Patricia, Tsu Soo, En-ping and yours sincerely were to meet in Terminal 2 at 7.30 am. I was fortunate that Tsu Soo gave me a lift by taxi that morning. He and I were the first pair at the Terminal 2 at 6.30 am. I called the other two and they said they would arrive soon. We were early, so we had breakfast at MacDonald's. Time flew and the 4 of us were soon together and we checked in.
After flying the likes of Value Air and Lion Air in and out of Bali for over 2 years, I must say Silk Air is a much better carrier. The service is so much better. And to top all that, I'm in the good company of 3 others. I've been flying alone then.
11th Feb 2009 - We landed on Mactan Island at 2.45 pm and was picked up by a mini-van for a 3-hour journey to the jetty at Maya for an additional 30 minutes of boat ride to Malapascua - Exotic Resort. It was to be a wet transfer at the jetty. It was low tide. Our bags got into a boat (slightly bigger than a bath tub) and the 4 of us including 2 other staff from Exotic went into another. The water was so shallow that the boatman need only to use a pole to push the boat to the mother boat for us to embark on our 30-minute journey to Malapascua. As it is, we were to be the only passengers for the transfer. We saw other mother boats rocking and waiting in the water when our engine started roaring away and off we went. Approximately 30 minutes later, we were in darkness as we neared the waters of Malapascua. And in the distant darkness, another small boat (I must admit that it is slightly bigger than the tub at the Maya end) came for us to cross to the resort grounds as the tide was still too low for the mother boat to bring us right to the shore. Yet another wet landing. No problem as I was in shorts, my usual attire nowadays. The time here is the same as in Singapore. The difference is, darkness or sunset is somewhere near the 6.15 to 6.30 pm mark.
We were given our welcome drinks and the keys to our rooms. The boys on the island were most helpful. Our bags were sorted out and sent to our rooms. We busied ourselves filling the usual registration forms. We had dinner and soon were in our rooms preparing our equipment for dive at 9 am the next day. Our 1st dive, a check-out dive, was to be at their house reef.
Our 1st dive on 12th Feb 2009 was in cloudy and windy condition. We were checked (they look at our Qualification Cards). We signed the usual indeminty forms and someone (we knew him later to be Paul) briefed us about our check-out dive in their house reef. I put on my fairly tight and fairly new wet suit and we were soon in the water. With my underwater casing (without the camera) I dumped my air and was the last to be sinking with the rest.
The check out went well. There were several things worthy of a digital shot but hey, I needed to be sure of my casing's waterproofing. So no pics but it was so nice to be in the water after such a long time.... We finished our 1st dive and when I got out of the water, I was cold to the bones. Never felt so cold and unfit. This was to be the first of the many cold, cold dives. As soon as we reached our rooms, I loaded my casing with my Canon Power Shot A710 IS. Ready.
Our 2nd dive was to be a little deeper but just as cold. With the excitement and camera in hand, I was totally distracted, checking my camera looking and ensuring that no water got into the casing. Down, down and down we went, my eyes still fixed on the casing. OK!! good!! No water, Good, good. Speaking to myself. Soon I was shooting but realised that I had not put that white piece of plastic defuser for my flash!!! Arg!!! So no flash shooting then... the colour were so shitty I decided to take it easy then. Just dive and watch over my buddies.
Feeling cold after the 2nd dive I decided not to do the dusk dive with Pat, Tsu Soo and Ping. Instead I took a slow walk along the beach, checking out the other outlets. It was to be approximately 20 minutes when I returned and the sky was already dark. While waiting for my buddies to come back, I felt hungry and ordered a plate of fries.I got a shock when the fries came. They were the biggest fries I've set eyes upon since I got to know about fast food outlets. Soon the dive boat came back with my buddies. As expected, they returned with all sorts of beautiful comments on spotting the best manadrin fish, The largest mandarin fish... mandarin this and mandarin that ... blah blah blah blah ... plus an assortment of other stuff.
On the 2nd day, my dive computer went crazy on the 2nd dive of the day. I was without a dive computer from then on. I had to stick as close as possible to Tsu Soo. Afterall we are buddies, right?! Well, we managed to see quite abite of things, including a thresher shark. For this, we had to wake up at 4.30 am to get prepared to move out at 5 am. We managed, with morning bad breath and all, we went down and there you have it, the thresher came a calling. It was a wonderful, beautiful but shy shark. We were told to stay very still or it will not come near our location.
We had packed sandwiches for lunch on board and so that we can do a 2nd dive at the same spot. I could not eat my meal. I was so cold and tired from the 1st dive that I felt sick. Soon it was time for our 2nd dive; and I was really glad when it was over. Heading back, I was asking myself if I could indeed do another dive for the day.
For the whole trip of 10 dives, I was miserably cold for 9 dives. We were told on the third day that the boat won't be able to venture too far as there was a typhoon blowing. So we settled for some nearby sites. On the last dive, as we approached the surface, I could sense some heat. Hey, the sun came out to play. Wow, what a wonderful feeling ... having the sun burning my cold body. And I concluded immediately, I am still fit and normal. I was cold because it was really cold and not because I was unfit.
The trip eventually came to an end. We started packing our bags the very same night we came back from our last dive. We were to leave the island at 7 am sharp the next day. The nice feeling in me came back knowing that I was not incapable on this trip. We had dinner and went back to our respective rooms.
The return trip to the airport was normal, and soon we were checked in and boarding Silk Air once again, heading home.
Thank you Patricia for yet another beautiful trip. And when it was time to say "see you again", En-Ping said, "see you at Layang Layang".....
Hey, to those of you who were supposed to be on this trip, you shouldn't have given it a miss.
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