Another good Hantu weekend in Singapore, with viz that varied from 8 to 2 metres over the weekend. But it was unpredictable. The jetty Saturday morning was great and then not great Sunday. I guess that is Singapore weather for you.
Saturday morning and afternoon trip was a combined total of 13 PADI Advanced Open Water Students and we also had 2 PADI Open Water Students. This kept PADI Instructor Phil and I busy all day Saturday. For the advanced students we completed search and recovery and the deep dive.
Sorry but I forgot to take a photo of the Saturday morning students. But they were as happy as the afternoon crowd.
The deep dive was down the anchor line to the silty bottom at 20 metres. We completed some timed skills and showed the students how colour washes out in deep water, then we headed to the nearby reef to finish the dive.
During the search and recovery, I hid a weight belt with 3 weights on it and buddy teams of two did an expanding circle to locate it. All the buddy teams did a great job finding the belt and tying a rope to it to recover it. At one stage Phil’s group found it and thought they were in luck, but Phil luckily made them leave it there.
The open water guys completed dives 1 and 2 with a few surfacing issues that we have to work on next trip.
During the surface interval, some students had fun wasting time, jumping off the boat.
PADI Instructor Phil joined them, supervising of course.
Sunday morning and afternoon was a little easier because it was mostly leisure divers.
Richard, my PADI Dive Master Trainee, joined me to help guide.
I also had 2 PADI Open Water Students on Sunday afternoon that were completing their final 2 dives. Both did well despite to bad viz Sunday afternoon.
Well done Jerome and Greg! You are now PADI Open Water Divers and thanks to their PADI Dive Master friend, JP, who helped out.
We did a total of 8 dives over the weekend.
We dived the small wreck, the jetty and the outer reef.
This glass shrimp was found in the outer reef.
Sightings included a seahorse, lots of nudis, pipefish, coral fish, flat worms, crabs, clown fish, glass shrimp, schools of pomfrits.
And for the first time ever, I finally saw one of the residents turtles.
I did manage to find an alien type black thing.
I am still trying to identify it and will update you as soon as I know.
Glenda’s Tip: Don’t forget to use a defogger in your mask. It makes the underwater scenery much clearer and is much more hygienic than spit. Frogspit works great and you don’t have to rinse. Just apply it on a dry mask.
Cheers, Gary
Thanks to Gary Savins for the use of your photos. Additional photos can be found on the GS-Diving FaceBook page – click here to view