Aur Trip 3 to 5 Aug

Blue Spotted Ray
Cuttlefish
Rainbow over aur

Juvenile manyspotted sweetlips
Flower for my dear
sunrise from happy island
Bumhead school at Jawa
Moray eel

Putih looking irritated
Happy Island

All Geared up
Happy Island Happy Memories

This looks like a photo post with all the pictures being uploaded and stuff. Hahah. Anyway as cheryl has said i went to Aur over the weekend for a diving trip. This time i went back to Uncle George's resort to sort of re-establish my relationship with him after he lost the NUS account. After all he is the one that introduced me to the world of diving and taught me alot. He is also willing to share with me a lot of industry know-hows and stuff like that. After a heart to heart talk with him on sat night i guess that was done. So now let me run through the trip. The journey there was uneventful and the boat reached Aur in a record 3 and a half hours becos we were aided by the wind and current. Nevertheless conditions at the jetty were less than favourable as choppy waters made it very difficult to unload all the stuff. After that it was time to sleep and i slept outside facing the sea which was super cooling and sort of theuraptic. The next day we had to check out dives for the divers. But halfway to Jawa bertrand and Euming realised that their equipment was faulty so i proposed the solution that i go down with huiling and cuiyun first then after that go up let them change over equipment with the two guys then i go down together with them again. So the plan was executed.

Dive 1

First dive at Jawa and i did not expect to see much at the most the schooling juvenile yellowfin barracudas that are always there. But boy was I wrong, the visibility then was damn good due to the nip tide. it was in excess of 10m to 15m. As usual the barracudas were there but this time the school seem larger and the divers seemed more mesmerised. Then the butterfly and parrot fishes were feeding and moving around in cadence which was quite a sight for them as they had not been diving for a few years already. After that i brought them back to the boat and it was time for Eu ming and Bertrand to go down. This time i had intel from the group that jus emerged that there was a school of bumheads in the area. So we went down found the bumheads and spent a good time playing with them. Then saw the school of barracudas again plus a few nice and big batfishes, sweetlips and etc. Then i even spotted a school of sotongs but then Eu ming thought it was some blue colour fish and did not manage to see them. Then after navigating back near to the boat i let them play around beneat the boat to maximise dive time, and then Eu ming spotted a moray eel and then there was a blue spotted ribbontail ray which i took good pictures of. All in all it was an unexpectedly good dive at Jawa.

Dive 2

Lang Bay was up next and I brought the group to chiong torpedoz point. There at the abandoned cage we saw schooling yellow stripped mackerel, rainbow runners, Jacks, Trevallies and yellow tailed fusilliers. The amount of life there was jus abundant. Then after that brought them to play with the school of yellow colour fishes jus beside torpedoz point, boy did they have fun and there was little or no current at all at the site which was really a wonder. hahaha. But after that becos they went deep diving and bobbled up and down most of them had headaches and look damn tired after the dive. So i decided that the next dive would be a relaxing one.

Dive 3

Pinang was next as we did a drift dive. Again there was the nice rock formations and seafans. Then we saw sotong nation and cuttlefish which is shown in the picture above. Found a weight belt with 8 kg of weights attached to it. Wah at first i was not used to it man and it is really damn heavy. Dunno how people can dive with 4 weights sia, really torture man.

Dive 4

Night dive at Sebukang was the most memorable for the wrong reasons. Ok we did see a lot of stuff like morays, groupers, shrimps, puffers and all but then when we emerged from the water to do the shore entry the tide was so low that we had to negotiate our way back to the resort while sustaining a few cuts and abrasions here and there. Then it gave us the appetite to eat more during dinner.

Dive 5

The next morning we went to Rayners early in the morning and the dive was good as usual and they stopped giving notice of things like hermit crabs, cuttlefish, sotongs, rays and bumheads as they were deemed nothing extraordinary. Tried to look for the resident turtle there but to no avail as the site only had sea whips and no turtles. However, we saw some ikan bilis schooling and formed a dazzling display of reflecting lights to distract and confuse 6 trevallies that were trying to eat the. Nevertheless, the trevallies were undeterred and managed to make a meal out of some of the ikan makan hahaha. Such sights are already nice to look at on animal planet, and to see it firsthand in real life is priceless.

Dive 6

Last dive at Jawa was a relaxing ones with everyone monkeying around. Nice dive trip, nice memories. Everything good in all.

Hahaha really diving is something that is addictive even if it is diving at humble aur where everyone thinks that it is overdived. But then if you really open your eyes big enough there are many things to spot out there. All this time i wished C was there to share all the nice underwater moments with me and to sit with me at the jetty at night to look at the stars and talk abt everything under the stars literally. Hahah i know it sounds cliched but it is wat makes life so much more bearable. Tat is all for now. Toodlez