So a bit of a wrap up (or a rap up, if yer a gangsta) of all the bits and pieces that I never got around to posting... and some fodder for those of you who don't read the words. Leaving KL
First up a few night images of the Petronas Towers.
That's Petro-Nas by the way, just so you sound like a real Malasian.
This one's bright....
This one's not!
A different angle.
And some Malaysian flags. It was just coming up to National Day - so there were plenty of em.
Another different angle.
Ahh the essence of asia - brands, brands, brands!
Ninjas, ninjas, everywhere, and not a drop to drink!
They've ripped off Crown Casino in Melbourne. Or was it the other way around. 
This is the top of the other tower.
Honestly I'm not sure what they think you use a cigar for...
HONG KONG, CHINA MIKE
Here's Euan and some booze. Kind of sums it all up.
Euan demonstrating some of his ninjitsu techniques.
The famous China Mike, Mike China, Dynamike, in the contemplative lotus pose.
Something you will not see every day. Euan sewing a button back onto my pants. Good lad.
As you can see I was hard at work. Euan sewing, Kat packing. I was lounging with Mike.
My Birthday
The best birthday presents - two cards made for me - one by Jimmy and Jay, and the other by Tijana! She writes better than I do. Actually she writes better than Jimmy as well. Hm.
There's a few more pictures from the plane to be posted, but I mean how much sky do you all need to see right now.....
Tomorrow's the wedding, so ... off to bed!
Someone (other than Kat's dad) from Qantas must be reading the blog, as this time the service from check-in to disembarkation was exemplary. Perhaps they put their best people on the lucrative AU to LAX route, or maybe it's the sight of me in a polo shirt that really gets the staff going..... I'll leave it up to you to decide.Thanks must as usual go out to Mark for the super-cheap fares. I think this might be a different flavour of posting if we'd had to fly cattle class. Moo.So our first taste of the USA was the 3 hours spent clearing customs and getting checked in to our connecting flight. SOMEONE decided to roll her eyes and get shirty with the customs officer, who asked whether she "had a problem with that". Thankfully we just had to fill some different forms out. Never mind.Strangely, I'm going to go out on a huge limb here and say that in Australia we do the "self serve check-in" a whole hell of a lot better than Delta Airlines at least. The software was confusing, required swiping of passports, and there most certainly NOT a surfeit of air-conditioning. Bag scanning and loading was in a different place, and the queues to the gates were not very clearly marked - we stood in the wrong line for about 20 minutes, before getting to the front and realising we were in the wrong place.... Yay.Anyhoo. Salt Lake city was uneventful, and I passed out from tiredness on the flight to Calgary. I awoke to flying over what looks like it could be a city of 100 million, but really only has just over 1. It's huge, as big as Melbourne, with 1/4 of the population. Oh well, makes for nice golf courses. The weather's great, and catching up with Kat's family was also good. Of course we were well fed and boozed up, so by the time we arrived at Denis and Janet's place (Kat's cousin, and soon-to-be-wife-of-cousin) we were ready for a snooze.... This is already a bit long for most of you, so tomorrow I'll take some pictures and intersperse them with more words. Toodle-pip!
31 years ago, my parent's life was made infinitely harder by my arrival into this world.
31 years on, it's not just my parents, but the world who are suffering.
Oh well. So thanks to Ben, Minas, Fletch, Wang, Murdoch, Bonne, Bec, George, Mags and Buddy for partying on with us last night. Apparently all our other friends are cunts. HARDEN UP!!!!
So what's with this no smoking in pubs business eh?
Sure it doesn't smell like smoke anymore, but now it just smells like rancid rotting beer and ass instead. There was something a little disturbing about a smoke free Union Club..... or was that just because it's turning into a gay hangout? I swear at one point I heard the bus boy/girl/it say something about employing only "lickers". Hm. Maybe it was something to do with a carpet cleaning business.
Stay tuned for more mayhem...
5 nights in Hong Kong. 4 nights of non-stop drinking.Only one, China Mike.--shaft onWho's the only white man, who can speak both Mandarin and Cantonese..... MIKE!Who's the only white man who can read the language toooooo?..... MIKE!--shaft offSo I suppose I should explain this. Mike is my oldest mate. Not oldest in age, but oldest in time. We suffered together through the Mentone Grammar Gulag. Mike has also been living and working in mainland China for the last 5+ years. Mike was a real hit at dinner. His poise, his grace, his looks and his success. That coupled with his command of the Chinese languages, and culture - means he is the newest addition to the extended Clark family.
