National Day Dive at Po Toi

Water temperature was nice and warmat 28°C and there were only 13 of us on board. Although we did not have"Mickey" Belshaw as our dive marshall, we had "Mini" Cheryl Foundling.Our first dive site was Fury Rock, Sung Kong. When Cheryl advised thatDavid Ng was my buddy, I felt a little worried......... because even thoughI'm now a qualified SD, my navigation skill is as "good" as my driving!Perhaps realizing that, David volunteered to lead the dive. Alex andVicki who went on the first flight advised us to run a distance lineand cautioned us the current. Alex's advice proved useful, as David andI returned to the anchor line where we started, while Cheryl and Ken surfaced some distance away from the boat (....but closer to our next stop for lunch). Despite being one lesson short to becoming a qualifiedSD, David impressed me throughout the dive. He ran the distance line around rocks without a single hick-up, signaled to me to stay close to the distance line and even performed a 3-minute decompression stop at 6m. If not for the low visibility, this is a great site covered with many white and orange-colored soft corals.

Our second divesite was Po Toi Island and it was my turn to lead. We decided to swim through the tunnel between Mat Chau Island and a big boulder. The sitewas covered with rocks and big boulders with visibility of about 2-3m. We approached a little cave before going through a narrow tunnel. Despite the low visibility, we managed to spot two clams, a baby sea cucumber, sea urchins, mostly covered with some mud and a zebra lionfish in the cave. On the return journey, I lost my sense of direction (I told you!!). Sensing it, David took over the wheel. At some points the water became so murky we found ourselves bumping into  walls and we had to go around boulders to get back to our bearings. Running into Ken and Cheryl, followed by the sight of a fisherman net we encountered earlier, confirmed our way back to the boat. Before long I realized we were at 16m, somewhat deeper than we had been, set me thinking we must have gone past the boat. I alerted David who then checked his dive computer and with swift response, deployed his DSMB like a pro and did a usual 3-min stop. We surfaced to find ourselves about 50m away from the boat.

I find both the dives had put the skills that we learnt to the test. I learned a lot from my buddy too and that its practice and experience that counts – not whether you're a SD or OD. (PS. I noted that David acquired some other useful skills too - knocking off protruding sea urchins with his torch...... he he he).