dive 07

rayner’s rock, pulau dayang

our final dive for the trip, we were all relieved that we had done alright for the course so far but at the same time feeling a bit nervous about this dive although it’s a leisure dive since any major mistakes made will jeopardise our passing of the course.

it was great to forget about the drills and just focus on enjoying the underwater marine life. we saw lots of it…

4 huge [around 50 – 60cm] bumphead parrot fish swimming together. the infamous and sometimes dangerous trigger fish, not a very big one. countless other fishes and marine life that i couldn’t name. some of them actually will swim past very near my mask.

we also went past this tall wall encrusted with corals. truly awesome!

it was here that we first experienced a thermocline – a stratified layer of water with a noticeable temperature difference.

the next thing we know, the particles underwater were zooming past our masks relentlessly. now we know what’s an underwater current… we had to fin extra hard just to move ahead by a few feet. kay yaw told us later that was only about half a sea knot.

when we did our safety stop at 5 metres, we had to hang on to the coral walls to prevent ourselves being swept away. pretty exciting, right? :)

after surfacing, we had to fin real hard to return to the boat. this dive gave me a new-found respect for sea currents both underwater and surface. and also taught us the importance of good fining techniques.

pant!