Young, enthusiastic fresh faces, azure blue skies, and a night dive done with just two divers. Our May 29th trip to Pulau Tioman was nothing short of fantastic!
As usual, everyone met up at 7pm outside the dive shop, and we boarded the bus and set off for the Tuas checkpoint.
Duncan having sweet scuba dreams
As usual, the stars were out and beautiful on the way to the island, but we noticed something special this time round. In the boat’s wake was a spectacular thunderstorm of bioluminiscence caused by the microorganisms disturbed by the movement.
We reached Tioman at about 3 in the morning, and it was off to our assigned rooms to catch some sleep for the long day ahead.
Our first and second dives the next day were at the Marine Park, where we sent the Open Water students down to the sandy bottom to complete their skills. The dives were, thankfully, uneventful. The students cleared their skills without much difficulty.
On the way to Renggis
After having a packed lunch on board (and spooning the leftover rice into bottles to feed the fish on the next dive), we headed for our favourite shark spotting ground, Renggis Island. Jason, our leisure diver, jumped eagerly into the water with a bottle of rice while I took the opportunity to point out some cool gul fish to the Open Water Students.
As dusk fell, our boat made it way back quietly to Genting Village. The Open Water students were sitting on the top deck, talking animatedly about the day’s dive, while the instructors were all knocked out on the deck. However a trio of Leisure Divers and me were excitedly preparing for a night dive off the Jetty.
When the sun finally set, we geared up, hearts racing, because for the first time in a long time, there wasn’t any Divemaster leading this dive. Torches ready, we giant strode into the water and descended. Immediately, we lost sight of the other two divers (it was that murky!) and our dive turned into a 45 minute buddy dive. Because it was only two of us, the fish allowed us to approach really close, and we saw schools of squirrelfish and soldierfish, together with several hermit crabs.
Satisfied night divers!
After our dive, our entire room hung out at the prata stall beside the jetty swapping dive stories until midnight, before we were forced to retire in order to rest up for our Dive Back the next day. (A dive back is when you do the day’s dive on the way home, allowing you to reach much further dive sites.)
The first site the next day was at Bahara Rock, a little outcrop in the middle of the deep blue. A little mixup happened there, and I found myself leading one of the Open Water Students on a tour stuffed to the brim with corals and fish. We even saw a grey tipped reef shark!
Post Dive Euphoria!
Sausage Festival @ Bahara Rock
We reached the jetty in good time and showered up, then boarded the bus back to Singapore, back before sunset!