Do Something For The First Time

June 11, 2014

Yesterday I had the wonderful privilege of bringing the Ong family out for their virgin dive in Singapore waters! They chose a weekday because they wanted the reef to themselves! Ok, they didn’t say it in those words, but we did have the reef to ourselves and it was nice! Ed-Linddi (left) shared that she’d heard about diving in Pulau Hantu for many years, but never got around to arranging a trip till now! And we’re glad she chose the Hantu Blog!

It was lovely to be able to beat the weekday rush-hour traffic by being away from the city and out on our waters.

What wasn’t so lovely though, was that my camera flooded 🙁 The photo of the trio on the boat above, was the last image that travelled through the lens of this little camera before in drowned in local waters. But what a way to go – doing what it was born to do! So much so, it died doing what it loved. Maybe after so many dives, it decided it wanted to stay on the reef forever. RIP dear camera. Your soul rests in Hantu. Ok, that was my attempt at some sort of eulogy. I’m still going to tell you what we saw, but using old pix, so I hope you don’t mind!

Surface temperatures were warm, but when we got down to about 12m, the waters got a little cooler. There were few types of fish out and about, but there were still the usual schools of Black-spotted scad (kunning), and jacks accompanied by one bright yellow pilot fish. On the reef, the monotony was broken by many busy nudibranches like the Snakey bornella (left) and a variety of different Phylids.

During our safety stop after the first dive, there was a large Ceratosoma (left) perched under just a meter or two of water. Many sand perches (a kind of blenny) observed us cautiously. I can’t tell if they are actually being cautious, of it they just always carry that look on their face. It’s as if they just seem to believe we (divers) have to be up to no good.

The Blue dragon nudibranch (left) is one of the most common critters divers can spot on our reefs. This doesn’t make them any less beautiful or interesting, as they do come in different colour variations, and some individuals have more cerata than the litle young ones. Another common animal on our reef is the Frillfin goby, a large and ornate fish that is extremely skittish. They feed by taking gulps of sand into their cavernous mouths, and then sifting out yummy morsels by pushing the sand out through its gills. If you approach them slowly and do not make any sudden movements, they might allow you to follow them as they feed along the reef slope.

We swam by two families of Anemonefish, which is always nice!

Sand divers (above) were also out in full force today. Many of them weren’t even hiding in the sand, and remained perched on the sea bed.

We also observed some coral bleaching during our dive – Merulina, Pachyseris, Favids, Fungia, Porites and Plerogyra, were just some of the coral we observed bleaching.

To find out how you too can dive with us in Singapore waters, visit our website!

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