Fish are Friends, not Food

Finally had some time to do a fun dive at Sipadan with my trusty PnS camera today. Water temperature was a chilly 27 degrees for most of the time, dropping a further degree down at around 30+ metres. Snapping away when you're shivering is not that much fun but at times, there is an inbuilt water heater inside my wetsuit that does ease the suffering momentarily. ;)


Reef with anthias hovering above. Anthias are always nice to look at since their color varieties are so psychedelic.


Turtle shell patterns


Nudibranchia Pikachuicus. Ok, not its real name, but people here call it the Pikachu Nudibranch for obvious reasons.


Finally, one of my most favourite macro subjects the Lobsterus Hairius (also not real name) a.k.a. Hairy Squat Lobster. Eve our divemaster is a master at finding these little bastards

Random

I've been dreaming of pork these last few days. Partly due to an evil blogger who wrote a piece on how fantastic her spam fried rice is just despite me. Which has led me to write a list of things I must eat when I get back to KL for a break.

1. Cans of Spam
2. Char Siu with extra charred fatty bits
3. BBQ Ranch Burger @ Chillis
4. Peking Duck @ The Ming Room Bangsar
5. Hokkien Mee @ Damansara
6. Siu Loong Bao @ One Utama
7. Dim Sum @ Taman Megah
8. Spaghetti Bolognese @ home
9. Sushi @ The Green Room

*drool* The list may grow as the days pass and finding the time to eat everything on the list will be a challenge in itself.

This isn't to say the food on the rig ain't good. It's fantastic! But we always crave the things we don't have. Tonight's dinner is BBQ on the sundeck and that's always good. BBQ lamb, chicken wings, burgers, prawns, fish and pasta........more than enough to forget the cravings for the time being.

Nutritously nutritious?

I believe that most of us are quite fond or our favourite "Vitamin C" drink Ribena. It's the stuff of our innocent childhood (and not so innocent adulthood), where remembering the naked Ribena berry Adam n Eve prancing around in the jungle with leaves covering their privates brings us back to a much simpler and uncomplicated time. Aaah I used to think that Ribena was such a great substitute for eating raw veggies and fruits, convincing myself that if it had 4 times the vitamin C of oranges, it had to be healthy.

Earlier this year, GlaxoSmithKline was fined a total of almost AUD200K for false advertising after two 14 year old students found no detectable traces of vitamin C in Ribena after having conducted a school science experiment. You can read about the article here.

Doesn't it make you wonder how much we believe in corporate advertising and what's written on a label on your favourite food packaging? Seemingly nutritious fodder may be just edible rubbish. Not that it really bothers me, since I eat a whole lot of rubbish anyway, but aren't there watchdogs out there that keep errant food manufacturers in check? Or are these companies just taking advantage of the apparent lack of them? Remember, the Ribena scandal was discovered by 14 year old highschool students......BY CHANCE!

I still love Ribena though. Blackcurrant flavoured sugar water is still a whole lot 'healthier' than a lot of other things we shove down our throats.

......ponder....ponder......

Day off

Today's the first day off that I'm giving myself for the last 2 weeks. I thought I'd actually be bored if I took a day off. It's 9.40am and after breakfast, I'm still undecided on what to do today. My hard drive (internal and external are packed with episodes upon episodes of TV series, movies and the latest addition - anime. Choices, choices, choices....... I've put off watching the latest season of Nip/Tuck until an opportune moment to totally veg out, but looking at how things are at the resort, that will very rarely happen, so Nip/Tuck will have to wait. I've yet to treat myself to watch the last 2 episodes of Heroes first season. Don't exactly know why, but it's something to do with prolonging the suspense and saving it for a better climax (ahem). But recently, my fellow workmate here has been kind enough to give me a new series to boot. An anime called Bleach - Soul Reaper. Was never really a fan of anime, but having watched the first four episodes in the last couple of days, it's actually quite addictive. There are now 30 episodes on my computer and the series has apparently been running for over a hundred episodes to date. I guess boredom won't be much of a problem for a while.

Of course, I could actually go diving in place of vegeing out in front of my laptop, which I think I'll do. Might capture some cool animal behaviour for the stock footage library, which is always a good theng. Will be something much more productive on my day off as well.

Decisions, decisions..........isn't life hard? ..........

Not a pretty sight

banana hammock (n) - A men's style of undergarment that holds the genitalia in a sling-like hammock apparatus, allowing the meat knot to protrude offensively. Favored by greasy Europeans at the beach, and even greasier weightlifters during competition and posedown sessions.
Souce: UrbanDictionary



Ok, not THAT kind, but you get the picture. The following pic shows what my office door looks like with its attached clear window pane plastered with some posters. The empty space on the bottom of the glass pane leaves little room for imagination when fully grown men are walking around with nothing else visible from my point of view other than their lower half. Depending on which way the're walking, most angles are exposed. *shudders* Today was one of those days where traffic in the corridor was pretty high leaving the eyes stinging and watering from indecent exposure. I need to re-arrange the posters on the window....

All in a day's work

So if you don't already know what I now do for a living, I look at fishies underwater and spook them with this bright blue piece of metal stuck in front of my face so that they go darting in all directions. FUN! In other words, I'm a new underwater videographer (fancy name).


This is what I mean. Photo courtesy of Seok


Me from another angle


Seok asked me to HOLD her camera on a dive but i took the liberty of clicking away and this is what I got. Mind you, the settings were all done by her, and I just pressed the shutter. Thanks Seok!


On Seok's and Jonni's last night in Seaventures. From Left: Me, Jonni, James, Nelly


The things we get up to after hours. That's Seok, my trainer, by the way.


After one too many, the night becomes more of a blur

Many thanks to Seok, who's been patient with me during my training, especially after I flooded the camera. Ooops!

The Workplace

So the intention of having this up and running is to let people know what I'm up to. Something like a mass email but instead, people come here instead of me having to remember email addresses.



This is where I work. Seaventures Dive Resort off Pulau Mabul, Sabah. Talk about luxury accommodation.


This is my office window facing Pulau Mabul and Sipadan Water Village Resort and Sipadan Mabul Resort (SMART)


Clearer view


Sunsets on a good day are something like this. This one was after a sunset dive at Mabul and we were treated to a gorgeous one.

Couldn't ask for more. :D

Officially a Blogster @_@

So....this is a blog. Not entirely sure what supposed to be in one, but I'll give it a try anyway. As a lazy friend has told me, "If you're lazy to write to your friends individually, just start a blog so you don't have to write to anyone personally." Makes sense, I guess.

This is a start, so no pictures just yet. When I have more time, the photos will start popping up, so watch this space. In the meantime, be patient and stay tuned.

Not a great writer, so I think a photo blog will be more appropriate with descriptions of what you're looking at for a better idea of the random posts that I come up with.