agent to book our diving trip and sailing trip. That being taken care of, we went to Pulau Manukan for snorkeling. The coral was really nice and saw the Nemo fish! We both spent at least 20minutes just watching Nemo before continuing our snorkel. 

I swallowed a mouthful of sea water when a fish was trying to attack me. It was protecting its baby. But then knowing that I am stronger than that tiny winy little fish, I continue my swim. 

We finished snorkeling around 3pm and then waited for our boat at 4pm to pick us back from the island. 

We went for dinner at Little Italy and they have really good pizza!!! 

Jason at Little Italy, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah

The next day, we went for our diving trip at Pulau Sapi. We were picked up by the dive centre then were briefed on the basics of diving. We both changed our clothes into the wet suit and when I enter the changing room, guess what? There was a HUGE poster of a Great White Shark eating people! Well, very encouraging! 

Jason in his wet suit

Went to Pulau Sapi and it took us 15minutes on the boat. On the way, the boat that we were on, got a fine from the police because the boat driver was a different person than the one registered (resigned). So the police gave them a fine. 

Water Police Traffic

At Pulau Sapi, we had our practical then we went diving for about 30minutes. It was a good place for diving and there we saw A LOT of Nemos. I saw  9 Nemos swimming together. They are adorable!!! 

We met Owen, Jonathan and Greg in the Lodge and they were our neighbor in the dorm. Went to watch the England game with Owen and on the way to a bar to watch the match, met Ben and he told us about a coffee shop that play the England game on tv. Met a few other travelers at the coffee shop we were at.  The game was at 2.30am and ended early morning. 

Go England!

Jason and I couldn’t, wake up the next morning to catch our 9am flight.  So we stayed 2 days longer than intended which was fun too. 

The next day, we went snorkeling at Pulau Sapi. Towards the evening when we were waiting for our boat ride back, it rained heavily. We were all wet again though we were waiting under a shed at the jetty. So Greg decided to jump in the sea, followed by Jon then Jason then myself then Owen. 

Jason Snorkeling

  

Sabah was a nice place after all. I was in Kota Kinabalu once, and didn’t remember liking it because it was so crowded. But it all changed and it was a nice place to be in but, they should do something with the beer price! 

 

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