@hhChoooo… who sneezed?!?!

We had a good night’s rest and were ready to go for our last two dives for the trip. How we wished there could be more. We headed back to Igara wreck for the last two dives because the original wreck we were supposed to go had very bad visibility and very strong currents.

The first dive had us going down with together with Vincent. It feels really great to dive with him coz he’s such an experienced diver and he really taught us well. So far I think he is one of the most meticulous and professional instructor I’ve ever met. Anyway, Vincent had to go down to look for the wreck to tie the descend line (rope). We followed behind him and stuck close to him. It was a fascinating experience and different from merely following down a rope to the wreck. This is because as we followed him, we too were searching and looking for the wreck! And when the wreck came into view. It was a thrilling feeling!!!

This is how it looks like following the rope.

A picture of the wreck.

After tying the rope to the wreck, we followed Vincent to the bow of the wreck. Again it was a fascinating view. Looking up from the seabed up the bow was an awesome view! We swam around and came to a crack in the hull of the wreck. We swam through the crack and through the wreck. Below us we could see stairs and beams and the feeling was just great! Coming out of one of hatches of the wreck we were welcomed by one of the most beautiful sight of a whole bed of corals that has made its home on the deck of the wreck! Truly this was the most enjoyable and most memorable dive for the entire trip for me!

Going through the wreck to come out on another part of the wreck.

Our final dive was a short penetration dive. We had a chance to enter the wreck. It would take good buoyancy control for this dive and I think Vincent felt that we were ready for this “rite of passage”! We went in through a small door and inside the wreck was darkness. My imagination ran wild with thoughts from movies, that as I shine my torch at some corner there might lurk some big monster fish or the skeletal remains of one of the crew of IGARA. Heh heh! The passage we went through was narrow and we moved through till we came out at one of the hatch, again to be welcomed by a fascinating sight! Lovely!

Here we are fooling around!!! Haha!

More photos of our dive from VinceQ’s camera can be found here
And photos from my trip are found here

We got back to singapore around 8pm, but Dary, seby and myself felt a craving for Ice Cream, and headed down to Changi airport for Swenson’s! I wonder if Ice cream craving and Unexplained Idiotic Behaviour (UIB) is a symptom of Post Dive Narcosis (if there is ever such a thing). For those who do not know what is narcosis, its kinda like an effect you experience when you dive deep, and the nitrogen in your body causes poor judgement, sleepiness, stupor, slow thinking and etc.

Its got to be Narcosis… then again, could just be Daryl’s bad influence on the rest of us!!

We awoke to our first dive of the whole trip, morning was overcast, mostly cloudy day with little sun. But man! were we ever ready to get into the water!!

Our first dive was pretty technical, coz we were taking our advanced divers course. We didn’t see much since we were doing stuff on improving our bouyancy as well as underwater navigation. All this done on the deck of a sunken BULK CARRIER SHIP!

The Wreck is an italian ship which sunk in indonesian waters in 1973. It was called IGARA. Apparently it struck some rocks on its maiden voyage (and got quite a lot of insurance from it!) and travelled a little further till it arrived and sunk at errr.. that location.. (No GPS, sorry)

Here is a drawing done by DrMike on the IGARA. He was also on the boat with us and he used a rebreather gear on the dive. Pretty cool stuff as he could stay at the bottom for 3-4 hours! (you can see more images of the IGARA wreck from DrMike’s website here)

The ship was at that time carrying iron ore, and part of the ship was salvaged. The salvage people blasted off part of the ship with the engine and propellor, then towed it back for salvage. The rest of the Ship lies today there. Good thing for us is that this wreck lies about on the seabed of about 42 metres, so its quite assessible to divers. Another good thing is that not many dive groups can go to this site to dive (due to some marine legal mumbo jumbo, only our White Manta boat could get there without incuring trouble), means its marine life is still relatively nice and untouched.

On our second dive on the wreck, we went to the stern of the ship, and there were plenty of fishes there. A whole school of Barracudas swam past us, and not only that, they circled around us for quite awhile. A School of Trevally also joined in… It was truly a surreal experience!! Too bad, none of us had any cameras… Hai, but its gonna stay here in my 486 memory chip!

Coming up from the 2nd dive, many of us blessed the fishes with our breakfast, all chewed and semi-digested. Including yours truly! haha!, but it really felt much better after hurling my breakfast! hahah! The water was just too choppy!

We did drift diving for our 3rd dive, and currents were really strong. This was the boulder that stuck out of the sea, and had lots of gulls and swallows flying around! (really quite an interesting sight) We did our drift dive here!! We saw lots of fan corals, some really big ones.

Of course we did a lot of relaxing and fun on board the White Manta, here are some shots of us (daryl) fooling around!

Us on the makan area just chatting

Us on Sundeck of boat

Here’s a cool shot of PKK, taken using a special camera filter to capture the sun. (Filter name: Okly510 filter, commonly known as Oakley Shades!! Heh heh!)

Sexy legs and choppy waves

We ended the day with our Night dive. Saw a sea turtle asleep under some corals! Really cool. Vince Q took a nice shot of it, Will share some of it here once he’s uploaded it! Also got to see cute little shrimp and a pair of Scorpionfish.

More shots will be uploaded at my multiply site

We’ve been planning this trip for some time, and I’d say Kudos to Mr Ku and Mr Lam for organizing the trip. It sure took lots of emails and smses to get everyone coordinated, and finally, we met at the Tanah Merah Jetty to set off to Batam to the Nongsa Puri Marina, where the White Manta awaits.

Joining us on the trip, we had CheeXiong (seen here eating Roti John), my dive buddy on the last dive trip in Aur. He’s our super last minute inclusion for this dive trip!!!

Also there’s Ah Fook, ready to tuck into his Ba Chor Mee!!

The Regular folks, Seby, Daryl were there too, and we had two more mature gentlemen with us! (Vince Q and PKK). There was also Chelsia (somehow I think I got the spelling wrong), the only lady who joined us in our group!

We got there and took a minibus to the boat, check out Daryl’s ever so “glam” supermodel smile!

Here’s a picture of the dive boat, in the night, It was the only boat lit up in the marina. A super cool boat!!
My apologies if the pictures seem blurry here, coz the platform was really rocking up and down from the waves!

This is one shot of us in our aircon cabin. WHoo Hooo!

Just before settling into bed… supper was served!!! Seby loves food!!

And finally…. sleep… however “supermodel” we may look….