Bucket list checked! Open water PADI diver certified!

It wasn’t quite something that I fathom to do. I could hardly snorkel. Scuba diving was mind blowing.

Then an email from KSRP came in announcing a dive trip in Redang Island. The open water license was so cheap! I could resist a good deal, so I signed up anyway, despite my fear for scuba diving. This was last year.

This April, KSRP announced another trip. It is a bi-annual trip, the first one being in April, the other in September. Having proudly passed my open water license last year, I decided to enroll for the leisure dive this year. I was still pretty jittery, I did not quite got over my anxiety of being underwater. I was told that if I dived more often (by the very encouraging and friendly KSRP divers) I will get better at it. The thing I love about KSRP dive trips is that, everything is arranged for you. You just have to pay up, and show up!

The bus left KLCC at midnight of Wednesday. Armed with a neck pillow and warm jumper, I slept through the journey. We arrived in Batu Rakit for a nasi dagang breakfast before boarding the ferry at Merang Jetty for the Island. The sea was calm and blue. The one hour boat ride was smooth and pleasant. When we disembarked from our ride, the blue sea and white sand took my breath away. I’m ready to dive!

There were 6 dives arranged for us. Two dives a day. All meals were provided for us at the Redang Mutiara Resort where we were putting up. Our dive “tour guides” were from Seamonkey Dive Centre. The weather was sunny but cool, nothing like the heatwave that we were having in KL. A very much welcomed break from the heat!

After our sumptuous kampong style lunch, we got ready for our first dive. Our BCDs (the thingy that helps us float and sink), regulators (the thing that we breath through) and fins (cheapos like me don’t want to invest on my own fins just yet. But I did buy my own mask. The first thing that you should buy I was told) was all prepared for us by the dive centre. We just needed to check that it fits and bring it onto the boat. Our tanks were already on the jetty.

We had two dives arranged that afternoon. We trooped onto our boat at 2.30pm and chugged out into the open sea. Upon arrival at our dive site, we were split into two groups. The expert divers group, and the “still jittery but still want to dive” group. I was in the latter. Our first dive site was only 11 meters deep. Specially selected for us to get comfortable and have a small refresher before going for deeper dives. A big relief for me. The expert group hit the water first while we wait for our turn.

I strapped on my BCD, made my way to the edge of the boat. I forgot how heavy the tank and BCD was. Luckily there were people helping me steady myself while, already in my fins, clumsily edge my way to the edge of the boat. It was one of those big boats with a small deck at the back to jump off the boat.

I adjusted my mask into my face, placed the regulator into my mouth, looked into the horizon and took my giant stride into the water. That first hit into the water and the first breath of compressed air was exhilarating! Once I was properly buoyant I signaled to the boatman that I was ok and made space for the next diver. When we were all in the water and ready, we made our descend. Slow and majestically. When everyone was at the bottom we were told to practice removing our regulator (yes removing the thing that we use to breath in!), let it go and put it back into our mouth and start breathing again. We also had to practice clearing our mask. These may sound a bit daft, but these are essential safety skills that at minimum we must master in case someone yanked out regulators off by mistake or kick our mask off. Once everyone had passed the mini refresher course, we were ready to explore the dive site. Like a school of fish we followed our dive master around the corals and navigate our way through a completely different world. It’s almost surreal. Having fishes swim past you, fishes that we only see in Aquaria. There were also lots of sea cucumbers, all sorts of corals and clams that open and shut when you tease it. 

After our mini refresher dive, the subsequent dive sites were deeper and even more interesting.

The following days were filled with so much more wonder and awe. Corals were more colourful and more fishes come out to play in deeper waters. I had the privilege of spotting turtles at two different dive sites. A thing that I could never imagine to witness. Turtles swimming before me. Clownfish is a common sight. Just like in the cartoon, they swim and play in their anemones. I made it a special point to take a video of them just to show my kids. We were told that it was the trigger fish nesting season. They are particularly dangerous at this time and we were to keep away and never swim over them. They do attack when they feel threatened and their sting can really hurt. The things we learn from the ocean. It was liberating finning around and over the corals, alongside fishes and taking goofy pictures with our dive buddies. Needless to say my Instagram was filled with photos from the trip almost instantly.

One of the dive site that we explored was a shipwreck. It was a boat that was donated and purposely sunk. I didn’t think much of the shipwreck. It was sunk only last year so it was still “fresh” and only a bit rusty. We explored it nevertheless and swum over and around it.

With every dive I completed, I was more and more confident. I could descend with no issues and have almost no anxieties. So it is true, the advice that I was given. At the end of the 6 dives, I already look forward to my next trip.

After 4 days of fun in the sun and in the water, we packed up and headed home. Heart singing from the adventure, new found friends and memories to last a lifetime.

The yummy nasi dagang breakfast at Batu Rakit

My gear

Preparing our equipment for our first dive

Happy divers

All ok!

