The Perhentian Islands

So ya it has been awhile since my last post, but whatever I've been busy.....ha.
Anyways here is another installment for all my avid readers out there.

Just writing this blog reminds me that I should write a bit more, just a'lil bit. I have this mindset that I don't really have anything to write about, but really I do.

For all of you who don't know, I am and have been working on aquiring my Dive Master. Why you say? Well to sum it up quickly before I start an incoherent ramble.......When I head back home to Canada I'd like to enter in an adventure tourism program, and for one of the areas of the program you have to be masterful in one aspect of outdoor education. The only experience in outdoor educaton that I had prior was well.... none.
I am in Asia surrounded by some of the best dive sites in the world, so it was a no brainer for me to which outdoor speciality I would attain, prior to entering the program.

Which brings me to my next point. Last week L-bomb and I ventured off to Malaysia for a week long getaway. Before we left Taiwan, L and I had picked the Perhentain Islands to go to. I have coordinated my visa runs this past year with my diving excursions. The visa run before this one (March, 2006) I went to Koh Tao, Thailand which is an amzing treat if you ever end up there, I'll have to save the details for another session, another excuse to blog.

Anyways........back to Malaysia. K, so we flew into KL on Sunday, caught a domestic flight to Kota Bharu, gong show, and were in Kuala Besut (jetty for boats to Perhentians) by night fall. No boats leave for the Perhentians at night so we found a room, rested up, and caught the first boat in the morning.

The Perhentians are compiled of Perhentain Kecil (Small) and Perhentian Besar (Big). We chose to stay on Kecil, which is more of a backpacker destination rather than Besar which caters to the resort crowd.

We arrived early Monday morning, and I started my EFR (Emergency First Response) course within an hour of stepping foot on the isle. I had checked on the net for dive shops and chose Coral Sky Divers. I left L to fend for herself, but I knew she would be ok as she is an experienced vet.

Met the other student for my EFR and Rescue course, curious George from Singapore. Good guy, took awhile for him to grasp the concepts being taught, but persevered. I found EFR pretty easy, maybe because I found it to be more commonsense, and I had taken a CPR course a few years back in college.

The next day I started my Rescue course. Lots of reading, watching videos, and excercises and scenarios. My instructor, Rory, asked us to read every night and complete the knowledge reviews for the chapters, which would help us to understand more of what and why we were doing everything. So, I was reading before breakfast, lunch and dinner everyday. For the 3 days during my Rescue course I never really got a chance to hang with L, which was kind of shitty, but I knew that I came there primarily to get my courses done. I found that because I did all the readings, I was able to perform better in the water during the scenarios and exercises, while C.G. had some difficulties completing the tasks at hand. I felt as though I had done all this before, or maybe I was just a fish out of water.

After three long days I completed the Rescue course!! It was definately more intensive than the open water and advanced open water courses, but I really enjoyed the challenge. I enjoy being in the water. The whole scuba experience feels so natural to me.

So, now I am a certified Resue diver, cwazy. My next trip will be to attain my Dive Master!!! I have been souting out a few places but am seriously looking at doing my DMT in the Gili Islands, in Indonesia, Gili Trawangan to be exact. The DMT course will take at least one month to complete, so it will be a long one. But from everything I have heard about it, I'm extremely excited and raring to get my feet wet again. Deeeeee-Cent!

You can check out the pics here.