Pulau Tioman

This past weekend I went diving to Tioman with Tenley. The weekend started as usual - meet at the dive shop after work on Friday, drive, cross the border, drive more, wait for the tide at the port of Mersing, get on a boat, sleep on the boat (freak out a little - because I'm a bit scared of dark, night, and boats), get to the island, sleep, then dive, eat, dive, eat, dive, eat, dive, eat, sleep, eat, dive, eat, dive, get on the boat back to the port, get on the bus, cross the border, drive more, get back to the dive shop, hop in a taxi him.

The only differences were:
1) I didn't like Tioman as much as Dayang at all
2) There was way less eating than there should have been
3) My dive master was extremely mean and not at all enjoyable to be around
4) I actually felt unsafe a few times this weekend (which I never had with this shop)
5) The diving was alright
6) Because of 1-5, I didn't come back freaking out about how much I love diving

Great things:
1) I saw the bumphead parrotfish that I'm obsessed with
2) A HILARIOUS clown fish attacked Tenley's finger and then my camera - a few times! It is super hard to laugh underwater - when you smile your mask lets water in!! (Note the photo - the clownfish is the Nemo like orange one)
3) I loved the weekend with Tenley. She rocks.
4) I only felt super nauseous for about 20 minutes - and there was a lot of time on rocky boats
5) Great people on the trip

If you're interested in diving (or learning about it), please read a few of my experiences. If diving bores you, skip to the pictures, and I'll see you here real soon.

Experience one:
Diving is all about buoyancy. If you put enough weights on yourself (which you wear on a belt when you dive), you will sink and get to the bottom. If you don't put enough weights on, you will not be able to get below the surface. Also, you wear a buoyancy control device (BCD) that you can put air in to make you float more or less. As you go down, the air in the BCD decompresses and becomes less, so sometimes when you go down far you might have to put more air in, and when you're coming up, sometimes you have to let some out so you don't shoot up to the surface. That's the educational background.

Anyways, when we were getting into the water, it was super choppy, and we were jumping and and holding onto a buoy (so the waves didn't sweep us away) and descending together. I jumped in, and I tried to put more air in my bcd so I would stay on the surface (remember - I'm wearing weights which send you straight down), and every time I put air in, the air came out. One of the Malaysian boat guys on a nearby boat showed me that my dump valve at the top of my bcd was stuck under the strap, but I couldn't get it out and tread water and not go under and try to hold the buoy. Essentially, I was scared, and I was going under (but I had a whole tank of air on me, so it wouldn't have been so bad if I just went down...). I wasn't panicking, but I was a bit worried and scared. My dive guy yelled at me to calm down and talked to me like I was an idiot. He also jumped in and fixed my valve - so I'll give credit where credit is due, but I felt like a piece of shit afterwards.

Experience two:
On that same dive my ear started hurting and not being able to pop. Dive lesson #2...When you go underwater, the air in your cavities condenses, and you need to put more in, so you can blow air from your nose into your head and pop your ears (you know - hold your nose and blow), and the mask tightens, so that's why divers have their nose in their mask - you blow out of your nose to get air in that space. It's also important to keep breathing so that nothing weird happens to your lungs when the compression happens there. So...sometimes it happens that I blow and blow, and my ear won't pop. It usually happens one dive per dive trip, and I just swim above everyone, and eventually it goes away and I go back down. No problem. Usually my dive masters say (underwater with hand motions), "you stay there. Don't come down until your ear is fine. We'll be down here." And then they check on me every so often. No problem.

Dive lesson #3...remember, diving is all about buoyancy, so you need to stay horizontal at the bottom, or if you face down and kick, you will go down, and if you face up and kick, you will go up. Usually I use light plastic/rubbery fins, and I have no problem staying horizontal. This time the dive shop packed fins that were too small, so I borrowed someone's "jet fins" that are super heavy. Because they're heavier, they made my feet go lower, which made my head higher, which made me go up every time I kicked. It's just a different way of diving - you sort of have to bend at the waist to stay level if you kick with heavy fins. I didn't get the hang of it real fast, so I was going up and down a bit. So...back to my story...my ear was hurting, so I went up a bit until I didn't feel pressure, and I was going to swim up there until it got better. The dive master pointed aggressively at me and then pointed down, meaning "You- GET DOWN HERE!" I pointed to my ear and did the "it's not so good" sign. And he took that opportunity to show me that I was going up and down and making my ear hurt, then he kept telling me to come down. There is no way at all I should go down when I can't equalize my ear. I kept trying, and something popped, and I got super dizzy for a minute, and then it went away, but I felt scared and unhappy and like a piece of shit again.

I had one dive master that was just about to enter the water and then realized that he hadn't turned on his air. He also said that he's too lazy to put up the "sausage" that is the bright orange air filled thing that says "divers below" when we come up. It's so boats don't hit us. They also started driving away from the port the last morning without counting everyone. They also ran out of water and told us to buy our own water for the rest of the trip. The mean one also publicly embarrassed me a few times this weekend. All in all I was thoroughly unimpressed, and pretty turned off. I even thought that I might not like diving anymore after the second, third, and fourth dives. I wasn't sure I would dive the next day. That's totally not me. My confidence was shaken - and not for any good reason - just for a jerk.

Sorry this is so negative - I guess I needed to vent, and Matt's in Israel having the time of his life with so many people I love!!! Enjoy the pictures. Click here for most of the good ones. There are some goodies...