Month: December 2005

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Whale Shark Tag Tells Sad Tale

I'm harmless and beautiful...why kill me?

Whale Shark Tag Tells Sad Tale

The tag attached to a whale shark suddenly ended up stationary and on land – most probably because the animal was caught and eaten.

The 7.5m whale shark had been tagged and was being monitored by Australian scientists as it moved around off Western Australia. The satellite position signals eventually started coming from on shore at Ningaloo island and, reported ABC Online, emitted from the same spot for the next three months.

It is thought that the whale shark was caught by fishermen and taken ashore to be eaten, the tag being removed and discarded. As a result of the incident, Western Australia’s tourism minister has called for an “international treaty to protect them (whale sharks) and our tourism industry”.

Diving with whale sharks or spotting them from boats is a major draw for marine-orientated visitors to the region.

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Bad Diver Part Deux

Reference: Bad Diver

I have received positive and constructive comments from readers on this issue. Hopefully with their permission, I will post them here. The question was – Bad Instructor or Bad Diver?:

clos Says:
both

Snafu Says:
Why Both? Is always the instructor & instruction…as for the diver if they are lucky they will meet good diver that will help them BUT most of the case the diver will meet another diver that will slack & put em down insted of helping them to improve by showing it to them.

Most instructor .. MOST INSTRUCTOR do teaching for the MONEY, by cutting time on the teaching, Money they earn become bigger … NEW student wont even know where to start, or what is wrong … dey just ask How much & how long…. den get exploited by DIVING SHOP…DIVING Instructor…etc…etc

By the time they know the right method or right people… new diver pick up BAD HABBIT already & hard to be corrected.

Not that the INSTRUCTOR dont know anyway… but dey keep on doing it, ALL IN THE NAME OF MONEY!!!

Dig It hommieeeeeeEEEeeEEeee!!!!!

idcpro Says:
hhmm…I would say both are not wrong and right. In a scuba lesson there’s 2 things we have to keep in mind. Performance requirements and Mastery. I believe most student divers meet the performance requirements as well as the Instructor, well…as long as they meet all performance requirements, the Instructor can certify them. The question now is did they Master what they have learned? Mastery of a skill involves in the attitude of the Instructor, the Instructor just need to spend a little more time to repeat the skills in the confined water and questions like “why i only can hover at the surface?” or “why I keep floating or get headache after each dive” will not appear.

Good or bad diver depends on both the Instructor and student diver. It’s the student divers responsibility to transfer most knowledge learned in the manual apply it to actual diving and Instructors attitude towards his/her own teaching.

kimi Says:
It’s pity to the student if they got a lousy instructor. For me, the world doesn’t stop there. I’m willing to move forward n to improve myself.

Luckily for me, i got a very good dive buddy who can teach me to be better in every dive i do.

He knows who he is. Thanks bro!

SayLeng Says:
Both. Instructors must teach completely (no cutting corners) and students must learn properly (ask, understand, analyze, confirm & practice).

Ling Says:
I feel it is both. Well, instructions given definitely will affect how one dive that’s where they first contact with diving. But the diver himself must also be open and willing to learn. Be flexible to any constructive feedback.

So far the general concensus is that both parties are equally at fault and otherwise.

idcpro is correct in saying an instructor should not certify the student if requirements or part of, are not or have not been met. The instructor should use a little more time in transfering knowledge to the student. The student, on the other hand, needs to apply knowledge received to his/her diving.

Say Leng has summarised the points above into: Instructors should not cut corners (as in the case of the 20:1 ratio I had seen), and students should “ask, understand, analyze, confirm and practice”.

Ling concurs saying how instructions have been given to the student determines the outcome of the diver. ut the diver must also be open and willing to learn.

We all learn as we go along. The mould the instructor casts is the gateway to either pleasure or torture when one is underwater. However, the diver, as he/she progresses, should be open and learn during each dive. Skills are taught not to be forgotten. Therefore the only way one doesn’t forget is by practising these skills underwater. I may have been diving since 1982, but I make it a point to practice most of my skills (whenever possible) during my first dive of the trip. Still, I do get complacent: I once did rapid descent to about 20 meters without the regulator being in my mouth, and instead of using my octopus which is usually placed at the D-ring near my chest, I did a CESA; second was using twin-tanks ready for rapid descent (wing fully deflated), jumped in and realised that I did not have either fins on. In the first case, had I remembered or practised switching to my octopus regularly, then I would have remembered having an octopus as a back-up. In the second case, had I done my equipment check topside, I wouldn’t have had to struggle using my hands to propel myself back to the surface from 28 meters.

So in my case, I was (and hopefully no longer am) a bad diver.

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Bad Diver

Blub blub! Where's my regulator?

Bad diver.

So is there such thing as a bad diver?

What makes a bad diver?

When a person learns to scuba dive, he/she takes the mould of the instructor. The person will become a diver based on what is taught by his/her instructor, and whatever knowledge (or crap) that is passed onto him/her. So he/she becomes that mini-me of the instructor…good or bad.

An extension to this would be the loyalty towards the instructor…blind faith, most of the time. This further solidifies the trust and attitude of this former student towards the instructor. This is evident in the former’s willingness to follow each, if not every trip that is organised by this instructor. As a result, any attempt to make this former student see the other side of the instructor, be it good or bad, will be met with stiff resistance.

