I LOVE snorkelling. And I thank God that I am a good swimmer with a bit more confidence then I probably should have, because every time I go snorkelling, I hate wearing the life jacket... I feel so restrained in it and I don't need it coz' it's so easy to float in the ocean (sea water is very salty = good for floating. Basic science lesson #1). And being a snorkelling freak with a bit more confidence than I should have, if no one else is willing to head out to the water with me, I am prepared to go on my own. Even though it's dangerous... if anything were to happen to me out there and no one else is with me all sorts of things could happen. So I try not to be TOO far from people... but I go far enough that I still enjoy the freedom of being alone out in the big blue, admiring the beautiful corals below, with nothing on me but my swimsuit, snorkelling mask, and if I can get my feet in them, a pair of fins (these are much more useful than a life jacket, I say. Helps me to keep my head above water when I need to adjust my mask, and makes me go lots faster in the water). It's ranks up there as one of the most exhilarating experiences ever for me... feeling a mixture of awe at the beauty of creation, adventure at being out there alone, and fear of something popping out from behind a rock or coral and taking a snipe at one of my limbs... thankfully that's never happened before and sea animals in Malaysia, even the sharks, are generally quite friendly fellas.
And with that long-winded introduction, I now move on to the tale of my snorkelling trip at Redang. As is expected of a snorkelling freak, I went snorkelling every day that I was there, twice a day whenever I could... even right after we just arrived on the island. If you read my previous post, I had survived more than 30 hours without proper sleep coz' I was working whole day on Friday, drove overnight on Saturday morning and arrived on the island on Saturday afternoon. So the fact that I and the rest of my group still had energy to go out and snorkel or dive (most of my group are divers, but not me. Too expensive and snorkelling keeps me happy enough) was pretty dang good. Not much of a tale to tell though... the resort we stayed at organizes two boat trips out to different snorkelling sites each day... one to the famous Marine Park in the morning at 9.30am, and another one in the afternoon at around 3.00pm. When I didn't feel like following these trips, I would just snorkel at one of the beaches near the resort... which were quite nice as well.
In addition to being a snorkelling freak, I am also quite the avid photographer. But unfortunately when I bought my camera and I was trying to decide between a waterproof camera which looked pretty good and a non-waterproof camera which had a few more specs, I opted for the latter. And being underwater without being able to take photos kinda sucks. And I tried to buy a proper waterproof camera casing for my camera but couldn't find one. However me being the humbly ingenious person that I am, I came up with a fantastic idea to keep my camera safe from the water.... And it didn't cost me more than RM8.
Introducing... Carol's Waterproof Ziploc Bag Camera Protecter Contraption!
If you were drinking something, try to keep the liquid from squirting out your nose, ya.
So here's how it works:
Step 1: Buy some ziploc bags. They look like this. The ones I got were Glad bags with double zip mechanism, for extra protection. Extra protection is always good. Unless you want to have kids. ;-)
Step 2: Place camera in ziploc bag like so. And zip it up properly. Make sure you don't squeeze out all the air if your camera (like mine) has a protruding lens, or else it will be very difficult to come out later. Also don't leave in too much air, as the water pressure, even at slightly below surface depth, will cause the air to expand in the bag, and if there is too much, the bag might pop open and there goes goes your baby.
Step 3: Place camera in ziploc bag in ANOTHER ziploc bag. And zip er up! The second bag is for extra EXTRA protection, in case this bag leaks, the bag inside is still able to protect your camera. It makes the photos more blur, but it worked well for me coz' the outer bag did leak a couple of times, but my camera was still safe.
And technically now you are ready to roll and start snapping pics underwater! But the big problem here is, of course, holding onto this contraption while swimming. Not very convenient. And another problem for me was that I sometimes wanted to skinny dip, or dive underwater to get up close and personal to corals and try and catch some clownfish or something. And I couldn't push myself down with my camera contraption in hand, and didn't want to leave it bobbing on the water surface lest it might float away. Of course I came up with yet another solution... a plastic bag and a rafia string!
Step 4: Insert camera contraption into plastic bag like so. The arms of the plastic bag goes around your wrist, so you can swim more easily. Of course, the bag fills up with water and slows you down a bit, so what I did was cut small holes at the bottom of the bag, which allowed water to flow out and reduced the drag a wee bit. One arm of the plastic bag is tied to the rafia string, which leads me to....
Step 5: When needed, tie both arms of plastic bags together with rafia string. This only done in the water and is so when you go skinny dipping and leave your camera contraption floating at the surface, it doesn't come out of the bag. But be warned, only try this if you are a VERY good swimmer and can handle floating out in water while trying to tie a plastic bag up. Not easy, I tell you. Don't come crying to me if you drown while trying this.
Step 6: Tie other end of rafia string around your ankle, swimsuit or any preferred secure part of your body. This is of course to anchor the whole thing to you so it doesn't float away. The ankle makes it very difficult to swim though, I found, coz' the string tended to wrap around my legs, so eventually I tied it to my swimsuit and that worked fine.
And after all that trouble... here are my underwater photos!
This is the compulsory camwhore pic. And you thought camwhoring underwater couldn't be done. Heh.
Some fishy friends...
This is a rather large fish called a Triggerfish. It was lying on its side on the corals for some reason. I didn't complain coz' it made a great photo!
This one is a HUGE fish... though you can't tell from the pic. It was at least 6 m underwater from me and hiding under a big bunch of corals at Marine Park, watching all the crazy snorkellors above.
This is a moray eel sticking out from under a coral. It looked pretty mean. One of the local snorkeling guides was fooling round with by swimming right up to it and feeding it a feed from his hand!
Everyone's favourite clownfish! Made famous by the movie, Finding Nemo... and because of this even the guides call them 'Nemo', and I resist the urge to tell them "Nama bukan Nemo lah, mereka panggil 'clownfish' lah". Since they like to hang around anemones, trying to catch these will likely result in your hands getting stung by the anemones... which is what happened to me. Didn't hurt, but my thumb was a bit swollen and when I accidentally touched my lip, it got a bit reddish after that too. But they're so cute! Everytime they see people around, they come out and look at you and wriggle round a lot, as if trying to scare us away.
I caught this nice pic of an interesting rock structure just when a pretty parrotfish swam past. The parrotfish are all rainbow-coloured like fish. They look very pretty.
I saw big turtles and this is one of them! But it was swimming much too far down below me, so you can only see the silhoutte. Still pretty cool....
This is part of a very freaky looking shipwreck at Marine Park. First time I went there, I didn't dare go too close. All those images of scary shipwreck movies were playing in my mind. Second time I went though, there were people around, and so I was more daring and swam in. It was overgrown with corals, some very beautifully coloured ones too.
Here are some not-too-bad photos of corals I saw.
And last but not least, Christmas Tree worms! These little worms are in the shape of little Christmas Trees that stick on coral rocks... and come in all sorts of pretty colours! And when you touch them, they pop inside and look like a hole in the rock. Dunno why they do that, but it's cool. :)
Wish I could put more photos, but I think my blog would overload. :)
Next up... my interesting and slightly freaky experience with one of the local guides. Brrr...
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