Minang Cove Resort Pulau Tioman

... connection is really slow and keeps freezing when the pictures are loaded on.

19th October 2009

Lynne.....

Hi guys yes we in the land of the living, as I said we wouldn't be updating the blog for a while as the internet connection was really slow and expensive.
We have now left the island which is really sad, we spent 10 days but could have spent another 10 it was so lovely there.
I have some stuff to tell you, like the ...

Ok, so since we're here diving 2 or 3 times a day, we get one day off a week for decompression and stuff. Regularly we're only allowed to have 3 "units" of alcohol a night because of the dehydration for diving the next day, but since theres no diving on saturdays, friday nights are party nights. Last night was party night number 4; we made our own drinks, brought them to ABC at the pizza place and had a competition to see whose was best. I saw Laurence (one of my fellow volunteers ...

... hoping he was a doctor) jabbed me in the ear with a ear scope thing. He then blasted high pressure water in my ear for what must've been 2 minutes. After the whole ordeal I was extremely dizzy -- mustve buzzed my inner ear. The cool thing here is that no matter what they do to you in the clinic, you pay 15 ringgits (like 6 Can. dollars). Essentially free health care is pretty cool in a country like this.

... into a rock and tipped it enough for the next big wave to fill it with water. As it was sinking and tipping over, the 6 of us were trying to save as much as we could; did a pretty good job of it too (we're only missing two fins and two masks). We had to call a big construction vehicle to pull it out of the water to where it is now sitting on the beach.

... a motorbike carrying 1,2 sometimes 3 people will still leave enough room for 2 feet to cling onto the edge of the path. But when its a motorbike with an attached giant sardine can as a sidecar space gets a bit tight, and 3 wheels always wins.

Whether it was waking up to a concerto of ******* goats or to the apache like ceiling fan in my room, each day was a pleasure here on Tioman. Lazing on the beach and cooling off in 28 ...

... enthusiastically received by all those that undertook it, everyone except for myself and Vincent. I understand that the colours of both the coral and the fish were astounding, certainly the water was crystal clear, offering marvellous views even from the boat itself. Much fun was had by all, as they clambered back aboard for the next spine-shuddering leg of the trip. This was to be to a ...

... so cool and you really had to concentrate on
bouyancy because some of the gaps were so small to fit through. We
saw some cool fish and nudibranches. We even saw a bat fish being
cleaned. After our dive we hopped back on the boat and headed up to
the sun deck to debrief our dive and eat some lunch. We were also
briefed on our next deep dive which is our final dive of the course a
wreck dive. After lunch we set up our gear and entered the water for
our ...

Thismorning we
find out the drunk man died at the bar in the early hours of the
morning. Scary stuff. We are assuming that they boated him to tekek
where the doctor is or back to the mainland but they left his hat
here. Last night we made a pact with Clayton and Amber that we would
meet at 11am and jungle trek to Tekek which is apparently 3 hours
away. Amber chickened out (it is her last day though so
understandable she ...