Posted under Malaysia News by Tim Yang
The turtle tomb in Sipadan is a mysterious limestone cave that has several skeletons of turtles lying within. Only very experienced divers are taken there. Sometimes, the dive guide will even require you to have technical training. Here is a 3 and a half minute video of one recent penetration of Turtle Tomb.
Posted under Malaysia News by Tim Yang
These divers from Hong Kong recently uploaded a video to Youtube featuring them feeding fish with bread from a bag.
Two things: It’s probably not a good idea to make a video of yourselves when you have clearly horrid bouyancy skills on display. And you probably shouldn’t be feeding fish anyway.
Posted under Events & Malaysia News by Tim Yang
FINS online blog has posted a trip report to the Tioman Mega Dive, July 11-15. It’s an annual event started last year by the local tourism ministry. There was an underwater photography competition, an underwater photography clinic (details not listed on the website) and a treasure hunt where 20 little chests were hidden in reefs around the island.
On the website, the winners and their photographs were not listed. But I’m not holding my breath. That weekend was a new moon weekend. That usually means poor visibility.
Posted under Malaysia News & Underwater Photography by Tim Yang
Seademon from the diver forum, Malaysianunderwater.com, just uploaded the video presentation he did for the forum’s booth. It features him and veteran divers, Jim, Bobo, Comrade and a few others diving at Tioman. It also features a wreck dive, technical dive with twin tanks, night diving — some of the activities the guys at the forum engage in.
Posted under Malaysia News by Tim Yang
Sharky Jones, an engineer based in Miri in Sarawak, has two video blogs of his dives here and here. It includes diving with a whale shark in Borneo, his underwater wedding and a coral reef clean up in Miri.
Here’s one of his video dive logs of a dive in Miri with his running commentary.
Posted under Conservation & Malaysia News by Tim Yang
MALAYSIA is launching a $9 million project to try to clone threatened leatherback turtles in a last-ditch bid to save them from extinction. But some biologists say the plan is impractical and unlikely to succeed, since no reptile is known to have been cloned.
Malaysian agricultural and veterinary experts will join scientists in domestic and foreign universities on the five-year project. Junaidi Che Ayub, chief of Malaysia’s fisheries department, said the cloning procedure would first be carried out on green turtles, which are abundant in Malaysia’s north-eastern state of Terengganu, where the leatherbacks nest.
“The number of leatherbacks is decreasing every year,” he told The Associated Press. “Even though some of them have returned to our shores to nest, their eggs are not fertile and do not hatch.”
This is of course total utter bullshit. There are lots of eggs — if the locals stopped eating them. So instead of trying to stop the destruction of the eggs, the Malaysian government decides it is simply more politically expedient to spent fruitless millions to make more turtles.
Part of the government is run by technocrats who simply cannot do things the natural way. Or even try to give nature a helping hand. Instead they have to line the pockets of their friends in the biotechnology industry.
Yet they place the blame on pollution, over fishing and the turtles themselves for being infertile and not on the restaurants all over Terengganu that serve turtle eggs by the hundreds every day where their base of voters go for their meals.
Posted under Malaysia News by Tim Yang
Youtube user Chrismyatt found a green sea turtle struggling to exit some coral it was resting in. Then it turns toward him and heads for the surface for air. It’s a shallow area, so Chris follows it up and back down. The video is a minute long.
Posted under Malaysia News by Tim Yang
Youtube user basricetin posted a 7 minute video of his trip to Sipadan Water Village. It features a short scene at KLIA airport while waiting in transit, his amazing room at Sipadan Water Village and the divers briefing area. It also features his pinnacle dive with a school of bumphead, his second dive with a few sharks, a school of batfish, a school of barracuda, a turtle and finally a spider shrimp.
Posted under Malaysia News by Tim Yang
Rehman Rashid, a local writer, recounts diving at Tenggol, which is an island in Malaysia notorious for strong currents. Rashid is an experienced diver. But he and his buddy ended up on a dive together with an instructor and his open water students. Why any instructor would take his inexperienced students into the rough waters of Tenggol is beyond me.
“The heck with this,” I thought angrily to myself, having sworn years before never to put myself in scary situations underwater ever again, and jack-knifed downwards to the bottom some seven metres below. The thing to do in such conditions is to seek shelter, which is not above on the roiling surface but below among the crevices of the seabed, which break up the currents and afford some calm.
As I thankfully reached such shelter and paused to catch my breath, I turned around and was startled to see that the sprogs had all followed me down, and were now looking at me expectantly through their nice new facemasks in hypoallergenic silicone and a variety of fashionable colours.
There came from above a furious clanging: The divemaster, alone on the surface, was snapping his alert — a piece of hard plastic on a bungee cord around his tank, used to attract his students’ attention. They looked around and back at me, in some bewilderment. I signalled them to group together and ascend slowly to their sifu. This they did, meeting him in mid-water, from where their excursion subsequently progressed, I presume, without incident.
Later, it transpired that the divemaster would never speak to me again. My friend — a successful CEO in real life — explained what had happened. I, he told me, had acted like a leader, and the sprogs had instinctively followed. This was the worst insult to the divemaster that could be imagined.
I was astounded. “Say what?” I said, hiply. “I was scared! I acted in self-preservation! What kind of leadership is that?!”
“But you looked like you knew what you were doing,” he said.
Posted under Events & Malaysia News by Tim Yang
I was at MIDE (Malaysia International Dive Expo) 2007 over the weekend. It was quite a busy affair. A lot of newbie divers checking out gear, a lot of expats hoping for cheap deals to Bali and Thailand and a lot of locals like me just looking.
Overall, I was disappointed. There weren’t as many exhibitors as the website says there are. Some had pulled out. There weren’t any exhibitors displaying new gear that I hadn’t already seen in their shops (they were just getting rid of old stock). The seminars were set far away from the exhibition area so many visitors (including myself) forgot about them and never made it to any. And there weren’t any great deals. A lot of island based dive centres and resorts made offerings, but they weren’t any I couldn’t get on my own on any given day.
I managed to catch up with my buddies from Malaysianunderwater.com, the local diver forum. And I did get to talk to the representative of Reef Check Malaysia (no website!) and get myself on their email list. They have a small presence in Malaysia. And while most divers have heard of them, few people know when their training and events are held.
I also chatted with the exhibitor at the Beuchat booth. Beuchat (ugly logo) didn’t have an active representation in Malaysia until recently. They still don’t have a shop. But it looks like they’ll be getting one soon.
Here are some photos from MIDE 2007: