DiveLah Members

From Left : Andy Su, Joseph Tham, Sean Lim, Alvin Lim

Dive With WhiteManta to Seven Skies

Simply Terrible!

All the four of us were looking forward to our very first LIVE ON BOARD dive trip. We boarded the "WhiteManta" who berthed at TMFT around 6.45pm. A briefing was held by Vincent (WhiteManta's boss) and the estimated time of arrival at Seven Skies was 0900hrs the next day.After the briefing we went up to the sun deck to enjoy the night scenery before heading back to the cabin for the night.

As we could not contain our excitement, we woke up earlier than expected the next morning. We reached the seven skies dive site at aound 9.00am. My first dive was very exciting with my buddies - Alvin, Andy & Sean. Our first dive was exciting despite the deep depth and strong current. Not enough air also, so have to ask Andy to go up with me. Wait! We were all in a group. So... all went up together lor. Out of a sudden, a white manta ray was below us. Big and swimming gracefully despite the strong current. Shhh! Got tears in my eye leh. Too happy Lah. But shit, lost my snorkel.

Second dive was called off due to dynamite fishing nearby. So second dive was moved back to seven skies. The dive operator (Vincent) asked if we still want a third dive at seven skies." !@#$% who want!". On the way, we saw pilot whales! Third dive was at Katoaka reef. Hmm! delicious for this dive as Sean spotted barramundi cod. Big one! Alvin missed this one otherwise can spot a string of sticky stuff from his mouth. Arrived at Aur in the early morning but the operator didn't inform us about dawn dive, miss it! We were briefed that we would have our first morning dive at Aur Pinnicale 1. The four of us went into the water and was going to descend when Vincent told us to come back to the boat. The reason being that the current was too strong and the visibility was poor (Wonder how he knew while all the while he was not in the water). The dive was abandoned and we had our forth dive at Pulau Lang.

The operator, Vincent also informed us that after this dive, the next one will be at "_____ rock" which was supposed to be the best dive site in the region. He didn't inform us about the next dive depth so we didn't dive deep and so miss the baby whale shark at depth 30m which was spotted by Patrick Leong from Mako. Later up in the boat, we were informed that it was our last dive. !@#$% I have just started to warm up. This trip was supposed to do 6 dives but we had 4 dives only. Food was not enough. There were 30 divers instead of 20. "SO OVER CROWDED". TV room was occupied by the operator and assistant, therefore cannot watch any DVDs (somemore sleep at 10.30pm). Disappointed on this dive trip but I am glad my buddies made this trip fun and exciting.

Thanks. Joseph.