Congratulations Mike, your feats will live on forever in my dad's boring family tree.So it's really hard to say where we went, and how many Long Island Iced Teas we drank, or how many strange looks we got, or how often we wore our pants up to our elbows. But hell, my kidneys are crying and my liver is weeping, so I guess it was a fuckin' good time.
Some highlights:
The Tuesday Night from Singapore - 1 litre of alcohol consumed.
The Wednesday Night from Columbia - Many visits to the toilet cubicle.
The Friday Night from Hell - more seedy bars and long island iced tea than ever drunken before.
Other more family oriented highlights were:
The Saturday Morning Yum Cha after the Friday Night from Hell - with my Aunties (everyone's an Auntie in Hong Kong) at the Renaissance Hotel - more room there than Euan and Jen's entire block of apartments.
The Saturday Evening Dinner - with my godparents, godbrother, and China Mike. It's been a long time since we all saw each other, but everyone was very very welcoming. What can I say??
On Saturday evening I was feeling very ill (read: soft) so wanted to go to bed. Mike and Euan on the other hand decide that going out drinking was a good idea. We spoke to them on Sunday morning at 6am when we were going to the airport, and they were going home. Ahh.....
....and now Melbourne.
Well here we are in Honkers.
Courtesy of Mike and Euan we've been touring various bars and bars, and some bars.
It's been great to catch up with them, and my realisation this week is that when you're with friends, it seems to be home no matter what country you're in! Aww...
I think I'll have to make a proper blog post when my liver comes back from where I left it.
For those that read the blog, in honour of my birthday (the 21st, all donations accepted - you can paypal to lamaison at iinet.net.au) and our brief stopover in Melbourne, we will be having drinks of the evening of the 24th.Not sure where (but probably inner east, like the Union or the Grand).Not sure when (late afternoon most likely).Further details here, later. Please spread the word.Bye bye Singers, next stop Honkers.
So yesterday (Friday) we finished up at the Redang Kalong resort.
I recommend it for diving - http://www.redangkalong.com/webtoolz2/article-10.html
I do not recommend it for "resort" activities, but anyway...
The dive operation is great, the food is good (not as good as Seaventures, and a little more targeted to their mainly Malaysian Chinese customers), and the dive sites not too bad at all.So a few pictorial tidbits before the underwater upload.First up: Keeping with my macro fascination - a grasshopper that was on the wall outside our room. The underwater business has improved my not-so-mad skillz immensely, and I think my results with normal flash photography are improving.
Secondly: The tide goes RIGHT out at Redang Kalong, so much so that the boats end up sitting on the bottom.
Lastly: A fish, but not the kind you might expect.
So we met a chap named Raj at Redang Kalong, who works on merchant ships. I found it fascinating, as I've always been interested in big boats for some reason.
Did you know that for a big container ship (that holds around 5000 containers - there are bigger, I think the biggest holds over 14,000) it costs over USD1.5 million to fuel it? The same ship at maximum cruising speed burns over 160 cubic meters of fuel per day.... This is a picture of the biggest one in the world:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Emma_Maersk_2.jpgAnyway.
Raj gave us a lift back to KL, and drove us around the city and stuff, and then dropped us off to where we were getting the bus from. What a great bloke... I hope some day we'll be able to repay the hospitality.
We got a fairly luxurious bus from KL to SIN, but for some reason even though it was 11:30 at night, they insisted on putting a movie on (complete with audio, whether you liked it or not).
No one should be subjected to Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker, especially when trying to sleep.
Five slightly sleepless hours later we arrived in Singapore, and made our way back to Chateau Curran, and here we are....
Latest, and probably last for a long time, batch of underwater photos.
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/rogue303/PulauRedang
The housing has to go back to Ikelite for repairs, due to crappy manufacturing. Grr.
Later!
Gosh it's late. 21:51 and I'm already ready for bed. So much so, that I'm considering canceling the batch of 5 images that I'm trying to upload. Kat has already retired with an angry stomach. Weak I tell you.Today was our first full day of diving here, and this afternoon I managed to get partially over the photographic lull that has plagued me for the last day or so. Still screwed up a bunch of potentially good shots, but that's life I guess.
