Thursday, March 30, 2006

Two Lives Gone.....

Two lives had gone because of three men's cruel acts.

What had driven them to commit such thing? Greed or just sickening minds?.....Only they know.

What matters now is that their undoing had claimed both mother and baby's lives and what we can do to prevent such thing from happening in the future. :O(

Monday, March 27, 2006

Appropriate Action?.....

Chanced upon this blogger's blog (Update: Sorry guys, it seen that the blog no longer exist as the blogger had it removed. See this Link) while doing a blog search on Pulau Hantu last week.

After reading through, I felt surprised that Open Water diving test was carried out at a Nature Reserve. So I wrote an email to Nparks regarding this and the reply is that Open Water diving test is not allowed at the Reserve.

What prompted me to feedback to Nparks is because as a diver myself, I know how the skill of a beginner would be (I have been through that stage and trust me, I felt so guilty when I broke part of a coral while doing my Open Water in Malaysia). Just imagine what will happen to the corals with the limited visibility and skill. Furthermore, I felt sad and angry with the instructor's action of bringing back a lobster to show to his students and just wondered what's the fate of the lobster in the end. Did he release it back to where it should be? If not, it will be poaching, isn't it, for the creature was removed from a Nature Reserve.

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Feeling Very Very Low In Morale.....

I am feeling very very low in morale. :O(

What's with all these mess? It is really affecting my efficiency.

:O/

Monday, March 20, 2006

Happy Earth Day!.....

To All Things Big & Small :

Happy Earth Day (Today or on 22nd April) !!!


Sunday, March 19, 2006

ReefFriends XPlore! Trial Dive.....

Yesterday, went diving at Pulau Hantu through an invitation from Reef Friends Xplore! to the Wildfilms crews. They were having a trial dive before they kick off the programme to the public.

Reef Friends Xplore! is a local waters dive guiding programme by the joint effort between Blue Water Volunteers, Hantu Bloggers and Gill Divers. They trained a group of volunteer divers to guide divers in exploring the marine life found at the reefs of Pulau Hantu and Kusu Island.

The programme aims to introduce/show local underwater marine life to divers, increase awareness and educate the public about marine conservation issues in Singapore. If you have never dive in local water or are interested to know what's beneath, keep a look out for their first public dive. :O)

Now back to the dive.....After I have rigged up all my equipments, jumped into the water and finally descended. I found something was missing. Yes, STUPOKS strike! I left my camera on board the bum-boat! So no photo from my first dive. Luckily, there was no sighting of unusual creatures or I would be knocking my head against the wooden beam of the boat. And so a brief summary of the first dive is that there were lots of Blue dragon nudibranchs, phyllidia nudibranchs, a glossodoris atromarginata nudibranch, two Icon Sea stars, Sea Urchins, Flatworms, two 30cm long Yellow-spotted Rabbitfishes and a Carpet Eel Blenny (it was peeking out from a hole and we happened to stare at each other for a while before it disappeared into the hole).

After we had our surface interval, we prepared for our second dive to explore the patching reefs. This time, I remembered to bring my camera down. So here's some photos from the second dive:


Nudibranchs : The ones with white bumps or blue/yellow bumps are phyllidia sp. The yellow one with black margin is glossodoris atromarginata.


Flatworms : There were lots of them. Crawling on the sea bed and corals.


Sea Urchin.


Mushroom Coral.


Fishes : There's a Freckled Goatfish and offen seen Copper-banded Butterflyfish.


Crinoids/Featherstars : Lots of them, in varities of colours, on the Sea Whips and Sea Fans. And there were some hiding under rocks crevices.


Hydroid : This innocent looking plant-like thing is actually an animal! It will give you a nasty sting and causes rashes that itch for months!

And yes, it is definitely that you will see more things with guides. Thanks Gina (volunteer dive guide) for showing me all the stuffs and Brendan (volunteer dive guide OJT) as a buddy. :O)

Thursday, March 09, 2006

To The March Babies…..

Picture from http://www.ace-clipart.com

Happy Birthday To You,
Happy Birthday To You,
Happy Birthday To Sorying-11/03, Eileen-11/03, Shuxian-17/03 and Me also,
Happy Birthday To You!

Monday, March 06, 2006

Big Sisters Island And The Last Boat Trip.....


Early Sunday morning, we gathered at Clifford Pier for our trip to Big Sisters Island.


As the boat moved slowly out of Clifford Pier, I took a look at the morning cityscape scene for the last time. This will be our last boat trip taken from Clifford Pier. In future, we will start some of our Southern shores boat trips from the new marina located at Marina South.


The sky gradually turns its colour as the sun rises. Such brilliant colour to start a day!

Once we were on Big Sisters Island, the first thing to do was to check for sign of monkeys. We saw coconut husks thrown all over at the jetty area and for sure they are on the island. Thus, to avoid our breakfast being eaten up, we have the cooler box put on the sandy area near the shore of the lagoon. We also tied all our belongings to the bench where we could keep a lookout.

After all things have been secured, we made our way to the lagoon and looked out for things to shoot. Things were pretty quiet at first until I saw a flatworm (white body with blue edge and line in the middle). Then slowly, they were all over the place. We saw more than five of them that day.

As the day gets hotter, creatures went hiding. But we still got some nudibranchs like armina sp(see pic), jorunna funebris and phyllidiella nigra. And there was this pretty flatworm too.



As the tide rises, we made our way back to the bench. All things remained intact. Somehow the monkeys were busy with some other things that day. :O)

Friday, March 03, 2006

Underwater Housing.....


Finally there's a underwater housing for my Olympus SP-500UZ. :O)

But....it costs about USD500.00! Time to start saving again. So....meanwhile, my Canon will continue to do all the underwater shots then.

Thursday, March 02, 2006

The Greatest Distance.....

Now I know why it was called the greatest distance.