Diving in Miri

P/S: Pictures in this post has not much of colour because it was taken from my underwater film camera.

...the sites that I dived...

Date: 22nd April 2010

Time: 9.00am

Location: Miri Marina Bay

I signed up with Tropical Divers that morning for a 3 dive package and at first I was told that there were no one else other than myself. Lucky enough, an Australian guy named John came along and we buddied for the dives. We took a small speedboat out to the South China Sea and it took us 45 minutes to reach our first dive site.

Dive Site No.1

The Kenyalang Wreck (which is not in the map but it's close to the VHK Reef. I didn't manage to get good photos here as visibility was quite blur and all my close up photos of the nudibranches I saw turned out to be blur -.-" It was an oil rig wreck and it was an interesting one. Just 6 years and there were so many corals growing on them. The Groupers were huge! and there were Batfish too! I found a couple of nudibranches (different species) on the wreck and just before we surfaced, there was a small, round jellyfish swimming in front of me...what a wonderful sight!

We surfaced (it was a short dive) and had our 1 hour surface interval. We had an apple and a can of 100 plus during the waiting time...and to our surprise, we spotted two turtles mating in the open sea!

...the turtles...

Dive Site No.2

Siwa Reef was named after the village parallel to this dive site and the Siwa Oil Rig. From the boat itself, we could see the corals and the fishes swimming in the water. After gearing up for the second dive, I back-rolled in and I was taken aback with the beauty of the sea floor. There were no sandy bottom but it was literally a floor of corals~

...the anemones...

...Robert, the dive master...

After 50 minutes of bottom time in the water, we surfaced and shared our thoughts of the reef and both John and I were just so amazed with it. We had a box of nasi lemak (damn, it was such a delicious box of nasi lemak) and another can of 100plus for lunch.

Dive Site No.3

The Anemone Garden is one of the famous dive site in Miri...and as it is, it was full with anemones. One thing I like about my dives in Miri is that I get to swim at any directions that I want as long as I stay in sight of the dive master. There were so many species of nudibranchs and all the photos were all blur! ...so need a digital camera now.

...the mountain of corals sitting on top of each other...

...just look at the fishes swimming on top of the corals...

...the fish that will stay still for you to take the photo...

It was such an amazing dive and I promised myself to return to Miri at least once a year to dive the other sites and to one day make a dive at the Antago Wreck. The corals and fishes just took my breath away...

...last but not least, my syok sendiri in the water...

Looking forward for more dives in Miri!