SIP #2 - When Fools Rush In, Tekek, Tioman Dive Center, June 6-8, 2008

[shafi]

   When Fools Rush In...   


It was Thursday night of June 5th and I was rushing back to Subang Jaya from Kuantan – I managed to get my dive things together and within 30 minutes, I was out of the house again. Fetched Bijan and Bryan, and then later ATX, and we drove to Mersing, arriving at 5:45am, early enough for Bluewater Express to pack us into a small ferry somewhere behind the main jetty (in the dark – so dangerous) and we left for Tekek at 6am.

We all had thought that it would be the usual 7:30am ferry, so Bajaulaut  (who was coming from JB) missed that dawn transfer.

The 4 of us, Bijan, Bajau, Atxdiver and myself, were the only EcoDivers on this trip. Bryan (my research assistant) came along to assist with data management. RidRahim (who is now ever so busy in Salang) totally forgot about the survey weekend. Bumped into him while we were having breakfast at the jetty.

So we all checked into Tioman Dive Center (TDC) by 9am, ready for our first dive at 10am.

Already the skies were heavy on the day we arrived.



But then again...

[shafi]

Day One – Friday June 6th.

Surveying Tekek House Reef yesterday was challenging. Even after familiarising myself with the map, I couldn’t find the starting point (which is a permanent pin lodged on a boulder coral). I also had to look out for Bryan, who is a dive newbie. He didn’t have enough weights with him, so he was snorkelling and hovering above us instead. Then he had a leg cramp from all that surface kicking, so he drifted quite far away from us (thank goodness we had an SMB strapped onto him). After about 16mins of searching for the pin, we came up to study the map again and then laid the transect line at where we thought it should start.

“Past the main buoys, past the crazy damsels on a sandy patch and then right there at the boulder”.  That was the brief.

We laid the 100m line and upon returning to the starting point, we were left with 100bar of air (that might be cutting it real tight since we knew there would be tonnes of inverts to measure!!). To add to the situation, my regulator decided to free flow, so I was losing more air than usual. Rather than do the survey half way and running low, we all decided to surface and switch to new tanks.

After 2 attempts at the House Reef since 1035hrs, we finally did the survey at 1526hrs. Happily going along the transect line doing substrate, Bijan and I found the permanent pin (all covered in algae) at the 62-meter mark. That was supposed to be the start point!!
My conclusion – disregard the results of this survey and do it again the next day (at the right start point). Otherwise, the results will not be comparable to that of last year’s. The 62m deviation was totally unacceptable!

Exhausted and drained from the whole searching and bounce diving episode, we all went into deep slumber without dinner in our stomachs.

It rained the entire night – so we switched off the air-con and almost fought for the blanket.

[shafi]

Day Two.

Muppet moments.

Desperate to at least get some proper surveys done today, we headed out to do Teluk Kador that morning. We had also planned to do Batu Malang after that.

At Teluk Kador, Atxdiver and I laid the line and waited for the rest to descend.

Muppet moment 1: Bijan’s slippery giant stride became a face-down score of 5/10.

Muppet moment 2: Then it was Bryan’s turn. Atx said “Regulator on!!” and Bryan covered his mouth (minus the regulator) with his hand instead (and smiled), jumped in and showed the surface ‘OK’ signal.

Anyway, back to the dive proper – We had first laid the line in the wrong direction. My bad…. We headed towards a group of snorkelers. My muppet moment, this one.

TELUK KADOR - Time in: 9:50am, 73 minutes bottom time, average depth @ 6.4m.

T. Kador is a very beautiful site with interesting substrate features. Structures jutting out here and there… All the nice nooks… Not many fish though.

We finished the survey but had to give Batu Malang a miss. Unfortunately, the weather was not on our side. It started raining, the sky became dark and the winds grew strong. The water got very choppy and we had the flat boat (which can’t take the choppy waters). So we had to abort Malang and head back to TDC. At least we managed to finish ONE survey properly. Phew…

Had lunch and Mallika (from Gaia Discovery, Singapore) told us that CNN just reported on missing divers at KOMODO (French, Swedish and British). Called Sheik immediately to ask him if it can be put on the forum knowing that we have our guys going out there next week). The other piece of news was one diver dead and eight others (?) being treated for carbon monoxide poisoning from contaminated air in their tanks in MALDIVES.

Very sad… 

For the next survey ‘attempt’ at Renggis, Bijan and I went down to lay the line but the current made it tough. Kai had warned us about it since he was there earlier, but we all figured it would have mellowed a little by then. It obviously didn't. We were not able to hover well in this sort of current, so what else – abandoned the survey but went for a fun dive around the island.

RENGGIS- Time in: 1432hrs, 38 mins bottom time, average depth @ 8m. Viz was crappy. But we saw our cute pair of cuttlefish and ever curious batfish.

 

[bijan]

o_O..i foresee another muppet moment from me after this..

[Scuba Dynamics]

Had lunch and Mallika (from Gaia Discovery, Singapore) told us that CNN just reported on missing divers at KOMODO (French, Swedish and British). Called Sheik immediately to ask him if it can be put on the forum knowing that we have our guys going out there next week). The other piece of news was one diver dead and eight others (?) being treated for carbon monoxide poisoning from contaminated air in their tanks in MALDIVES.

Time to see me for your Filters to remove nasty gasses from the air you breathe..

[shafi]

Had lunch and Mallika (from Gaia Discovery, Singapore) told us that CNN just reported on missing divers at KOMODO (French, Swedish and British). Called Sheik immediately to ask him if it can be put on the forum knowing that we have our guys going out there next week). The other piece of news was one diver dead and eight others (?) being treated for carbon monoxide poisoning from contaminated air in their tanks in MALDIVES.