Happy shinny people

At the shipwreck with our dive masters

Certified Open Water Diver!

Yes I did it! I really did!

It was a gruelling 4 days 3 nights. We departed KLCC around 11pm and arrived at Marang around 8am. Had a yummy breakfast at a local stall, nasi dagang of course and boarded our speedboat to Redang Island around 9.30am.

The boat ride was enough to scare the pants off me. I was grippy the seat infront of me so hard my knuckles turned white. The sea was really choppy and we were flying through the waves. The experienced divers seem calm. The lady next to me was dozing off. I was praying hard haha!

When we finally got to the island all fears disappeared. It was a gorgeous day and the sea was jaw dropping blue.

There was 39 of us on the bus, and 2 or 3 cars of our colleagues from Kerteh. Of the group 11 of us were there for our open water class. Some were going for their advance course and others were all leisure divers.

We were greeted by the Seamonkey guys at the resort restaurant, we checked into our rooms and even before lunch, we went in for our first class.

There were 5 modules, ie 5 videos to watch, a quiz at the end of every video and a final written exam at theend of the day. Barely recovering from our bus and boat ride, we kept dozing off during the videos. We finished our exam around midnight and amazingly I scored 98%!

Day 2 we did our confined water sessions. My first breath in the water was strange. Not quite what I expected. It was weird breathing in water but nice at the same time. Our class of 11 broke into smaller groups and my group had 4 of us. Our instructor Che Wan was real kind and patient. Super thankful as I was already doing my distress wave in hardly 2 meters deep and 5 meters from the beach! The waves were real high and honestly I was struggling with the snorkel and was confused at how I should be breathing. Hilarious now that I think back about it. But not that funny at that time. With all the equipment and flippers, it was really awkward and confusing.

So in our confined waters we learned all the survival skills. Some are scary to do, like removing the regular from your mouth and replacing it again. Or letting water into your mask and clearing it. But they are all very essential and we must be able to do it.There were SO many tasks that we need to do in confined water and in our day 2, we had 3 confined waters and a total of 5 to finish. It was exhausting. Do to the limited time, we did as many tasks as possible in the 3 confined waters and continued it in our first open water. We had I think 4 open waters to do. So thats 9 dives to complete the course over 4 days!

At our first open water, I was getting better at descending and breathing. My 3 other group mates were doing great too. Especially the guys. There were two guys and they aced each task with no problems.My buddy had a bit of panic with mask clearing but in the end she could do it with no problems. Our first open water was only 7m deep and for 52 min. No wonder I was shivering with cold! I definitely was not wearing a rash guard or anything like that. Just a bathing suit with t-shirt and shorts.

Our second open water was further out. Depth was 13m and we were down there for 42 min. I took a slow descent, equalizing and clearing my mask all the way down. Once down, I was struggling with neutral buoyancy. Was struggling not to crash into any corals and definitely trying not to hit any sea urchent which I saw aplenty hiding in between the rocks. The corals were not so pretty and there were not many interesting fishes. But still it was a great experience diving at that depth. We also did the CESA at 9m.

Our final, and graduation dive was at Che Esa. It was further out to sea. The sea was pretty choppy. We had to do the backward roll into the water, but because I had to clean my mask, it was so hard to do that in choppy waters! I was hanging onto the trail line and trying to clean my mask and putting it back on again. And again I had to take a slow descent and one of the instructors had to be by my side the whole time because I was last and hesitating. But he was SUPER. Reminding me to breath, clear mask and equalize. These guys are really so great.

It was an interesting dive spot. It was like a hill with corals on it. Again there were not so many interesting fishes or ocean life. Depth was 18m. But once at that depth I found that I did not need to equalize that much. I was focusing on controlling my buoyancy but reminding myself to look at the fish and corals too! Once in a while float way to high up and sometimes too low, but it was a great feeling finning and looking around. The only fish I was familiar with was of course nemo! Although a good friend of mine lent me her (china made) go-pro, but I really could not cope with yet another equipment to manage at this time. Was too focused on breathing and buoyancy.

Suddenly there was an urgency by the instructors to get back to the trail line. I was happily finning around, but I realised that I was not moving all that much. I signaled to the instructor to wait for me. He came to me, grabbed my tanked and pushed me to the trail line. I panicked for a while as he was pushing me forward quite hard. He asked me to grab the line. It was only then I realised that there was a strong current going on. It felt almost like a storm to me. So we inched our way up and out of the water. Turned out our dive was only 32 min. The instructors apologised for the short dive but stated that the currents were just too strong. But we rejoiced anyway  because we managed to finish our final dive and graduate yay!

We were so happy that we made it. After the 3 tiring days we finally did finish and are certified open water divers.

I will definitely do another dive soon.Hopefully at prettier sites.Can't wait for my next trip!