My Days have got muddled- Advanced Diving Pt 2

I got up at 7 to get ready to go diving, I met up with Sian and her friends at the jetty at 7:30. We were all going to get the boat together to Long Beach to save money as it is cheaper than going Coral Bay directly and you can easily walk through. Before we left I went to the jetty to grab a lunch packet of beef and rice. Abang Sabri my neighbour took us he's a really nice guy who does a lot of the Snorkel Tours for our project. Dan was at Tiga Ruang and I was hoping he would be able to get a taxi to meet us at Sea Voice in time for our dive at 12. I asked Abang Sabri to go collect him just so he had a boat but Dan had no way of receiving my message I had sent him so it seemed they missed each other. Rather than sit around in the shop in the morning I joined Sian and her friends on their dive to Panglima Abu. Chris who was my instructor for my Advanced offered to take me just me and him while the girls did their own thing. We sorted our gear out and headed to the dive site, this was at the north of Perhentian Kecil. The site was just off Tanjong Butong a beach we often do beach clean ups at. The dive site itself wasn't very deep 15m, we dived for 57 minutes however it wasn't the best of dives. I saw much of the standard fish we normally see snorkeling and a few nudibranch. We did see a big orange spotted Trivali which was cool. I ate my lunch and then got ready for my next dive. This was the dive I had been looking forward to the most, the wreck dive to Police wreck. Police wreck is an artificial wreck where 3 old police boats were deliberately sunk for a dive site. I was gutted I didn't have a camera on me as it was an awesome wreck. During the dive for my advanced course while under the water I had to identify 3 hazards, 3 points of interest and then locate the boat we dived from while under the water. I managed to complete all three, fortunately the hazard identification didn't consist of me being caught in it. There was so much life on this wreck it was amazing I saw a Red Lionfish which was something I had really wanted to see while here in Malaysia. 

http://www.facts-about.info/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Red-Lionfish-in-the-Caribbean.jpg

Red Lionfish

Other cool things I saw was a Blotched Porcupinefish as seen on other blog, Cleaner and Brown Banded Pipefish, Shortnose and Yellow Boxfish and a Nudibranch Leopard Chromadis. Photos Bellow:

http://cdn2.arkive.org/media/90/90BA8C5D-0671-44CE-BE07-0BD7DE8595A4/Presentation.Large/janss-pipefish.jpg

Cleaner Pipefish

http://cdn2.arkive.org/media/A4/A4B0D558-3C78-4AAD-9C19-1A3D592465F2/Presentation.Large/Male-banded-pipefish-with-eggs.jpg

Brown Banded Pipefish

http://www.diverosa.com/categories/fishes_Ostraciidae/L/IL3b-189%20Shortnose%20boxfish,%20Rhynchostracion%20nasus.jpg

Short-nose Boxfish

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Yellow Boxfish

Nudibranch Leopard Chromodoris

http://www.erickeung.com/koken/storage/cache/images/000/100/2013-cabilao-nudibranch-leopard-chromodoris,large.1387296933.jpg

The final dive of my course was at Sea Bell Rock, this was just off the coast from Coral Bay. This was for my Navigation dive, Chris quickly went through what he wanted me to do and off we went. I felt pretty confident as my compass work with Sue for my Open Water went well. We started by doing a straight line navigation where I swam thirty kicks away from Chris and then turned back using the compass and swam back. Visibility was very bad but I did it and found Chris. After this I did a square this time only 10 kicks and this was fine. The final test was a distance test, Chris timed how long it took me to swim 10m and then how many kicks it took me to do the same distance. This is important to know for when I'm diving on my own and need to know how quick it takes me to go places. We then just had a free dive around the sea bell rock. I saw a pregnant Map Pufferfish, there was a giant porcupine pufferfish which was near Chris then another one zoomed and swam by Chris's face. During the dive we were followed by a couple of Titan Triggerfish and we were on guard as Chris has been bitten by one before and they aren't nice bites. I also saw a beaked butterfly fish and the highlight was a juvenile green turtle but it swam off very quickly when it saw us. I was kind of glad as I didn't have a camera.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fe/Chelmon_rostratus_Luc_Viatour.jpg/1200px-Chelmon_rostratus_Luc_Viatour.jpg

Beaked Butterfly Fish

 Back at the shop we went through the log book and Chris signed me off as an Advanced Diver. Or well I would have been if I hadn't forgotten the pin on my card. Kib said it was fine and to pay later. I had a lot of fun with these guys while diving and was gutted to be finished. Chris and Kib especially it was like I had known them longer. I hope to be back for a fun dive or something before I leave the Perhentians.

Day 89-91- Last Time at Tiga Ruang

Due to my visa error I wasn't staying at Tiga Ruang until Thursday, instead going back to the village on Monday. There was discussion about closing Tiga Ruang while me and Ramona are away on Visa Run so this would be my last time on the nesting beach. This meant that it would be my last time to capture me in this beautiful landscape. I had a lot of fun messing about with my self timer on my camera taking various photos around the beach. I also took some of Maisy and while we were taking photos the group of monkeys came around camp and we watched them for a bit. There was one juvenile who was half orange and half black/grey. The rest of the day was very chilled, some reading, watching films and a nap. Once all the tourists had left the beach and it was a bit cooler I set myself the challenge of running a 5km. Tiga Ruang is around 300m so I did 9 laps up and down the beach and timed myself. Before coming out to Malaysia I had done a 5km run in my hometown in 24 minutes so was curious to see how I compared. It turned out I had got slower completing my beach 5km in 27 minutes however, this was on sand and bare foot. The real test will be when I return to the UK.

 

Monday morning I got packed up and waited for Joju. Maisy had asked him to come at 11 and in true Joju fashion he turned up at 10:30. I got back and no one was in yet. Dan was out with the volunteers and Ramona was at Blue temple. I made myself some lunch and began data analysis of Dan and the volunteers surveys while I had been away. Dan did a survey at Pitani Friday afternoon with two of the volunteers and Lenny, normally at PIR we are lucky to see a turtle and if we do we have only seen a juvenile and a female green. Dan managed to see and get photos of an adult male Green and a Hawksbill which is amazing. The volunteers who have been here 2 weeks have seen more Hawksbills than I have.

The next day was a very boring one 6 hours looking at nesting turtle photos. We had 27 nesting turtles this year and I had to check to see if they were returners or new compared to our database. I had already done a few but needed to get as many done as possible as I am diving tomorrow and off on visa run Thursday. I managed to get 7 done leaving only 6 left to finish it off. In the evening I could hear Ramona watching a film and she was laughing a lot. I asked her what it was she said Last Vegas I didn't know it but she gave me it to watch in Kota Bharu. Ramona has also been great at keeping me in the loop with staff information as I am still without a phone. I am so excited to finish my advanced diving course tomorrow.