Tenerife

For a change, I thought that I would plan our family trip in November 2006 via the internet, instead of booking it through our usual travel agents. It was going to be for 2 weeks. I was hoping to dive as well during this time, and that requires military planning. I was expecting it to be easy as it was out of season. Booking the tickets was straightforward. I got us some cheap tickets with British Airways from Manchester to Sur Reina Airport in the South of Tenerife. The good thing about this was that I could also check in online and choose our seats in advance. However, trying to book the accommodation was another story. I was surprised to find out that most of the self-catering apartments were fully booked. Eventually, I managed to book an apartment at the Royal Palm Resort in Los Cristianos. This town is only about 10 minutes from the airport, which was very convenient. A taxi ride from the airport only cost 15-20 Euros.

Our apartment was on the 2nd Floor, facing the swimming pool. This was great as we could go back and forth as we like throughout the day. It was also a spacious 2 bedroom apartment with all mod cons. As soon as we arrived, I had to sort out 2 essentials for for the couple of weeks that we were going to be there. First of all, I had to get a car rental, and more importantly I had to get my DIVING sorted out. Yay!! Well, getting a car rental was a bit of a struggle. For those of you who have visited Spain or any of the Canary Islands before, you would know that the afternoon period is no time to do business. This is because the Spanish folks luuurrvve their siestas. Tried as I did, I could not find a car rental agency opened. All had signs saying that they would open at 6 or 7 pm. Hrrrmmph!! Aah! Never mind, I turned my attention to finding a dive shop instead.

Before I left the UK, I had printed out some contact dive shops. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to bring them along. Luckily, there was an internet cafe nearby, where I could look them up again. I managed to contact Dive Tenerife, who is owned by husband and wife team, Pete and Debbie. They are based at Las Galletas, which is about 15 minutes drive from Los Cristianos. They picked me up the next morning, as I was their only guest for the week, they jokingly said that I would be getting a 5 Star service. Indeed it was like that during my time with them. I did 9 dives with them in total.. In addition, I managed to do my Nitrox course with Pete. Proud to say that I got 100% in my assessment at the end.

View of the swimming pool from our balcony.

View at the seafront at Las Galletas, after our first dive of that day. We had to abandon further diving that day, due to the storm that was brewing up.

A couple shots of the friendly turtle, that was trying to get food from us.

Atlantic Stingray. An adult can span 2 metres in size, just like this one. These shots were taken at La Cuchos, which means "the puppies". This is because they were quite a few baby stingrays at this dive site; which is actually a small boat wreck on a sandy bottom at about 22 metres.

A beautiful anemone. Most of the dives were rock formation. The corals cannot be compared to the ones in Red Sea of course. That's why I was very please to get a shot of this.

Fire worm. I was warned not to touch this as the sting is very painful. Forewarned is forearmed.

Memorial to Jacques Costeau. It was great to see this memorial the the "Father of Scuba Diving"- the inventor of the aqualung.

Nitrox or Enriched Air Diving. I am now qualified to dive with up to 40% oxygen. Pete was an excellent instructor.

Mount Teide. The tallest mountain in Tenerife. Still an active volcanic mountain, but has not blown up in 50 years; or was it 150 years?? The views from the mountain range is just breathtaking.

Tenerife Zoo. We decided to visit the zoo. An excellent place for children. Actually, quite a range of animals there. There were also some shows throught the day, e.g the bird show and the feeding of the lions.

It was a great holiday. The logistics of getting there were very easy. It only took us about 4 to 5 hours to get there. We will definitely go back here again in the coming years.

Know your relatives....where's me mum??

Where's me mum? Errrr.....your mum? My mind seemed to draw a blank, as I looked into the accusing eyes of the girl beside me.....




The flight from Gatwick Airport to Marsa Alam took about 6 hours. I had been to the Red Sea a couple of times before, but we had traditionally flown to Hurghada in the north. Flying to Marsa Alam meant that we did not have to sail for 30 hours down the coast of the Egyptian desert, to get to the south. That is a blessing in itself, as I am usually the "champion puker" of the dive group; the legacy of being a poor sailor. The marina was only a short drive from the airport. Pretty soon, we were boarding our dive boat. It was called Hurricane ( owned by Tony Backhurst Scuba), and was by far the most luxurious dive boat that I had ever been on. We sailed from Marsa Alam to Elphinstone. From there, we headed south to Daedalus Reef, Rocky Island and Zabargad. This was what they called the Deep South, and we were only about 50 km from the Sudanese Red Sea.

m.v. Hurricane. Very luxurious dive boat.


