What a great start to September with another 24 divers enjoying the local diving in Singapore southern waters.
The wind on Saturday forced us to dive the northern side of Hantu for both dives. I was conducting PADI Rescue Diver with Nicolas and PADI Open Water Diver Course with Julia and Ashley. Nicolas did a great job with many rescues and has now been certified. Congratulations Nicolas! Julia completed 2 of the dives of the PADI Open Water Course, whilst Ashley had some major fears and could not descend. She will try again after another pool session.
Regulars, Chay Hoon, Kwan Siong, Rafael, Andrew and Brandan all enjoyed themselves. I forgot that Brandan was a tiny kid and packed a wetsuit that was a bit big. He carried on bravely, looking a little bit like the “Michelin Man”. Mark dived our local waters for the first time and was very impressed with what he saw.
The visibility was ok, up to 3-4 metres. But still not enough for Andrew and Brandan to see the huge turtle until it was right on them.
Adeline, Yen Sun and Kelvin also had a great time taking many pictures. Pictures by Kelvin below:
Sunday was the better of the two days. The wind had stopped and the visibility improved on the second dive moving the viz up to 5-6 metres.
I completed the final two PADI Open Water Diver Course dives with Julia. Congratulations Julia on passing your course!
The first dive was at the Southern Jetty. The schooling barracuda and pomfrits were still there, along with all the reef fish and nudis. The second dive was along the break wall of Hantu near the Outer Jetty. We dived here the previous week and it was really good. Again, it did not disappoint anyone. I even saw the lion fish. I pointed it out to Julia. She looked at it but kept diving. I don’t think she knew what it was and how rare it is to see them in Singapore. Anyway, we swam the entire wall in 45 minutes. I made Julia deploy her Surface Marker Buoy (SMB), which she did very well for her first time.
Regulars, Scott, Ovi, Boon Leong, Lynette, Zhan Yu were onboard again along with Ian, Manan and Timothy. Ian dived in local water for the first time and was very impressed. He said the viz was just like back home in the UK, but there was more to see here.
Glenda’s Tip – With safety in mind, do deploy your SMB when finishing your dive and completing your safety stop. Fishing boats, leisure craft, yachts and jet skies frequent Hantu and it is best to be seen clearly, including when returning to the boat on the surface.
Cheers, Gary Savins