Salu's Lush Greenery

Sunday, 16 July 2006

It was good to see familiar faces. Met ardent divers like Chon Ming and Chay Hoon again. This trip was organised by the "Localdivers Yahoo group". I was a sleeping member of this group for almost half a year since I signed up. This is the 1st time I'm on a trip with them. Ivy who is the group proprietor cum organiser couldn't make it to this trip last minute and got herself replaced by Yan.

The meeting time was 2pm @ Keppel Marina. There were a total of 9 divers on this trip and we set off on Dolphin Explorer for our destination. It was my first time on Dolphin Explorer and i'm enthralled by how comfortable and spacious she is. It was a 40 min journey to Pulau Salu and i chatted with my buddy, Kat along the way. We were blessed with good sunny weather and the sea condition for the day was predominantly calm.

On the way to Salu, Dolphin Explorer briefly stopped by the buoy marking Sudong wreck which Kat and I could identify almost immediately. It reminded us of our wretched dive the week before. It was in total contrast today. An almost perfect condition to dive the Sudong wreck. There was seemingly no surface currents, the water don't look as murky and we could get very close due to high tide. We passed it on as the agenda was to dive Pulau Salu. Dolphin Explorer cruised to the Western side of Salu Island and we started our dive at about 3pm. We went down in buddy pairs unguided. The good thing was that Kat possessed a compass and a dive computer so I heeded her navigation signals. The first dive was a very shallow dive with a max depth of 4.5m and an actual bottom time of 61 mins.

Turbellaria(left) and Nudibranchia(right) : Flatworm Pseudoceros sp. and Nudibranch Phyllidiella pustolusa are some of the common residents of Singapore's coral reefs.

Chartreuse Panorama

The underwater scene was thick lush green forests of seagrasses. Among the vegetation were numerous thriving healthy corals. Reef fishes abound. There were gentle currents rocking us to and fro over the greenish hued seascape. We seemed lost in the vast expanse of the greens and our search for macro subjects were in vain. The creatures were well hidden amongst the foliage. We managed to fin out of the frondescence and to our delight, creatures started to appear under our watchful eyes in successions. On the list were the numerous shy swimming crabs hidden in crevices, Bandit crabs and shrimps in acropora corals, Tomato clowns in carpet anemones, Phyllids nudibranchs and etc. The highlights were a small Blue-spotted Stingray and an Eeltail Catfish.

White-lipped Eeltail Catfish(Paraplotosus albilabris)

.............Swimming Crab and a Tiny Nemo amongst the stinging anemone.............

We spent exactly an hour of surface interval onboard and were served with refreshments. The second dive was done at the same site but we went deeper this time. Visibility was still good of about 2 - 3m although it was darker as we decended deeper. There were a few large coral heads and small patches of sparsely scattered reefs. Otherwise, the bottom was mostly silty. We came across flatworms and Blue dragons while mucking around the deeper silty bottom. We generally navigated east towards the shallower reefs and encountered more crabs, Polycad flatworms, Blue Dragons, hermit crabs and a baby Thuridilla. There were lots of Acropora corals, each colony hosting a place for refuge to small crabs and shrimps within their branches. Those shy critters were extremely hard to photograph as they were mostly obscured by the branching acropora and they ran around too much..... I took lots of shots of those acropora shrimps and crabs but sadly, all of them were either out of focus or inconspicuous. We ended the second dive after an ABT of 63 mins and headed for mainland.

Baby Thuridilla bayeri

Marine Flatworm (Pseudobiceros sp.)

Blue Swimming Crab hiding in crevices

Happy and satisfied divers

Pulau Sudong "Wrecked" Dive

Sunday, 9 July 2006

This was the worst dive till date in my record. We dived in bad weather, poor visibility and strong currents. Terrible diving but it was good exposure to a challenging experience.

