MV Vincent

Scubadiving with MV Vincent

I must say, this is the trip of the year for me and Shuhui. Frankly, when we first signed for the trip, we had not expected much at all. All we knew is that Vincent is a real cool guy and that Joseph and Lili (from our church cell-group) are coming along. Of course, the feeling changed when we saw the vessel coming in to pick us up from our Mersing jetty. I guess the photograph didn't really do it much justice since it's pretty tough to judge the size from it. You'll hafta see it for yourself. Let's see, the people that were on the trip were Shuhui and myself, Joseph and Lili, Philip and Bok Eng, Monica, David, Guy (training to be a D/M), and 4 other Japanese (including one Japanese lady named Mariko who has logged over 1200 dives!). Plus Vincent and the 3 boat crew, we had quite a substantial number of people on the boat.

Anyway, we set off for the trip at around 7:45pm from the River Valley Pool to Mersing. Reached there at about 1:30am after a short break for supper and to replenish the fruit supply for the boat, we boarded MV Vincent at around 2am. We had a short briefing, placed our gear at the respective places and slept in our 2-bed bunks until our first dive at Pulau Aur the next morning.

Dive 1: school of barracuda

Dive 1: Pinnacles 2, Pulau Aur
9:43am August 11, 2000

Max depth: 21m, Bottom time: 31 minutes. Excellent first dive...the moment we went into the water, we were surrounded by a school of yellow-tailed barracudas about 30cm each. It was quite a feeling being surrounded by these fish, especially when we know that they are carnivorous. Saw a Moorish idol, batfish, emperor angelfish. Lots of gorgonian fans,a nd red whip coral.

Dive 2: Napolean's Peak, Pulau Aur
12:51am August 11, 2000

Max depth: 27m, Bottom time: 35 minutes. This was a bad dive for me, as I had so much trouble trying to keep up with Shuhui. Somehow, I felt so tired trying to go forward. After the dive, Vincent checked that the regulator I was using is a little faulty which he promptly fixed. Immediately, I felt that I could inhale more air. Needless to say, I didn't see much the 2nd dive. From the reports of the other divers, they had seen Napolean wrasse and lots of nudibranch.

Dive 3: feather star (himerometra robustipinna)

Dive 3: Pinnacles 3, Pulau Aur
4:40am August 11, 2000

Max depth: 22m, Bottom time: 36 minutes. Pretty good dive this one, especially after Vincent fixed my regulator - able to breathe a lot better now. Saw lots of nudibranch (flabellina rubrolineata), and as usual, the gorgonianfans, red whip coral. The highlight must be the bulb tentacle sea anemone with its resident skunk clownfish.

Right after our 3rd dive, Vincent went back into the water to do some spearfishing. Success, he caught a trevally which he promptly sliced to make sashimi. Yummy! He also caught a red grouper which we steamed for dinner that night. Looks like I won't be dieting after all for this trip.

Dive 3: sea cucumber

Dive 4: Lang Bay, Pulau Aur
7:28pm August 11, 2000

Max depth: 10m, Bottom time: 33 minutes. This is the place that we're stopping for the night, and being the 4th dive of the day the depth has to be pretty shallow. Shuhui and I were kinda afraid to venture out too much in case we got lost (our navigation skills are not that good) so we kinda hung around the boat. According to Vincent, there were 2 moray eels in this area at around the 11m depth, but we didn't find them. We did see a pufferfish, and lots of sea urchins. One of them was particularly interesting since it has a huge ball at the center (echinotrix calamaris). Other interesting stuff, we saw lots of shining red lights all over the hard corals. It wasn't until our next night dive (the next day) that I found out that these are actually the eyes of certain shrimps hiding among the corals. Pretty cool, 'cos it's quite impossible to spot these transparent creatures in the daytime.

Dive 4: sleeping parrot fish

Later, Vincent and Joseph went squid fishing from the deck using just a lure and some line. Caught quite a number - funny, 'cos we didn't see a single one whilst diving. In fact, when one squid was caught by the line, there were another one or two other squids which will follow it as the squid was pulled in. Quite a spectacle for us who are watching from the dining deck.