Time to see me for your Filters to remove nasty gasses from the air you breathe..

Easy for me to meet you, SD... I am just across you at Sri Hartamas...

Yea, negligence on the part of the dive center operator?

[shafi]

Leaving for Teluk Kador - dark skies threatened once again...


Atxdiver and I going in to lay the line for the survey... Dark skies behind us got the boatman worried about the winds which were growing stronger.


The 3Bs (Byran, Bijan and Bajau) stayed on the boat until the signal is given to join us underneath...


 

[shafi]

Aborted the survey at Malang and returned back to TDC safe and sound.

Back in our rooms, we keyed in Kador's data...


Atx and Bajau studying their invertebrate data...

[shafi]

Day Two (continued)... + Bijan's Muppet Moment 

After Kador and the Renggis attempt, the team agreed that we would give House Reef another go (since we now know where the damn pin is at) 

The team was getting tired - they wanted their goreng pisang (banana fritters), ice cream and keropok lekor (fish fritters?). But they knew how important it is to get the right data.

So, the 4 Ecodivers and Bryan went in and found the pin (thrilled beyond imagination), secured one end of the transect line, and then, just as we were going to merrily swim along the 100m,  the reel of the transect line wouldn't let... the muppet who was tasked to reel in the line from the previous dive reeled it in all twisted and tangled.

I was blinking  for 2 seconds (I should have checked the line before we all went in, but i wasnt holding on to it), so I asked Bijan to go back to the DC to get the extra line (finning back to shore is tiring okay), and I got everyone else back up to the surface. We then waited for a good 20 mins bobbing on the surface, cos Muppet Bijan went under and headed in the wrong direction  . A little bit more and he would have probably finned all the way to Renggis. 

In the end, the survey was done well. Water was calm although it was getting dark. We saw blue-spotted rays and a fat purple devil scorpionfish. 

So, at the end of Day Two, we Eco-Muppets had done 2 complete surveys.

Finally, keying in the data after our Tekek House Reef survey.

[Scuba Dynamics]

Easy for me to meet you, SD... I am just across you at Sri Hartamas...

Yea, negligence on the part of the dive center operator?

So easy, so near yet so far. In case you haven't noticed, I haven't had the pleasure of meeting you (yet) but almost certainly yes.

Compressor filters not changed, air intake sucking in Carbon Dioxide & other nasty stuff, busted piston rings causing oil contamination.... so many factors and so common. Most noticable signs are severe headaches (lungs sprayed with a thin layer of oil), nausea (secondary symptom) and if intake of CO2 is high, you will just lose consciousness UW and ta ta

This is just my .0005 litre of petrol worth and I am sure that there are Si Fu's here who can elaborate further.

[miezegreat]

Had lunch and Mallika (from Gaia Discovery, Singapore) told us that CNN just reported on missing divers at KOMODO (French, Swedish and British). Called Sheik immediately to ask him if it can be put on the forum knowing that we have our guys going out there next week).

The news about the missing divers is here: http://malaysianunderwater.com/smff/index.php/topic,4029.msg83346/topicseen.html#new

Shafi, so how many dives did u guys managed to do? 3? And how are the conditions of the corals there?

[ScubaBunny]

Shafi..

So sad hearing u only had like a handful of Eco Divers.. Wished this month was a 'cooler' month for me.. But unfortunately this month is d worst! M @ KLIA soon off to Kuching to do some work thus, missing the next SIP. 

Yes, how was d coral condition in those areas surveyed?

EcoMuppets : Bryan dun forget to always have ur regs.. on!  and Bijan.. lucky no photo of the slippery stryde.......... 

[Bajaulaut]

A happy face of a lady boss going for work




Starts to worry about how the result is going to be





No wonder fish already run away got snorkelers close to work site. So how to count the fish..............?

[shafi]

Had lunch and Mallika (from Gaia Discovery, Singapore) told us that CNN just reported on missing divers at KOMODO (French, Swedish and British). Called Sheik immediately to ask him if it can be put on the forum knowing that we have our guys going out there next week).

The news about the missing divers is here: http://malaysianunderwater.com/smff/index.php/topic,4029.msg83346/topicseen.html#new

Shafi, so how many dives did u guys managed to do? 3? And how are the conditions of the corals there?

We did a lot of dives - in out in out in out..

So anyway, after finally satisfied with House Reef, we went off to celebrate Bajaulaut's birthday at Liza's restaurant. Guys..NEVER GO THERE AGAIN!!!!  We waited 2 hours for our food, some families only ate at 11pm (they had their kids all falling asleep on the chairs, etc).

The restaurant told us they only had one cook, but it is beyond me as to why they still continued to allow more customers in and even opened up more tables at the next door area...

[shafi]

To officially end this SIP #2 report, because reports on SIP #3 (when Bijan gets well enough to report) and #5 (by Miezegreat) are sprouting up real fast   

Reminder: SIP #4 got cancelled because there were not enough EcoDivers available.
Day Three – June 8th.

Woke up to gray skies, choppy waters and a little rain.

One final attempt at Renggis, but Mather Nature insisted on giving us a hard time.

Again the current was unforgiving...

Bijan and I laid the line, at the right starting point, but finning back from 100m to 0meter got us breathless. Imagine having to remain hovering to count fish and identify inverts and substrates!! Tough...

We went up and told everyone on the boat that its going to be another aborted survey. Bajau and myself went back down again to get our line back.

And our hearts were aching! Fish were plentiful!!! The bigger guys came out to play...

[dive info when i get back home]

ZZZZzzzzzzzzzz.....