It is funny that no matter where you go, there will always be some white guy boasting about some big project or some crap. Maybe this is the same if you actually understand what yellow people are saying, but until I get mad language skillz I will have to assume it's not.
Grr it's going too slow, the mozzies are taking a liking to my feet. Bedtime. No pictures tonight.
I think I was prepared for another Tawau, and after the debacle that was the Berjaya Incident I'm not sure whether we had high hopes for Kuala Terengganu (or KT as we will now call it).Surprisingly though, things have turned out to be very pleasant here. We arranged another trip to Pulau Redang (which was much more reasonably priced, and included diving, meals and transfers). We're staying in an extremely simple room above the travel agent, but it's clean, has airc onditioning, and was MYR38 for the night. The ATM was easy to find, and didn't eat my card (although one took so long to get to the "please enter PIN" prompt that I was having flashbacks to KL). The internet cafe had good bandwidth, so as you might have seen I've uploaded the remainder of the Sipadan/Mabul/Mataking pictures that I deem worthy of your esteemed viewing. Nearly 2 hours of internet usage for the two of us was only MYR7, which is good value given I moved a couple of hundred meg up and down.An interesting thing about Malaysia is the Pepsi Max comes in two different flavours. There is a "plain label" version which tastes like it's watered down, and a "funky label" version that's more similar to the Australian version. Fascinating huh?Tonight we wandered down to the waterfront and had dinner at a little restaurant. The food was delicious, especially as we hadn't eaten in 10 hours. We tried the ABC, which is a cendol like desert, but a little richer - I'm still struggling with the concept of sweet-corn in sweet dishes. Perhaps it's just me.While we were there, a massive thunderstorm rolled through. A couple of the lightning strikes were very close, and scared the shit out of us. Rain you say? Yes there was rain. A torrential downpour, sideways. Thankfully it had passed by the time we left.On the way back to the room, we were treated to the sight of hundreds (if not thousands) of swifts swooping about - I assume hunting insects. Ahh for a tripod. Nerdy Camera Bit - just realised I had the Adobe Camera Raw plugin resampling the images to a different final resolution compared to the resolution that they wer originally shot in. Allegedly this leads to lower image quality. I apologise.
This morning the journey BACK to Redang was smooth, and the resort, whilst not luxurious, meets our needs for diving, eating, drinking and sleeping. Maybe pictures soon, but another update tomorrow.
Read it up, nerds.
A couple of days ago we left KK for KL to prepare for our trip to Redang.
We got there eventually, but KK airport is no fun when your flight is delayed. I was also suffering from the after effects of a "Cantonese Mee" that I ate at Tawau airport.
Why is it, when you really need to take a crap, the only toilets available are the nasty squat ones?!
Thankfully I clenched my teeth (and bowels) and resisted the urge....
When a cubicle with a normal toilet became free, I hiked up my shorts to keep them off the wet floor, and did my explosive business. Luxury indeed.
On arrival in KL we turned on the laptop to post to the blog and look up the hotel details. 5 minutes later the battery went flat. Not sure whether the battery is fucked, or whether I forgot to charge it. Let's hope it's the latter.
The Hotel Grand Continental (not Chancellor - which doesn't exist, despite us thinking it did) is neither grand, nor continental (unless continental is a packet of peanuts a'la Malaysia Airlines). It is however, apparently a favorite hangout for fundamentalist Islamic tourists, and cheap-ass Indians who are staying in KL.
The mattress hadn't been changed since 1980, the air conditioning didn't work, and someone had left a milky drink in the fridge. Ahh well, apparently that's what you get for MYR170.
Keeping with the jihad theme we found an internet cafe run by an Arabic bloke, who was very nice and gave us MYR1 off our internet and printing bill. I've never seen a keyboard with Arabic script before, nor have I ever tried to log into the jihad version of Google mail.
Time passes, and the next thing it's 05:30 and we're getting up to travel to Redang.
A small taxi fare comparison:
- Coupon from Sentral to Hotel: MYR11
- Fare agreed on the next morning from Hotel to Sentral: MYR15- Fare the meter showed: MYR6
Hmm.
