This is the dive centre, Tioman Reef Divers.
Some corners of the dive shops are pasted with many photos of the divers and students. Two of Mei Siang, Brad and my photos are still here.
The dive boat. However, i did not use this one as most of the time, i dived with the intructor, Abect, only. So we used a small speed boat.
The newly built Tioman Marina and Katie and Mathew's yatch, El Sea. (Should be, the yatch they are bringing or working in.)
* I don't think it is right for me to put either Katie, Mathew or Chris pictures on the web without their consents.
Mathew was pumping air into the small rubber boat that we later took to see sunset and to ABC Village.
This is the yatch, El Sea.
EXTRACTED FROM MY DIARY:
i woke up at 6.30am, i think i was just get used to my working hour. i slept at 10pm last night, tired from my previous days of late night sleep.
The weather was not good today. It was raining a bit when i walked to the shore. i remember there were this intertidal areas some where near to the dive centre. i wanted to go and see what could i still find there. (Last time, i saw rock sea star and many corals.) i saw many onch (a kind of slug without shell), oyster, limpet (a kind of snail) and abundance of mermaid fans. The tide was not low enough to expose the coral reef. There was another patch of intertidal area, but it started to rain heavier, so i headed back to the dive centre. In the end, it started to rain cats and dogs. So Reeno played a DVD of his friend dived at Coco's Island at Columbia while waiting for the rain to stop so that we could off for boat dive.
Onch
Black Sea Cucumber
Clam
Limpet
Oyster
The weather is strange now. It is supposed to be hot season and yet it just rains most of the time. It looked like it is going to rain for this whole day.
When the rain got not as heavier, we proceed to the deep dive (30 meter). i should practise decompression stop and basically we would explore a wreck and stay longer so that we needed a decompressions stop. The different between training and recreasion dive is, seeing things during training is just a plus as the main objective is to learn the techniques.
i think i am still not as good in my buoyancy. At least sometimes, i need to hold on to something to just stay at certain depth. The dive instructor basicallly didn't baby sit me anymore. It was different to when i was in Scuba Diver Course that the dive instruction will constantly look after me/Mei Siang to make sure that we did not shoot up to the surface. This time, i got a one to one coaching and yet the dive instructor with his 'expectations' on me, did not pay particular attention to me. Later, he said my buoyancy was good enough and i am not likely to have problem to get in control.
Someone from the dive centre asked me about my ring at my left hand. i told them that, it was an engagement ring. But the fact was, someone suggested that, wearing a ring would save me a lot of troubles when i travel to the remote areas in Asia, such as India. People got less interested with you when you said you are married. In my case, i think i looked younger than my actual age, so engaged will do me better. With my previous relationship fresh in my mind, i found it particularly easy and 'fluence' to make up a story of my fiancee and others. So this was my 'practical' before my long trip.
Little did i expect that, my simply kind act of friendliness will bring me such a wonderful evening and to know these wonderful people. i got so bored eating alone that, during my lunch, i simply approach Chris who was eating alone too and asked whether i could join him. Of course, it is unlikely that people will say no to girl, so we started to chat. Chris is from France and his English is not as good. So when i talked to him, i need to speak really slow and choose some simple words and basically forgot all about the grammars (if you are thinking that my English is not great too, then i ensure you that, he is not even achieve 1/10 of my level). He was a nice guy, working as a computer engineer in Franch and will in Malaysia for a month.
i got 3 dives for today and it merely involved different kinds of trainings. After my last dive, i walked from the beach of the resort to the newly built Marina. While eating my ice cream on the way to walk back to the resort, i met Chris again. I called him to just said hello and he said he is going to meet some of his new french friends and invited me. Since i have nothing to do, so i just followed him.
That was how i met Katie and Mathew. I was still wondering whether last night was a dream. Watching sunset in the middle of a sea on a small rubber boat (i am not a romantic person), took a boat ride in the middle of the night to go to a bar (from Tekek to ABC) and i heard the most words of French in my whole life. It was just kind of crazy but yet wonderful.
Katie and Mathew sailed from France to Langkawi, they are skippers. From Langkawi, they went to Singapore and supposed to get the yatch/boat to Hainan, China. Unfortunately, the boat has some serious water leaking problem, so they have to stop here and later get the boat back to Singapore, Raffles Marina for repair. They said they are likely to just leave the boat in Singapore for the owner to decide what he wanted to do and they would off to Cannes, Australia, for another job and to practise their English there.
Katie is a year senior than me and she speaks the better English compares with Mathew and Chris. She is just not that kind of French woman that i watched from TV, wearing heavy make up, high heel and a LV handbag. But you couldn't expect a boat captain to be meeked right? She is cheerful, humourous but tough women. I really like her. Matthew in the other way was shy in the beginning. He is 22 and i think he is very good looking! They both knew from a sailing school in France and since then, enjoying time with each other.
3 of them were chatting in French, but in time, Katie or Mathew would translate. They were really thoughtful to me. They knew i am a vegetarian and i won't take alcoholic drinks, so they would check to make sure that, i got something to eat/drink. With such a great language barrier, i amazingly had a great time with them. We talked about animals, women in different careers, some French and English jokes.... Katie said, English called French frog because they eat frog and Frech called English pale beef because they are very fair and they eat a lot of beef! I found this particularly funny as to Asian, they just look kind of equally fair! We talked until the bar was closed and then again, took the rubber boat to return to Tekek at around 2am. i gave Katie my contact in Singapore and asked them to contact me if possible. She gave me her email and said she and Mathew are very sincerely invited me to visit them in Australia. She would cook me French meals! In fact, she repeated this "sincerely inviting me" for a few times during our conversation. Normally, i won't take any invitation from people i met during my trip seriously. But somehow i really believed that, she meant it.
When i parted with Chris at the resort (coincidentally, we were just staying next door), he hold me at my arms and looked straight into my eyes. We bid fare well , as he will leave to Kapas tomorrow and said good night. At that time, i was really thinking that, whether he is going to kiss me?? Then how would i react? I have never know any French in my life and i seriously do not know how to react if he does so as a kind of French courtesy. Well, i am glad that he didn't do anything and i suspected that this is because i got a 'fiancee'!
It was such a wonderful night with them that i started to believe that, i would have some kind of wonderful trip for the rest of my journey. The other reasons that i think we had such a nice chat was because we are all around the same age group, at least they are not some kind of party animals. i enjoyed the time with them so much that i even could ignore the second had smoke from Katie and Mathew, which i normally won't tolerate. :)
MONEY MATTER & LOGISTICS
1.) Food, including non-alcoholic drinks at bar - RM 29
2.) Others:
Peladang Mini Mart near to the Marina recylcle the 1.5 little mineral water bottle to use for selling petrol to motorcycle. If you don't want to just through away your plastic bottle, then it is good to give to them.
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