Dive 5: Seven Skies Wreck, Anambas
8:45am August 12, 2000

Max depth: 34m, Bottom time: 28 minutes (14 minutes at maximum depth + 3 decompression stops). This must be one of the best dives I've been in a long time. The sea was extremely choppy that I was quite amazed that Shuhui and I made it to the starting point. We actually had to use a rope tied to the bow of the boat in order to descend to the wreck. With the strong waves, it was so tiring that reaching the bow was an achievement in itself. Then the descend into the murky depths. At about 28m, we saw the wreck (at least, part of the super-tanker which includes the funnel) and the amazing fishlife it has. Saw lots of great barracudas, a huge school of batfish (must be at least 50 of them swimming all around us without any fear whatsoever), and also a school of tuna. Lots of Dendronepthyra soft coral on the wreck, and other corals that we could not identify. Kinda regretted not bringing down my u/w camera for this dive. Sigh....

We did one circle around the funnel and it was time to ascend. I specifically remembered (after looking at the dive computer Vincent lent me) that we only spent about 14 minutes in the water when we have to ascend (I still have 120 bars of air in my tank) - I guess it's just for safety purposes. Anyway, we did 3 decompression stops at 15m (2 minutes), 10m (2 minutes), and 5m (3 minutes) before ascending, which was another ordeal as the waves are becoming stronger now. Nevertheless, it was excellent stuff...previously, I was kinda wondering what the fuss is all about wreck-diving. I think I'm beginning to know why after completing this dive. Definitely, there'll be more wreck-dives to come.

Dive 6: Pulau Damar, Anambas
11:33am August 12, 2000

Max depth: 16m, Bottom time: 42 minutes. This place was in a pretty deplorable state with lots of dead corals due to bombing, according to Vincent. As we descended, we could see just what he meant with all the greyish corals are broken to pieces with lots of blue starfish lying around, some with 4 or even the 6-leg variety.. Nevertheless, we continued the dive and reached a point where Shuhui and I were beckoned by one of the Japanese divers to come over.

Dive 6: nurse shark at Pulau Damar (Anambas)

There were a lot of the other divers there already around this large piece of coral, and we were quite puzzled with the commotion until he placed his palm above his forehead - "the signal for shark," we thought. We raced ahead. At first, all we saw was wall of white flesh, and then we saw it. Underneath the coral was a sleeping nurse shark, at least 3m in length. It was huge and boy, did our hearts start pumping. I took a few pictures but the size is big enough such that the focus is simply not good enough. Unbelieveable, this must be the biggest shark I have seen to date, and so close that we can almost touch it. Other highlights include a swim-through which is quite fun since we have never done one before. Excellent dive!

from left: Joseph, Lili, Shuhui, and me

I'd guess that after the dive, everyone still had that huge adrenalin rush from seeing the huge nurse shark that almost the entire boat went snorkelling. And as the weather was pretty good, we took the opportunity to take some pictures as well of each other aboard the boat.

After lunch, we were told to go sleep in our bunks 'cos we're making a trip back to Tioman, and the sea is going to be rough. Well, rough is NOT the word I would use since the waves were 2m high! We could even feel the entire vessel being pushed out of the water...I threw up all my lunch, and Shuhui didn't fare any better either. In fact, I dare say that almost everyone, except for the boat crew, vomitted during this storm. We could almost predict when there would be a huge wave 'cos the captain would actually turn off the engine to prepare for the "hit". Thanks be to God there were no serious casualties. We reached Lang Bay at around 11pm, after which we were told that we're going for our night dive starting at around midnight.

Dive 7: cuttlefish (night dive)

Dive 7: Lang Bay, Pulau Aur
12:16am August 12, 2000

Max depth: 13m, Bottom time: 34 minutes. This is a midnight dive, and I buddied up with Joseph as the girls wanted to stay on the boat. Saw a cuttlefish about 5 minutes after we descended. As we explored into the boulders, saw lots of sleeping 6-banded angelfish and parrotfish, and even a tube anemone. This was a lot better dive as we are more familiar with the place now (it's the same site as yesterday's), and are more daring to explore further. Good dive.