The dive trip was pre-planned to be at Sudong Wreck in the afternoon. We gathered at 2 pm, RSYC. The operator was late for 20 mins. The rented equipment was in a total mess with the confusion of the sizes. The operator did not pack them in order according to the list i provided him with. After finally sorting out our gear for a good 10 mins, we proceeded to the dive boat and depart for the dive site.

Alda and Katherine posing against a backdrop of darkened sky

The whole day was overcast with thick cloud cover. There were strong winds. Swirling currents and big waves were quite evident. When we arrived at the buoy line marking the Sudong wreck, it was low tide. Our big Salvage-converted dive boat couldn't go near, for fear of running aground the reef flats around the buoy. Poor Hanyong was sent down to survey the currents and he fought a good 10 mins to reach the surface marker about 10m away. He had to fin back in the choppy waters to tell us to abort this site. So the operator brought us to another site called the Ministry Wreck. The murky waters already turned us off when we arrived. Part of the ship wreck was visible from the surface. Again Hanyong was made to jump into the water to test the site's condition. He gave a "NO" signal and have to swim back to the boat. I imagined his weariness and could clearly see the frustration written all over everyone's face.

The Trio: Lingjun, Xiangyi and I

The operator then decide to bring us to a "reef" along the northern coast of Pulau Sudong. He gave a briefing on the terrain of the "reef" and asked us to head south towards P. Sudong. The breakwaters was about a few hundred meters from where we dropped off. Finally, we hit the waters and broke up into groups to dive, unguided... It started to drizzle already but we went ahead. One of Lingjun's fins came detached and luckily i was able to retrieve it. We were floating on the surface for quite a while being tossed in the waves. Xiangyi wasn't able to decend due to insufficient weights so i passed her mine. Alda, Issac and Yifei surfaced following the lost buddy procedure.

We gathered together and decended. It was beginning to get dark at about 3 metres and we were in total darkness when we continued until we hit the bottom at 12 metres. The current was very strong at the bottom. There was nothing but silt. We were basically being swept underwater as it was almost impossible to fin against the current flow. Dark and obscured by extremely poor visibility, we stayed very close to one another. I was controlling LJ's dive light attached to her and pulling her by the wrist. We lost Alda and Yifei when we decided to abort the dive after about 10 mins of bottom time.

Issac and I decided to swim closer to Sudong, hoping to hit some reefs while the rest decided to call it a day. It was extremely exerting to fin against the currents on the surface. Both of us decended after getting to around 10 metres within the vicinity of the sudong jetty. Again there was absolute nothingness but dark and silty bottom with a bit of rocks and seagrass. We decided to quit finning and just ride on the swift drift. We were swept in turbulence and there was no way we can see anything at all even if there's something there. Kind of scary though 'cos there was no reference but the bottom and we only relied on 1 miserable little torch. After being carried by the currents for about 15mins to god knows where, we decided to surface. We covered about 500 metres in that short interval!

Dredging on the nearby Pulau Busing

Now the sky's brewing badly, sprewing heavy rains and flashing lightning at us. No way we can continue with another dive and it was getting late too. We negotiated and asked for a refund. The operator refunded us partially after seeing some frustrated and disappointed faces.
It was another bad day to dive locally for me. Somehow, I just didn't feel satisfied. Despite 2 consecutive disappointing dive trips to local waters, it's not going to deter me from giving Singapore waters another try.

A Heart 'Drenching' Hantu Trip

Sunday, 11 June 2006

It was already drizzling to begin the day with. Met Xiangyi at 8.30am to find out that she didn't bring along her I/C for security clearance at the pier. The forgetful me did not inform her of such necessary procedure at the pier. So it was no I/C, and no diving.... She had to take a cab to and fro to get her identity card. By the time she made it to the pier, she was late and everyone waited for us onboard. Kind of feel bad cos it's my fault.

The sky started to clear when we were headed for Hantu. As usual, Debby made introductions and gave a short but informative briefing en route Hantu. It is nice to see Huibing and Chay Hoon again on this trip. Xiangyi and I was assigned to Huibing. I had heard she is apt at finding numerous macro subjects. Both Xiangyi and I shared the same passion with Huibing at looking for macro critters, so naturally we were more than happy to follow her.

