Trip Report 19-20 November

There is so much to report, I am lost as to where to start…

 

How about – thanks to the Dive Masters that helped me for this local Live Onboard Weekend. Kat and Dave did an awesome job guiding and not losing their divers in limited viz waters.  This was Kat’s first DM assignment after passing her course earlier this year.

 

Also congratulations to Jared for passing his SDI Junior Open Water Diver Course.  Jared even experienced the Sudong wreck with strong current and handled it very well.  David, his father was on his first Dive Master Trainee weekend and was learning fast and maybe a bit overwhelmed at all the DM duties, but, seriously David did well for his first training weekend in the green waters of Hantu.

 

Anyway let’s talk about the diving.  We left Royal Singapore Yacht Club (RSYC) at 8.15am Saturday Morning with 17 divers and headed to the first of 9 dive sites for the weekend.
We dived:

  • Hantu Inner reef
  • Sudong Wreck
  • Semakau Island
  • Sudong Wreck (again)
  • Hantu Jetty 1 (night dive)
  • Hantu Outer reef
  • Kusu Island
  • St Johns
  • Hantu Jetty 2

 

 

We also were very lucky to have sunshine all weekend, it only started to rain on Sunday afternoon on our way back to RSYC.  Perfect weather, great company and great diving!

 

The highlights were the second Dive at Sudong wreck and Kusu islands.  Our first attempt to dive Sudong wreck was short due to the strong current, we decided to go back around 4pm and give it another go, and we were not disappointed.  There was no current and we were able to dive the entire wreck.  It is a steel wreck and it is believed to be a pleasure craft of some sorts, there are two masts and a small superstructure.  The inside of the living quarters appears to have collapsed and there is no way in.  You can only swim through the superstructure.

 

The fish life at the wreck was good, but not as good as the other sites.  But, we were not there to look at fish…it’s a big piece of rusty metal and you all know how much I like that! There were smiles all round after this dive.

 

I was not expecting much at Kusu, but was pleasantly surprised.  A small current was present, but again not much fish life, but the coral and sea fans were amazing.  It is a shock to see this stuff considering we are only a mile or so off shore and in view on the Marina Bay Sands Hotel.

 

The sea fans were small and in varying colours of orange and attached to them were feather stars of every colour you can imagine, some sea fans had 10-15 feather stars attached to them.  Suzanne, JB and Scott saw a Turtle and David pointed out a lobster to me.  All in all a great site considering its location.

 

We went back to Hantu Jetty 1 at the end of Saturday for a night dive and a BBQ that did not seem to end, the food just kept coming and coming.  The boys on the MV Seaborne sure know how to cook and keep you well fed.  Even lunch that day was out of this world.

 

 

 

After dinner we chatted and enjoyed the view around us, one side a tropical island with coconut trees and an idyllic lagoon, the other, an oil refinery that excited all the people that work in the oil industry. I named it Hantu Vegas, due to the massive amount of lights on it, especially at night.

 

 

 

The next morning I checked the Hantu wreck to see if it was worth a dive, it was, but only with a smaller group.  The wreck is a small wooden bum boat that I swam around in 3 minutes.  I will return to dive this but with a lot less divers, 17 divers on this wreck would have been interesting to see…no one could have moved (note – keep an eye out for an up coming 2 dive trip to Hantu and Sudong wrecks in January).

 

Most of the fish life is at Hantu, where we saw:- Filefish, Clownfish, Nudi’s of every type, False Scorpion fish, schools of Fusiliers, Cuttlefish, Razorfish and a variety of Crabs.  I even saw a Juvenile Oriental Sweetlip on the outer reef.

 

Singapore diving is definitely worth the time and effort, you just never know what you will see.  But you have to be comfortable diving in limited visibility.  We experienced an average of 2m all weekend, some sites were up to 5m, others around 1m.

Thanks Suzanne for the use of your underwater photos.

Remember – a bad day diving is better than a good day in the office!