We had a big group on this trip. There were 22 divers altogether. As I had only joined the dive club, I did not know most of the members on the boat. Therefore, I approached the leader of the group, and briefed him about my diving experience. I had wanted him to pair me up with a suitable buddy. I was disappointed therefore when his response was, " Oh! We usually just dive in a group. Just feel free to tag along." I later discovered that the rest of the group had naturally paired up themselves up as they knew each other well. The next morning at dive briefing, I turned to a couple of guys nearest to me and asked if they mind me tagging along. One guy was tall and thin, while the other was huge and fat. "Sure, no problems", they replied. So, that was settled.

Tunas lining up.


During the first 2 days, I began to realise that my "buddies" seemed to disappear to the surface without letting me know, halfway into the dives. I thought that was strange, but did not question them about it, as I was still diving with the rest of the group; although I was practically diving alone. The other strange thing was that the divemaster who was suppose to lead the dive was always at about 50 metres depth or so. He was diving with a Buddy Inspiration and therefore could go deeper for longer. I did not mind diving "alone" as I was comfortable with my own diving. It was no big deal. I thought this would be the pattern for the rest of the week. However, after the dive briefing the next morning, the divemaster suddenly turned to me and asked me who was my buddy, and why was I diving alone over the last 2 days. I saw no point in telling him that the guys just buggered off and left me each time. So, I just pointed lamely in their directions.

Daedalus Lighthouse (Girls beware, the guards usually haven't seen women for 3 months....so a bit randy!!)


The first dive that day was to a depth of 30 metres. As we got into the Zodiac, I noticed that the tall thin chap was not getting into it. So, I turned to the fat bloke and asked him, " Where's Jason?". He replied " Oh! He is doing a specialty course today." So, I said, " So, who are you diving with today?" "You", he said. So, very cautiously, I said, " OK...so, we are going down to 30 metres as planned, right?" He replied, as if it was the most naturally thing in the world, " No, I can't get down there because I use a lot of air. I only want to dive to 15 metres." . I thought, "*&%$£*£% great!! Now, I have a fat arsed gas guzzler on my hands who is not going to follow the dive plan! My disaster alarm went off. " Luckily, another chap also said that he was not going to 30 metres and he would not mind diving with my buddy. I turned to the remaining 3 divers on the boat. There was a guy in his late forties / early fifties, a lady of similar age and a girl of about seventeen. So, I turned to the lady who was sitting next to me and agreed that she would buddy up with me. The four of us would be sticking to the dive brief.

As soon as we did a backward roll into the water, my buddy started to panic and hyperventilate. I thought, " Mamma mia, what now??" We were on the surface for about 10 minutes, while she tried to calm down. I peered into the water, and I could see the divemaster at the bottom signalling for us to get down. Eventually, my buddy agreed to descend, and so we all went down together. Unfortunately, she kept going and did not stop at 30 meters. I had to swim to her and pulled her up to the right depth. After I had made sure that she was alright, I looked around, and holy shit!! The other buddy pair had gone too deep as well. I signalled to my buddy to wait for me and went down to get the others up as well. Just when I thought that all was well, I looked around and realised that my buddy was missing. The divemaster was watching us from about 20 metres away. So, I signalled to him to ask him the whereabouts of my buddy. He pointed to the surface, and as I looked up, I could see that she was just beside the boat. She must have panicked again, and shot up to the top. He signalled that we should continued with the dive. Yet again, the divemasater went down deep to do his own thing. After about 30 minutes, the girl's air level was getting low, and so I decided to end the dive.

