Last weekend Christina and I went off to Tioman diving. It was my second dive trip and Christina’s first. She was getting her open water certification and I was trying to remember what I had learned during my course about 18 months prior. Tioman is a small island off the coast of Malaysia that is close geographically but far away on a slow bus and boat so getting there is half the battle. A slow bus and boat are actually fine as driving on curving roads in Malaysia is similar to Monaco at grand prix time without the helmets. People passing on curves, at night, with oncoming traffic is standard. Everyone just slides a bit to the side and the passing car goes ripping through the middle. The whole thing is flanked by mopeds and deep drainage ditches to ensure no one survives.

Nutters every last one of them. Boats and seas are not Christina’s friend. The boat chugging out engine fumes and the fact that it was 1am when we arrived for our 2 hour boat ride didn’t help. Since we stayed up top in the open air and the sea was calm that night Christina didn’t turn green. So after a long trip and trying to find our hidden cabin at 3am we finally crashed out after the 7 hour journey.The long trip is worth it considering how great the Dive company is. Chris who runs Simply Scuba out of Singapore is excellent and he has a good team. He’s a good teacher and keeps people calm as they freak out for their first time underwater. So after we woke up and ate breakfast we grabbed some kit from the dive shop and headed to the boat. The morning was split into two dives. Christina had spent the week prior attending 2 theory sessions and 1 pool dive as part of her course. Most others on the trip were also getting their certification and their morning dives were training sessions. That left myself going out with a group of dive masters while her class finished their underwater skills tests on the first day of diving. Not fair to the dive masters as I’m still a dive rookie but they took care to ensure that I remembered everything and worked on getting better.The first dive I was just trying to remember what the underwater environment was like. There was a large bat fish and some nemos which were interesting but for the most part I was just relaxing and checking out the schools of fish. The second dive I was more aware of trying to control my breathing better. I was doing great until a trigger fish attacked me.

It felt like I had kicked someone and I turned back to see it biting my fins and coming after me. Underwater everything is magnified so the fish that wasn’t huge looked huge. It does have some serious teeth and is really aggressive. I was trying to not freak out and run away all at the same time. Since a trigger fish is about 400 times faster than I am it wasn’t working and it kept after me. I did the brave thing and tried to get other people in between myself and the fish so it would bite them. Another group of unknowing divers came through and the trigger went after them and I was safe. My breathing had gone nuts and I am pretty sure I used half a bottle of air in those 3 minutes. After the “When animals attack” episode was over I calmed down and enjoyed the rest of the dive. I did see a sea turtle and some stingrays which was cool. The sea turtle looked to “fly” in the water. It’s really amazing to watch it glide. Just before going up I saw another trigger fish swimming in the distance. “That’s it, everybody outta the pool” I was done. Time to go up.

We headed in for lunch and I decided to skip the third dive of the day. Christina and the crew had to pass their written test so they studied up while I napped and relaxed on the island. After the test there was a BBQ and a few beers to be had while relaxing in the tropical breeze. The town is one path with houses and a couple businesses on either side so the BBQ was the main event in town. We were pretty tired and it was an early start for the final day so that was just fine with everyone.The second day we headed to the boat at 8:30am. Two dives were scheduled before the long trek home. I dove with Christina as my buddy for these dives which was fun. She was so enthralled with the fish that she hardly looked back once we got down. Since it was their first dive after the certification Chris takes everyone around. Seems like 40 people but it was about 10 all bunched up on each other. Buoyancy is the hard thing to get use to so people were going up and down all the time trying to sort it out. Christina was pretty good but I was looking around trying to make sure someone didn’t come down on her. On the first dive I spent most of my time watching her and staying out of the crowd. There were some cool schools of fish, nemos, and one large Angel fish that I floated over. The second dive was around a reef which was filled with schools of fish. They are fun to swim through and I was rightly accused of chasing fish. Not a good idea if you’re trying to conserve air. More of the same but it was fun to explore and share the dive experience with Christina.

After our two dives it was time to head home. A boat ride, a kid who was overwhelmed by hamburger orders, and a bus ride later found us stuck in Singapore Immigration. It was jammed full of people coming back from school holidays. Luckily the people on the trip were enjoyable so we all chatted while we waited to get home.The trip was highlighted by none of us drowning, Christina passing her tests, seeing a sea turtle, and being attacked by marine life. Looking forward to more diving.