never disturb a sleeping turtle
back frm yet another dive trip, this one just leisure. not tioman this time, but P.Aur. stayed on Atlantis Bay on P.Aur, which is a small beach with several huts and nth else. no tourist-y souvenir shops or little grocery stores. only a few huts for divers to sleep in, and one main canteen. the bay is owned by some diving company or smth, and used by several dive centres. P.Aur can only be reached by a 4-hr boat ride. at ard 12 plus AM on Sat we reached Mersing, where we took the boat 'Princess' to P.Aur, during which i dozed off, squashed across 2 narrow seats with my head on my bumpy and rock-like backpack and my legs raised way above my head. at ard 4a.m we stopped some distance frm the island and had to tranfer into a smaller boat tt took us to the bay itself (the 'Princess' was too large to enter the shallow bay). then we were alloted our huts and we all made our way wearily into bed. at ard 7am (such as short time we slept) we woke, took breakfast and boarded the small boat which took us to the 'Princess'. we set up our tanks, changed into our wetsuits and began diving at our first dive site. the visibility at P.Aur is considerably better than Tioman. however the surge is quite strong (whereas in Tioman it's hardly noticeable) and i cld feel myself being pushed by the surge underwater. but there was almost no current on the water surface. saw several turtles close-up. also one stingray. learnt sth new - never disturb a sleeping turtle 'cos it will die of heart failure. I'm serious. it's smth to do with the fact tt turtles alr have extremely low heart rate, even when they're exerting themselves. so when they're asleep their heart slows down even more. when u disturb one when it's sleeping, it will be shocked and expel all its air, and then it will try to swim rapidly up to the surface to breathe, and the sudden exertion will stop its heart before it can take a breath. another fact: turtles only need to breathe every 5 hrs or so. did 3 day dives, then returned in the evening to the bay. yy2 and i did not change out of our wetsuits cos we had our nite dive tt nite. the stars were amazing. the milky way was one large streak across the sky and u cld see every little star, even the smallest of the smallest. whereas in S'pore on most nites u're lucky to see even Orion's belt. saw a very large (abt 30-40cm) cuttlefish with huge round, shiny, unblinking eyes. dint catch it tho if not we cld have had it for dinner. at ard 9 we returned to the bay, changed and had dinner. on sunday we did 2 dives in the morning. the current was strong, and the waves were almost surfable. the boat rocked LOTS. as yy2 and i dun have a problem with seasickness, we climbed to the top deck of the boat and pretended we were surfing. gr8 fun. meanwhile some of the open water divers (probably cos they haven't been diving for long and therefore dun have much experience on a boat) kept vomiting. after the last dive we packed everyth and had lunch. then boarded the boat back to Mersing. I climbed to the very top of the boat (where there were no railings and one mighty wave could rock the boat so tt i rolled right off my perch) and sat there enjoying the breeze. obviously i dint roll off if not i wldn't be here typing this. i returned home only early this morning, at ard 12. i can still feel the rocking of the boat. when i walk i sorta weave to and fro, as if i were still on the boat trying to keep my balance. i wldn't mind living on a boat. =p |
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