Dive 8: Captain's Point, Pulau Aur
8:10am August 13, 2000

Max depth: 29m, Bottom time: 29 minutes. The initial point was to dive Rainier's Rocks, but there were 5 boats there already. Plus the divers from MV Vincent, we could have about 60 divers at one site which is not really good at all. So we chose to dive Captain's Point again which turned out to be the workout of the trip. It was meant to be a drift dive but I guess Vincent made a misjudgement such that all of us had to finned really hard just to stay withihn the group. Very difficult dive, but I guess not wasted as we saw a pufferfish and also a tiger cowrie.

Dolphin's!

Whilst on our way to Tioman, one of the Japanese yelled out "dolphin", which prompted us to get on to our feet and looked out into the sea. Over there at a distance, we saw dolphins swimming. Never did we expect them to be coming over to our boat, which is exactly what happened! We looked out a little bit, and then Vincent shouted, "Quick, to the front," which all of us did and to our amazement, there were four, five, maybe six dolphins just swimming with the boat. With gasps of "Whoa" everytime the dolphins come out to breathe, all of us stood in awe as these magnificent creatures just swam in front of the boat, racing with each other. A few minutes later, they were gone but this must certainly be the highlight of the day!

Dive 9: crown-of-thorns starfish

Dive 9: Bahara Rocks, Pulau Tioman
11:58pm August 13, 2000

Max depth: 16m, Bottom time: 40 minutes. This dive is located around a structure similar to a buoy or a lighthouse. Anyway, there's tons of the Dendronepthyra soft coral around this dive site. If the visibility has been better, this would be among one of the most beautiful sites I've been. Anyway, this place is nudibranch heaven - I think both Shuhui and I must have spotted at least 5 nudibranch of the same species (phyllidia varicosa). Then we saw a huge turtle, much bigger than the other ones I've seen in any of my previous dives...I think it's a green turtle. Lots of crown-of-thorns starfish, which makes me understand why this is one of the places that requires "cleaning-up".

Vincent and the trevally

Vincent went spearfishing again, and he caught a huge trevally (2kg at least). Again, we had sashimi prepared by one of the Japanese. Funny thing is, he actually sliced the fish really nicely before mashing it up together with some spring onions. Made us all laugh but it's really yummy!

Dive 10: a pair of (cute) baby moray eels

Dive 10: Tekong Bahara, Pulau Tioman
3:00pm August 13, 2000

Max depth: 16m, Bottom time: 28 minutes. The last dive before heading back to Mersing, we saw a huge star pufferfish just hobbling along, close enough to touch. Again, lots of nudibranch of the same species we saw during the 2nd dive. And as we swam along some corals, we suddenly spotted 2 really cute baby moray eels together. With their round eyes, and sharp teeth, they're kinda funny-looking, certainly not as ferocious as when they were bigger. A few pairs of 6-banded angelfish, and lots of damselfish, pink anemonefish with the resident sea-anemones and lizardfish just darting around.

Dive 10: star pufferfish at Tekong Bahara

Conclusion

What can I say? A 3m nurse shark, been through 2m waves, saw a gorgeous wreck, ate fresh trevally sashimi, saw lots of nudibranch, pufferfish, cuttlefish, baby moray eels, dolphins - almost too good to be true. Would I go again? Absolutely, without hesitation. The facilities were good, no water restriction, comfortable bunks, good food, great dive sites. Now, let's pray for some good weather and calm seas with great visibility and this could the best dive trip ever. I'm thinking of going to Tenggol, next. Anybody else interested?

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p.s. all underwater pictures were taken using a Sealife Reefmaster RC (without strobe). Pictures are scanned using a HP6300c scanner and touched up using Corel Photo-paint 9.0.

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