Category: Daily Whatevers

While Malaysia was suffering from the ignominy of the stupid ISA issues, Wifey and I had had a good weekend with friends and family members.

We went back to KL from JB on the 3rd September and the whole weekend was spent with our children. The whole house was a circus for a while, especially when we had a potluck berbuka puasa with friends at home. Wifey made an excellent rendang that I still crave for now.

The array of food for berbuka

Wifey and friends whacking food

The following Monday we went for berbuka with my kids at my house in USJ. Wifey made mee hoon goreng and we bought some stuff as well.

Wifey, Hana and Fazira preparing the table

Wifey and I with Farhan and Nisaa

Later, we adjourned to the Old Town White Coffee at Jaya One to meet up and have sahur with Liverpool Babe, Rainmaker, Spena, Gemgem, and Bro Rina. It was a good outing that lasted 5 hours.

Gemgem talking about his compromised virginity to Rina and Spena

Old Town’s Nasi Lemak Special

The very next day, after berbuka at home with Wifey, Rainmaker, and Spena, we were asked to join Thebo and husband for supper at SS2 Murni. Gemgem, Liverpool Babe, and Bro Rina joined us as usual.

Liverpool Babe with Thebo and husband

Wifey’s Mee Raja

On the 10th, I went for a meeting with Gemgem at the Havana Club discussing some serious issues (for once!) before heading to the KFC outlet in Wangsa Maju for a farewell supper for Gombak4Life who was tasked to bring a certain typhoon to Taiwan for a month at least. For the first time we saw Liverpool Babe with a sad face.

Cuban cigar with sugarless tea

Husband and wife whacking chicken

Another berbuka session was held at our favourite haunt, Las Carretas and this session was attended by Bro Rina, Spena, Gemgem, and Liverpool Babe. This was Bro Rina‘s treat for Wifey and I before we head back to JB. As usual, I whacked the BBQ Beef Back Ribs. Oh, to sink my teeth into all that succulent meat again…

Beef Nachos

BBQ Beef Back Ribs

On the 13th, I went to say goodbye to my kids before heading out to Savor Jaya in Genting Highlands for a farewell do for Trisha.

Nisaa and I

Wifey, Douglas (Savor Jaya’s proprietor), Trisha and I

After that we left for Mersing and subsequently Tioman. Bro Rina and Spena convoyed with us from home, and we had sahur at a mamak joint in Kluang.

This mamak’s name is Yokohama a/l Appalasamy

Spena’s Nasi Goreng Kampung

We boarded the 6.30am ferry bound for Tioman. The rest slept before I did.

All fell asleep before departure

I wished then that Wifey was doing something more than just putting her head on my lap..haha!

I took Spena for a wreck dive at Roger Wreck. We did a shore dive, swimming out from Dive Asia to the buoy marking the location of the wreck, some 400 meters out. It was an excellent dive for both of us. It was Spena‘s first wreck dive. And oh…MK was there too…hahaha!

Spena checking out the wreck

Spena checking out the wreck

Later, while waiting for berbuka, Wifey and I enjoyed the sunset, followed by a beautiful evening post-dinner.

Wifey and I enjoying the sunset

Salang Jetty at night

We had an excellent seafood dinner, with excellent company. Wifey and I feel that there has to be a repeat of this.

BBQ squids and Groupers with air asam

Ayam Chilli, Kailan Ikan Masin, and Taugeh Ikan Masin

This Ramadhan month will go down as the best in a long, long time. I have not enjoyed Ramadhan this much since I was in primary school. What more having the person I truly love by my side.

Once in a while I will come out with weird words, some that could probably have made Wifey fall for me, some she’d laugh at. She’d laugh at me whenever I use terms such as, “I’m negotiating a bend right now”, or, “I’m cross with you”. Fortuitous is what I am when it comes to diving. Nevermind its meaning; this posting may sound like it is filled with grandiloquence but, really, I do not converse like that in real life. Let that be a denouement for that paragraph.

It was July 1982 when my family traveled to Kuantan, where we stayed at the former Merlin Hotel, Teluk Chempedak for one night before making our way to the Tanjung Gelang Naval Base to board the Marine Police’s PZ-class fast patrol boat, KPD Lang Kuik (PZ4 – now in the inventory of the Coast Guard) for Pulau Tioman. As we passed Pulau Tulai, I remember sitting in the Captain’s seat listening to my Walkman; and the song that played was Christopher Cross’ “Sailing.”

When the PZ had longsided at the Merlin Tioman jetty (now the Berjaya Tioman jetty at Tekek), the captain of the PZ, then DSP Michael Lee, asked me if I knew how to swim. I told him I was a school-swimmer (I swam for the state a month later, and became a lifeguard at year’s end). So, he told me that he’d be taking me scuba-diving later that evening. I seriously thought that that was a form of badinage, since despite his reputation, he seemed like an affable person.

My father left in a PSC-class speedboat (nicknamed ‘Trojan’) for a fishing trip, while I, wearing a t-shirt and swimming trunks, donned a J-valve tank with nothing more than a harness, one second stage, a depth gauge and no air gauge nor a BCD, and off Michael Lee and I went…diving. A quick instruction above water on how to equalise and what toggle to yank should I suddenly run out of air, and we descended on the west side of Pulau Renggis, going down to 80 feet (about 24 meters). We speared two large Trevallies, bumped into a couple of Blacktip Reef Sharks that followed us throughout the dive. That was when I also bumped into what I now know as the Green Sea Turtle that I hitched a ride on by holding onto the edge of its shell. Of course, I wouldn’t do either activity anymore: Tioman is now a gazetted marine park, and I don’t ride on turtles anymore.

Doing a decompression stop at 4.5 meters

I did three dives on that trip, returning to Kuantan, and subsequently KL, the next day. I never dived again until 1992 when I was in the military, and carried on diving until 1995, stopping when I left the service. I only pursued scuba-diving as a hobby back in 2005.

So, that, my friends, was how I became a fortuitous diver.