As soon as we broke the surface, she asked me " Where's me mum?" It took me a while before I realised that she was referring to my buddy. " "She has ummm......gone up",I replied. The fat bloke, who was already in the boat, immediately said, " You should have gone up with her". What a patronising prick!! He did not even bother to ascertain the facts. My response was that the divemaster had instructed us to dive on. From the point of the general diving rule where one has to "stay with his or her buddy", I would agree with him. However, there were a few factors that guided me that few seconds in deciding what to do. Firstly, my buddy was already up at the surface, and was being picked up. Secondly, in that situation, I also had the other 2 as my "buddies", whom I rapidly realised, were not very experience divers. Thirdly, as mentioned before; the divemaster had also instructed me to dive on. Finally, by the time that I get up to the surface, the boat cover would have moved on to pick up other divers as per the dive plan. This would have meant that I would be floating on the surface for a while before I get spotted again, and therefore increased the chance of me being swept away.

The joke of the day, however, was that when the fat guy and his buddy reached their own "15 metres dive plan", there was no reef to be seen, and they had to descend to 30 mteres!!! Ha ! Ha! Ha! Theirs was a very short dive indeed! Stupid arse!!

Oceanic White Tip Shark (4th. most dangerous shark?)


Lessons that I learnt from this are 1) Make sure that you have a good idea of your buddy's dive experience before a dive. Asked them direct questions if you have to. The fat bloke was a gas guzzler, and therefore all his dives were very short compared to the rest of the group. This explained why, they always disappeared so early. 2) It is unwise to switch to a new buddy minutes before you hit the water; because of Rule No. 1. I later found out that the 3 person that I dived with were husband, wife and daughter. What luck!!! Urrggggh! Head bang!! To the credit of father and daughter, they kept their cool and kept on diving. Could have turned ugly underwater. Also, I found out later that they had just done their Advance Open Water recently, and each had less than 30 dives under their belt. This was their first sea trip. 3) Diving in "buddy pairs" of more than 2 divers may not always be a good idea, especially if the sea condition is rough, or when things go wrong. I also did not know beforehand that my buddy also had a panic attack the day before and had to abort her dive; again at the surface.

One under my crotch...had to lift my legs apart for this shot.
Felt a bit vulnerable......phew!!




The most important thing is that you always have to be self- reliant, and that can only come with experience. I did not allow the above experience to spoil my trip. For the remainder days, I seek out more experienced divers in the group and had a smashing time.


More tunas



Rocky Island



Life is an uphill struggle......but, hey! Count me in!!

Breathless.....Gasping for More...Errr!

If you think this is going to be a graphic description of some kind of sexual act........ perish your carnal thots!! Ha! Ha! ....suspen aje...



The sea was calm that morning at Pulau Redang. We head out in the dive boat in anticipation of another great dive. It was the first dive of the day. The divemaster had told us that it was going to be a deep dive, and that we were going down to 30 metres. No problem man!! Sap sap sui (in Cantonese)! I was used to doing deep dives. My deepest was down to 50 metres on the wreck ( name seemed to escape me at the moment...) near Oban in Scotland; where I was............never mind, that is another story.....!

My buddy for that dive was a Singaporean chap.. He was by now a French citizen from Nice. He was working for a computer company and was being seconded back to Singapore for a couple of years. We did our usual buddy checks, and was raring to go. As soon as the divemaster gave us the signal, we did our backward rolls from the boat and glided smoothly down toward the pre-determined depth. Plan the dive, and dive the plan!! That is one of PADI's mantras. The visibility was not as good as it had previously been. It was only about 15-20m. This must have been because of the storm overnight which had churned the sea up a little. Nevertheless, there were still plenty to see, and I was settling into the dive nicely. I turned to look, and my buddy was about 5 metres away from me looking under a rock.

Fifteen minutes into the dive and what the ..........(fill in your own obscenities)....!!!!! My regulator was almost yanked out of my mouth!! I thought, " What the hell is happening??". I turned to discover that my buddy was trying to pull it from me. Chee sin!!! Instinctively, I pushed him away and quickly assessed the situation. His own regulator was missing from his mouth!! My diver training immediately kicked into motion, and I quickly reached for my alternate regulator and shoved it into his mouth and purged it for him. He was in a right state of panic and kept gesturing that he wanted to surface. I had to calm him down immediately. Whack! I hit him straight on the head. It did the trick and he jolted out of his panic. On examining his regulator, I found that his mouthpiece had fallen off. His alternate regulator however, was working fine. So, as he was fast depleting my own air supply, I quickly switch him back to his own alternate regulator. After a further few minutes of swimming around, I decide that it was time to get up. After signalling to the divemaster, I deployed my delayed surface marker buoy, to alert the boatman, and slowly ascend to the top with my buddy. He was indeed, very grateful that day.