MAS were doing the usual airline trick of having 2 staff manning the check-in counters, and 2 staff manning the counters for people who were still in the queue but the flights were closing. Never mind, at least they weren't running late today.
We arrive at Terengganu, get a transfer, ride a boat for a couple of hours and arrive at Pulau Redang.
It is here that everything starts to go very very wrong.
1. Even though it was the hotel transfer, the room isn't ready. Seems like 90% of the other rooms are, but there are an unlucky few condemned to wait in the lobby for several hours. Including us.
2. Despite booking a room with a king bed, ours allegedly has two single beds.
3. I present to you the text from the Berjaya Beach Resort website:
"Rates inclusive of daily breakfasts, 3 boat dives with tanks & weight for certified divers only or a choice of 1 spa treatment (60 minutes massage/ Body scrub/ Reflexology/ Facial) for non-diver and welcome drink for the number of paying persons booked for each room."I had foolishly thought that "3 boat dives" meant "3 boat dives per day". NOT SO MY FRIEND! It means 3 boats dives each IN TOTAL. I had also not paid close enough to the meal allowance, as nothing but breakfast was included, and there is only resort restaurants to go to.Faced with spending several hundred dollars more on diving and eating, we decided to check out the next day. A very disappointing experience, as the hotel staff weren't willing to come to the party with.. well... anything.
We slipped in a cheeky dive, which was quite nice. Had a huge buffet dinner (at the tiny price of MYR110), and quickly left without signing for the bill.
Neither were charged to us. WE WIN!! HAHAHA DIE!!
Anyway. We're off somewhere else tomorrow. Back to Pulau Redang. Older, and wiser.
Now... some pictures. First some embedded ones.
Here is a photo of James (red shirt, on the left) and Yong (red shirt on the right) from Seaventures. If you look closely you will notice that our time was not misspent, as they have rightly learned how to salute the Slayer way.
Next is just a picture of Seaventures as we leave. *sniff*
Our palatial residence on Mataking Island:
The view from the beach (well not always, unless Kat is on the beach every night while I am not paying attention. Possible, but unlikely):
Phew. Second last is my second gallery of images from Sipadan & Mabul:
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/rogue303/SipadanPhase2
Last, but not least, images from Mataking:
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/rogue303/Mataking
** Photos done. Captions done. Goodnight **
Until next essay,
Us.
Looking back at SipadanIt's hard to think of the highlights of our time at Seaventures, let alone sum it all up.Here's a few things that come to mind:- Diving towards a Leopard Shark as it swims by with its remora entourage.- Seeing giant turtles watching you watch them, as they lie/swim/eat - they're very graceful underwater, and at least at Sipadan don't seem too concerned by your bubbling, flapping presence.- Seeing Kat being attacked by a Titan Triggerfish. This was VERY funny. It was slightly less funny when it tried to take a chunk out of my bio-fins though... - Finding a giant, black frogfish - so black, that it was impossible to take a picture of (well for me anyway).- Watching huge schools of fish congregate around the rig on a couple of nights. There were many hundreds, if not thousands of them - and a giant trevally was hunting from below - you could see patches of water clearing as they were chased, and the ebb and flow of the school.- Swimming amoung a few hundred barracuda as they circle in the ocean- Being close to a grouper that was almost as big as me - he didn't really care for me trying to take his picture, so he retreated into the depths of the artificial reef.- Hovering less than a meter from massive bumphead parrotfish as cleaner wrass nibble at parasites and such - these guys could do with a nice electric toothbrush on their "beak" - maybe I'll take one down with me sometime and see if they like a clean.- Wondering whether the reef sharks are going to decide that they'd like a nice piece of Australian meat. They move so smoothly underwater, and you just know that if they want to move fast, they can.- Last but not least, getting free t-shirts - so now we have our very own dive paraphernalia to wear around!Looking back at MatakingWhat a change from Tawau & Seaventures. This was more of an island getaway, and the first time we have obverved the native Italian on holidays. The diving here was nowhere near as spectacular, but not without its highlights.It was amazing to see the effects of dynamite fishing first hand - the undulating wasteland of dead coral is a depressing sight, but look close enough and small patches are growing back - in a few decades it may begin to recover, if we haven't ruined the climate by then. The reefs around Mataking must have been spectacular 50 years ago.The night dive on the house reef was an eye-opener - things that appear dead during the day spring to life at night.Creatures bloom from what appears to be rock, and juvenile cuttlefish venture out to eat. Strange crabs duck in and out of holes in the coral, and most peculiar of all a small ball that "flew" through the water on "wings" to bury itself in the sand.Even the sandy bottom is alive, filter feeders come out to play, small lionfish lurk on the bottom waiting for their prey, and the mantis shrimp sits patiently in its hole..The jellies were also out, seemingly attracted by the guide light of my strobe, swimming towards me and stinging me and twisting and turning. Arrr me hearties it would be nice if I was wearing a wetsuit at this point.The downside? Getting an ear infection wasn't fun, and neither was the cold afterwards. Guess it was my turn to miss out on a day's diving.We're in KK tonight, and who should we meet again - Oliver from the rig. If he turns up in Melbourne in August we will be worried.Posting this from KLIA... Free WiFi is my friend. Photos are ready to go, just waiting for enough upstream bandwith. Deliver me Internet Lord.
