Monday 2 May 2016

After having good.. errr, usable 3G for months, we are far enough off shore at Pulau Aur to have been ripped, kicking and screaming, from the grid. No news from The Donald (to be perfectly honest, he's been so busy these last several months that he hasn't written to tell us, as he periodically did, how much he misses us.. he's probably still miffed that I thought he didn't have a chance in hell of getting elected US President) or Barack (OK, sure, I told him he was a horrible disappointment, but hey, friends should be able to overlook these minor disagreements), but there are compensations.

The water is blue. There is coral. There are fish. You can see both of these constituents while far enough away that a giant moray eel that you can't see won't eat you. Anybody remember "The Deep"? How about Jacqueline Bisset's set in "The Deep"? Looks like we'll be here until heading to Pulau Tioman (if not mentioned, pulau means island) on the 5th. Diving is suppose to be good there as well, but suspect it's overrun with flailing polliwogs.

Tuesday

Excellent dive this morning, 4 in a row over last 3 days. Huge humphead wrasse, a school of barracuda, huge boulders piled atop one another forming caves and lots of other interesting stuff. Then park officials came by with information that there is a 1 year prohibition on any activity, including snorkeling, diving and even swimming, around any island off the east coast except Tioman... OK, whose brother-in-law owns a dive operation on Tioman? Sazli Kamal Basha, our very good rally coordinator, sort of sorted it out and the department of tourism may rescue us from park authority pokey, but we decided to go Tioman a day earlier than planned anyway.

Wednesday

How many out there thought that every colorful, wee marine creature crawling over the bottom was a nudibranch (shell-less mollusk)? Show of hands. Well some of them aren't. Some of them are worms. Only nudibranchs have feathery gills at one end. Isn't life just full of fascinating crap? Tell all your friends.

Jack