If the mould is bad, and the diver’s attitude of not wanting to listen to anyone else, not wanting to accept constructive criticism, seeing everything as a criticism towards him/her or his/her instructor, then this diver would be in trouble. We have seen how some money-centric instructors skip certain modules to save time, or because he/she has too many student to instructor ratio (PADI recommends 4 students to 1 instructor for Junior OW, 8:1 for others. Personally I have seen 20:1). As a result, we get divers who stop after completing their OW course and die a natural death; we see divers who continue but do not enjoy diving; and we see lots of marine habitats destroyed through the couldn’t-care-less attitude of the divers.

So who is to be blamed? Just the instructor? Or both?

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I’m old…

Old...old...

I feel lethargic after that drive to Kuantan yesterday. I must be old…

…or not enough compressed-air breathing.

Can someone give me a 50% mix for me to breathe in?

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Cursing Children

I was in Kuantan this morning for a meeting. After the meeting concluded, we all went out to lunch and parked along Jalan Besar. As we were walking to the restaurant, we saw two shops, one manufacturing sofas, the other selling stationeries. The former’s called KAM SOON while the latter, FOOK YEW.

I guess they are twins and their mom never liked them. That is why they are called that. Maybe the dad had premature ejaculation and yelled, “COME SOON!” and the dissatisfied mother shouted back, “F*** YOU!”

Imagine how the parents would have called them: “KAM SOON, FOOK YEW!’

I wish I had brought along my camera.

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Megalodon Death

Zak Jones using the KISS this time

I heard about someone died during a dive and the person was using the Megalodon CCR. I didn’t realise the person was Zak Jones, a PADI Course Director with the Pro Dive International in the US.

He was on a leisure dive outing and separated with his buddy at 46m to explore a reef but was later seen to be unconscious with the regulator out of his mouth. However, he never regained consciousness despite all efforts to revive him topside.

He was 30 years old.

You can read his biography here.

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What Do You Expect?

What big teeth you have, Grandma!

Sharks Maul Diver

Powered by CDNN – CYBER DIVER News Network
PORT DOUGLAS, Australia (11 Dec 2005) — A spear fisherman has escaped with a gashed arm after fending off one shark only to be mauled from behind by another in a frenzied attack off Queensland’s far north.

Melbourne charter boat operator Glenn Simpson, 44, is nursing his badly wounded left arm which required dozens of stitches after the attack at a reef off Port Douglas.

Mr Simpson was spear fishing with his 15-year-old son Luke when the attack happened early Sunday.

“I had one come straight in my face – I punched him with my left arm to get him out of my face,” Mr Simpson told the Ten Network.

“And as I did that I was thinking I got rid of him and another one came from behind and grabbed my right arm.”

With his boat 60 metres away, Mr Simpson, who was bleeding heavily, told his son to leave him.

But his son refused and instead helped his father back to the boat.

“I ignored him. I stayed with him all the way back to the boat,” Luke told the Cairns Post.

“I’m happy that I stayed with Dad.”

The feeding frenzy began after Luke speared a trout.

“After that they started harassing me and dad a bit,” Luke said.

And then, “just out of nowhere, it was just like shark city,” Mr Simpson told the Ten Network.

“It was like something out of a movie,” he said.

“I consider myself very lucky, you know, especially with the mood the sharks were in.”

The Simpsons have vowed to continue spearfishing but admit they will be more cautious in the water.

A spokeswoman for Cairns Base Hospital said Mr Simpson was in a satisfactory condition.

Another man was killed by a shark a year ago while spear-fishing at a reef close to the area of Sunday’s attack.

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Growing Up Can Be A Pain..

Me on Gunung Raya telecommunications tower, Langkawi

Growing up can be a pain
You’re not a man until you’ve come of age
We’ve given up our teenage years
In the effort to pursue our career

Who assumes responsibility
of having to support our families
Who’s protecting us from harm?
Is there anyone around that we can trust?

So we search for answers to our questions
Looking for the answer
No answers but we’re taught a lesson everytime
Through mistakes we’ve learned to gather wisdom
Life’s responsibilities fall in our hands

Keep on learning
Keep on growing
Wisdom helps us understand
We’re maturing
without knowing
These are the things that change boys to men

The goals we set may exceed reality
cause failure is always a possibility
Who can tell us that we’re wrong?
It’s up to us to figure out
what life is all about

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Blast From The Past – Master & Commander

On Penang Bridge

This photo was taken in 1991 on Penang Bridge enroute to our headquarters in Penang after the last training exercise I had while I was still there. Around a month later I was sent on a course and subsequently posted on promotion to the Recruit Training Center at RMAFB Ipoh.

Left to Right: Myself, Leading Aircraftman Faizal (now a Flight Sergeant at the No.3 Search and Rescue Squadron), Aircraftman Nizam (I’ve lost touch with him), and Corporal Hashim (left the service as a Warrant Officer II)

Old soldiers never die, they just fade away….

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Sunset

Sunset over Tanjung Malai from Kuah

This was taken early 2004 from Kuah looking towards Tanjung Malai. I was using my Casio Exilim 2.0 Megapixel camera then. We had just arrived back at Langkawi from Alor Setar after a storm and when I saw this, I asked the driver to stop.

Behind the silhouetted western hills
the sun goes down, a foundered bark
only a mighty sadness fills
the silence of the dark…