Here we are again. No one should spend more than one night here, ever.
So we're alive, and just back from Mataking Island.
Tonight I'm a bit tired, so more lengthy update next time I can get near the internet....
But for those who care, tomorrow is Tawau to KK. One night in KK, then off to KL.
Again, overnight in KL, and then off to Pulau Redang for some more diving.
Peace.
No not as sad as saying goodbye to the dog, but sad nonetheless.Finally we're done with our Sipadan experience, and it's hard to say whether it was harder to leave the reefs or the people we met.Last night we arrived back in Tawau and headed out with a few of the guys who came off the rig. At approximately 3AM we left Colin and Lena and headed back to the hotel. I don't remember exactly how I got to bed, but the night included getting a ride on someone's motor bike to the ATM, drinking the bar dry, and partying in a strange little nightclub.Today we were ferociously hung over. I really wanted to die, and no bacon and eggs to be found anywhere. Curse this serve no pork business!!Tomorrow we're staying in Tawau for one more day, and then off to Mataking Island for 5 more days of diving. From there we'll start the trek back to KK/KL/Singapore. We're aiming to arrive in Hong Kong around the 13th of August to catch up with the world famous Euan Clearkin.Must dash. Second batch of photos as soon as I can.
We decided to extend our stay on the rig, but unfortunately it was fully booked for 2 nights - so we've had to come back to land temporarily.
Currently we're staying at the luxurious Heratage Hotel in Tawau. It's not that luxurious, but compared to the rig it sure is. Tawau however is not exactly the jewel in Sabah's crown, oh well it's nice to do nothing and fix up all the photos.
The latest installment is here.
For those who are click-shy, here is the URL:
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/rogue303/SipadanPhase1
Until next scintillating update!
Apologies for the delay, and also the crappy resolution. Oil rig connection is a little flaky, therefore things have had to be made a little smaller than usual.
First up a jawfish. This little guy sits in his hole and only pokes his head up when he thinks the big fat loud bubbling thing has gone....
There are lots of these catfish here. They sift through the sand, I assume catching food. Otherwise there seems very little point, unless it's fun. Who am I to judge.
Madam Classifer has let me down on this one - but never mind, the picture looks ok.
Also unsure on the next one too. Next investment will be a book on identifying fish.
Next up a tiny stone fish (maybe). I only noticed it when it moved after I nearly put my hand on it.
Thankfully it was more scared of my hand, otherwise I would have gotten a nasty (and painful) surprise...
This one's a scorpion fish. There are plenty around here, and as you can tell they're quite well camouflaged. I have a nasty habit of nearly kneeling/stepping/putting hand on these. 
I managed to snap this clown trigger fish as it swam past. I think the black on black looks quite nice.
Another nudibranch. Haven't looked this one up, but there's a big poster of it on the rig (not this photo unfortunately).
Am downloading more photos as I type. Keep your eyes peeled, and your underpants fresh.
Tomorrow we temporarily leave the rig for a couple of days on land, that is all.
Not much news per se - short of Kat now having an ear infection, and being unable to dive today.There is a REALLY F**KING ANNOYING FAT ASIAN SITTING NEXT TO ME. Correct.I can't deal with it, so no posting pictures tonight.Good evening.
Right then.
Sorry for the delay have been doing a bit of diving the last few days, and it's been kind of tiring.
