First day is always memorable for me. One reason is because it is first day, Captain Obvious. Another reason it’s because I would still have the diligence to write it down therefore I remember what happen on the first day. However, on this case in this trip, the first day is magnificent by default.
After five minutes van ride, we arrived at the shore. There was a small dinghy parked at the shore and all of us, together with Sukono, the boat man who greeted us cheerfully (and we were glad to find another local but ourselves too!) walked to the dinghy and boarded it. I know the idea sounds so stupid, but for a few seconds, I actually thought that is where we would be the whole diving day. So the question in my head was not how we fitted in, not about the sun burn we were going to get, but about how on earth would I able to wear my wetsuit without knocking everyone to the sea. Luckily, my mind soon registered and I spotted a diving boat about 200-300 meters away further from the shore. They are using the Atlantis Bay (a diving island in West Malaysia) style of dumping you in the dinghy first because the shore was too shallow and there was no jetty.
Anyway, upon regapping our equipments, while everyone else was in front, or ran to the front, Thomas suddenly appeared and told us “Ada paus di depan.” There is a whale in front. We thought he was joking. He looked like he was seriously joking, hubby thought as far as he was making a joke of big sized Germans who probably sunbathing in front. But he was not. One thing that we learned, he didn’t joke. He hardly joke, and he never joked when he was speaking about things we see.
So both of us ran to the front and there we saw it, a blue whale flipping and relaxing on the surface in front. We were merely fifteen minutes away from when we started, still far inside the bay, and there was this magnificent creature. We stood there with jaw dropped, the captain shut down the engine and no one said a word. All of us were enjoying the view in silence for a good ten minutes until the whale disappeared. While we still scanning the horizon, we heard what sounded like an amplified regulator sound from the side, all of us turned and found one baby whale on the right side near the shore blowing water like those in cartoon. It was ‘wow’, indescribable feeling. I was wondering how loud it was for people on the shore because it sounded pretty loud for us whose boat was a distance away. This is the kind of surprise that make it worth to travel to the end of the world, and lucky for us, still in our country.
As if wanting to impress us on the first day, not long after that we saw a big school of dolphin. I would spray water to your face if I was drinking for this welcome even before we reached the first dive site.
Another great first day thing, after all those fright, our first dive testing with empty casing proved that our casings were fine. It’s great news. We also found that we adapted much more easily than ever even after not diving for over a year. Normally hubby would need longer equalize time for first few dives, but this time, and overall for this trip, he would blub blub blub and sink faster that I did, a very much reverse because normally I would reach the bottom first. To think that both of us were unwell days before the trip, it’s great news too. I didn’t know how painful it is to dive after just or not totally recoved from a flu until I experienced it myself. It’s agonizing to equalize and I would never want to go through it again.