Moral of the story is that, it is better to have you own kit when diving, and make sure that it has been serviced regularly. My buddy rented his from the dive shop. As it was nearing the end of the season that year, the equipments were also getting worn out.

Another PADI mantra, if you encounter problems....STOP....BREATHE....THINK......ACT........! Happy Diving!

Pilgrimage to Layang-layang

When I was diving in Sipadan Island back in 1999, I had heard folks talking of the magic of diving in Layang-layang. One recurrent theme was that hammerheads were in abundance there. So much so that instead of spotting the sole member of this highly elusive shark, divers would frequently be treated to a "wallpaper of hammerheads" passing by during their dives. News like this had fired my imagination ever since. This was further reinforced when a very good friend and regular dive buddy of mine (Hi Stewart...hope you are well in Thailand), went to dive there a few years back and told me that the rumours were true.

It was therefore not if, but when I would make this trip myself. So, 2007 has to be it. The diving season and Chinese New Year period (when I would make my annual trip home to see my family in Malaysia) coincided nicely for the first time in years. This, with the increasing frequency of AirAsia flights(which only cost me a mere £65 return) to Kota Kinabalu(KK) from Kuala Lumpur made it possible. I had to stay overnight in KK, as the flight to Layang-layang was 7:30 the next morning. I stayed in Hotel Capital, which again cost me only about £15. However, to make it sweeter, there was a discount of about RM1000 from my dive package for Malaysian divers. Hurrah!!! Who says there is no benefit from holding a Malaysian passport??!

I checked in nice and early the next day at the new KK airport, which was very nice. They had to weigh all our bags as well as the divers. This seemed a bit odd, but the reason soon became clear. It was the tiniest aircraft that I had ever flew in. There were no doors and cargo and passengers had to be loaded from the back. It could only carry a maximum of 12 passengers. We were soon airborne, and after an hour , we were touching down on the single airstrip on the island.














The formalities were quickly and efficiently dealt with, and yessssssssssss.......!! Time to hit the water. The following are just a few of the shots that I took during the week.

Healthy looking starfish. This seemed to be in abundance, and most commonly spotted starfish here.














A nudibranch. Someone called it the "dinosaur".















Corals forming on an isolated branch.















Soft Corals.















Basket Coral.















Turtle taking a Rest.















"Flying" Eagle Ray- I wanna be free!!















Divers in the deep - waiting for the Hammerheads. Alas....we were to be disappointed.














Group Photo (Courtesy of Lawrence Dodds)


Sunset at Layang-layang.















It was a great week diving here. Unfortunately, I did not get to see the hammerheads. Looking on the bright side however, this means that I will have to make another trip back here soon. Yipeee!! One thing I've got to say is that the welcome here was second to none, and all the staff were very efficient. Safety was on the top agenda for all the divemasters and I certainly felt very safe diving with them. Aaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh.........I can't wait to be back there!!!

I have arrived

YeeHaa! I have finally arrived in the 21st century. This is the very first weblog that I have set up for myself. You guys might be curious why this blog has been christened as the "Hammerhead's World". Well, this is just one man's quest in search of his elusive cousins. I have only had a fleeting glimpse of this very beautiful creature in the Southern Red Sea in October 2005 at about 50-60meters depth. But could this just be a figment of my imagination??!! By the time I fumbled for my underwater digital camera , and powered it up, it had slipped into the blue abyss. Arrrrggghh!! Even my recent trip to Layang-layang (otherwise known as "Hammerhead Mecca") in the South China Seas in March 2007, was not blessed with a visit from my relatives. Sigh! Never mind. This brave soul dives on in the hope that his dreams will one day be fulfilled. In the meantime, please join me in my journeys, and I will try to make it exciting for you.