I apologise for the water blob on the front of the dome which obscures part of the rig's superstructure, but here's where we're staying:
So Sipadan. Everything they say about the place is true, it's simply amazing - the variety and abundance of sea life IS breathtaking.
I've also never dived in such strong currents - at times it's like a rollercoaster tour of a reef - you're literally flying along without even kicking.
Unfortunately my photography is nowhere near as spectacular as the sights - some highlights that are undocumented include: tiny skeleton shrimp, baby nudibranch, trigger fish attacking Kat, bloody huge cuttlefish, wrass, puffers and grouper.
Switching from macro to wide angle also introduces a whole new world of things to try and figure out....
Some pictures (there are more, but I think these are the best so far - I've had to shrink them a bit, the connection here didn't like my first, larger ones):
This appears to be some kind of shrimp, in a hole with a fish, on its tail...
An eel - it stays in its hole waiting for prey to come past, and obviously would eat it...
A moray eel of some description. Really must classify this stuff before posting next time, not like I have anything better to do!!
Erm.... a stonefish, or is it s scorpionfish. Either way don't go poking at it with your mitts unless you'd like a trip to the nearest intensive care unit.
This one is an alligator fish, so named because it looks like an alligator. 
This is a turtle. We've been lucky enough to swim with heaps of them... they're super graceful under water. Nearly as graceful as me, and less graceful than Katherine.
Another turtle. Not the same one.
Sharky sharky. There's plenty of sharks, and this is a crap photo....
A fleet of barracuda (x2) - they were swimming all around us in a tornado this morning, hundreds of them. A few of them were REALLY big and scarred - I assume they're old and wise - or they're the greater spotted scarred uber-barracuda.
There's plenty of these little spotted stingrays on the reef here. Note I am careful not to approach from behind like Senor Irwin is notorious for.
So finally hello to Mexico, Belgium, New Zealand and South Africa if they ended up here. We're only meeting countries at Seaventures, not people. You heard it first here....
It's with great sadness that today we say farewell to a loyal old friend - our dog Jazz.
She may be gone from this world, but in my heart, she'll always be walking with me.
Farewell old friend.
Today we have a delightfully early start at 04:50.
Yes that's just shy of 5 AM for the 24 hour time notation challenged.
So a little packing, a little carrying of heavy bags down the stairs, and a lot of sweating. I was also overjoyed to find out that taxis charge a 20% premium on the fare to the airport at 05:30. I'm not EXACTLY sure what that was all about, but I wasn't going to argue with the guy about MYR5 that early in the morning.
Another interesting fact is that Malaysia Airlines describes a packet of peanuts and an orange juice as a "continental breakfast". I'm not sure which continent they were thinking of, but if you know please let us know so we can make sure we never stop there. Ever.
So KK --> Tawau (that's pronounced "ta-wow" for the Bahasa challenged) --> Semporna --> Shitty boat in large swell --> Seaventures dive oil rig resort thing. It's not palatial, but there's something kind of cool about it. I will take some photos tomorrow and try to convey the ambiance.
Loads of wind and current today. There's plenty of life here, but it's hard to see when the 6 brothers and sisters in your group are kicking up the sand in front of you...!
So one house dive, one dive at Mabul, and one night house dive. No pics. It's cool, but not breathtaking yet... stay tuned for breath and taking. Hopefully.
It's 22:19 here in KK. We just finished watching the British GP. Jolly good.It's now absolutely PISSING down with rain. I'm annoyed that I don't have a tripod, because there'd be (maybe) an amazing shot of the rain washing down the road in the street/car lights.It's so heavy, it's interrupting the satellite feed for the TV.As you might imagine, today has been highly enthralling.Kat has been sick, so we've been hanging around the hotel.
Thrilling n'est pas?
Good night.
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.
The very deep did rot :
O Christ ! That ever this should be !
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea.
About, about, in reel and rout
The death-fires danced at night ;
The water, like a witch's oils,
Burnt green, and blue and white.
-- The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Well that's the only literature you'll be finding around here. Some may recognise this from an Iron Maiden song, others... may not.