The Dive Sites of Pulau Hantu

We started the dive at about 10.50 a.m. Dive site was The Western Fringing Reef a.k.a Flabellina Garden. We went about criter hunting slowly underwater. The visiblity was about 2m initially.. but suddenly plumeted to less then a metre when a large cloud of silt just tumbled down the slope and obscured everything! Xiangyi and Huibing was right in front of me but i can't see them! I had to literally go face to face with them to keep track of their presence. We finned on and finally got out of the large cloud but in due process we had ascended and descended a couple of times following the lost buddy procedures. We did not see much initially except for a couple of Phylliids and flatworms. Towards the end of the dive when we were at shallower depths (3-4m), we came across alot more stuffs like shrimps, razorfish, and a Juvenile sweetlips. The undulating swimming movement of the Juvenile Sweetlips resembles that of a swimming flatworm to deceive would be predators. It was very difficult to capture the much desired frontal or side frame of this beautifully decorated fish. Well....I only managed all the backside shots while Huibing got some good face shots.

We surfaced at about 11.53 a.m. Had lunch and was about to hit waters again when massive storm clouds accompanied by strong gale moved in. The waters quickly swelled with fast moving currents and crashing waves. The raindrops shelled on our little bumboat and battered us badly such that we have to hide inside the hold. So we waited for the passing of the storm. It looked a bit promising after 30mins of adjourning. Debby jumped into the water for a quick test of the currents when a flash of lightning tore apart the sky in the far horizon warning us not to continue. Its horrendous roar thundered into our hearts moments following the flash, discouraging us from proceeding with the second dive. So we all decided to head back to the mainland when the second wave of storm promised to strike. The ride back was a bumpy one with my face turning green from motion sickness... Xiangyi was in a worse condition. She just sat quietly at the bow of the boat.

Debby and Joseph braving the Storm

It was still raining when we reached mainland. Huibing was very kind and offered to drive us out of West Coast Pier. We alighted at Fong Seng prata shop and had a hearty meal. Xiangyi told me she almost had the idea of giving up diving for good because of her prone sea sickness. She was ready to throw up on the way back and kept thinking whether it is worth it to go through the inevitable succumb to sickness everytime she go diving. Of course, I had to reassure her that it was just bad weather cos I felt sick too (which i usually don't cos i'm a seasoned seafarer). I was more disappointed that we had to abort the 2nd dive. Hmmm there goes my money's worth... :( $93 for only 1 dive at Hantu was really a heartpain(ouch). I could feel the pinch but then again it is all unpredictable and inevitable... so i guess i have to let go a little and stop thinking about it monetarily and focus on what I gained during that 1 precious dive. So here it is:

Eight-banded Butterflyfish (Chaetodon octofasciatus)

A Blue-lined Pseudoceros Flatworm (Pseudoceros sp.)

A tiny shrimp perching motionless on the branching Acropora corals

A beautiful Split-banded Cardinalfish (Apogon compressus), distinguished by its neon electric blue eyes

The Elusive Juvenile Harlequin Sweetlips

The Juveniles of the the Harlequin Sweetlips are very much different from their parents. They looked totally different in terms of their body markings, swimming movement and feeding habits. It is a challenge to capture good shots of the Juveniles as they are always on the move, dancing about in or near corals/ rock crevices. They exhibit wild, swift undulating, vigorous and gyrating style of movement and almost certainly always away from you. This and their unusual juvenile colouring may be intended to persuade possible predators that they are swimming flatworms, which are often toxic. Below are some nice shots of the Juvenile Sweetlips that Huibing managed to capture. Check it out!

Copyrighted photos courtesy of Reef Xplore Guide Huibing

Wriggling Beauty: Juvenile Harlequin (Clown) Sweetlips (Plectorhinchus chaetodonoides)