So not much to report, except we're now Nitrox certified. Yes nitrox. For those not up with the lingo, this is a small summary:
"Nitrox refers to any gas mixture composed (excluding trace gases) of nitrogen and oxygen; this includes normal air which is approximately 78% nitrogen and 21% oxygen, with around 1% other gases. The most common use of nitrox mixtures containing higher than normal levels of oxygen is in SCUBA diving where the reduced percentage of nitrogen is advantageous in reducing nitrogen take up in the body's tissues and so extending the possible dive time and/or reducing the risk of decompression sickness (also known as the bends)."
For those who are more interested you can go here for a fairly lengthy explanation.
So... more pictures I guess. We've dived with a whole ton of sea urchins. They look black when they're on the bottom, but when you light them up with a strobe they're an amazing red...
This is another cool looking nudibranch....
This is a puffer or porcupine fish. I think. Thank the wonders of RAW format for these pictures, as I'm still fine tuning my use of the strobe...
I guess this is some kind of sea anemone. They look very plant like, but are actually animals. They sting too, so no touchy touchy.
I think these are squid eggs attached to whatever the anemone is sitting on.
Another nudibranch. These little guys make good subjects for my poor technique, as they don't move very quickly.
I dunno what this is. But it looks cool.
Under this rock is some kind of crab/prawn/lobster thing.
Living in some of the hard corals there are what look like bivalve molluscs. If you tap near them they close up like a clam.
Speaking of clams, check out this fella!
Well that's it for today. Tomorrow will be our last day of diving here I think. No idea how much $$ we've spent, don't want to think about it.
Monday we WERE going to climb the mountain, but it's fully booked. Hmm.
Today I had the runs.I have also blocked the toilet.That is all.
Some random things that have caught my attention so far, but have not yet made it to this hallowed arena.....
No Squat Sign - Some of us have postulated that the mess made on toilets that have been invaded by our friends from India were only possible if the culprit was standing on the seat. Well ladies and gentlemen, I present to you evidence that this IS ACTUALLY THE CASE. At the Fenix Inn in Melaka, there was a sticker on the toilet seat CLEARLY INDICATING that the patron should NOT stand on it like a squat toilet. Case closed......
Accurate News Reporting - I have been known to make fun of the Herald Sun. I am forced to apologise to their staff. In yesterday's newspaper, it clearly stated that Lewis Hamilton had attain pole position for the French Grand Prix, and that Fernando Alonso was somewhere other than that 10th that he actually started on. Very interesting, perhaps I was watching a different qualification session.
Nice Locals - We were touched when a couple of delightful muslim ladies pulled up in front of us, not to detonate an explosive device, but to offer the sweating white people a lift to the bus stop. Allāhu Akbar!
Squat Toilet #2 - For those who have not yet had the opportunity to avail of the local facilities, this is a RIPPING GUIDE: http://www.banterist.com/archivefiles/000348.html
Ok. Still with me? We've been diving for the last few days. Kath has finished her Advanced Open Water. Congratulations!
We're diving with my old friends at Absolute Scuba (http://www.abscuba.com/) - Kipp will be pleased to know that Daniel and Ahmad still remember his bald ass.
So... the moment you've all be waiting for - PICTURES!!! I apologise for the quality of some of these - I post processed the RAW images with Acdsee which ... is a bit crap at it, next time will be Photoshop all the way.
This is like a puffer fish thingy, in a purple coral bowl.
A lionfish - also in a purple coral bowl. Popular hangouts these are.
A nudibranch. Let me tell you this photography business under the water is FRICKING HARD.
Just a close up of some coral....
Another spiny fish puffer thing. Kath can classify the animals later, as she is more into it than I am.
A nudibranch. Kat thought that flicking this poor guy while pointing him out would be funny. Shame!
Umm.. I dunno what this is, but it looks cool!!!
Coral. I think.
More coral.
This guy was just chillin, he let me get SO close. Unfortunately I was still having some technical difficulties with the *@#$U(@)$ equipment, so this is the best I could do.....
Other cool things we have seen: blue/yellow spotted rays, a moray eel, a fleet of cuttlefish, little shrimps, a giant lobster, some weird evil killer prawn thing....
Tomorrow == Enriched Air Course. Fear it. The rest of the pictures are here:
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/rogue303/TunkuAbdulRahmenPark2ndJuly2007
Oh one last one :-)
A different angle.
And some Malaysian flags. It was just coming up to National Day - so there were plenty of em.
Another different angle.
