The Canopi, Bintan

It's been a little over a year since I've been on on a trip somewhere. Work and school commitments in the past year took up the bulk of my time and the grind is making me so pissy that it'd be good to have a short break to unwind a little.

Came across this 'Canopi' place through a couple of friends' reccomendations. Proceeded on the check the place out via online sources and felt that it was quite decent. It kinda had the 'Maldives' feel to me where there was clear water right outside your accommodation, but more budget lol.

The Canopi is located in Bintan and is approximately a 10min drive from the Teluk Sebong Ferry Terminal.

I was actually quite amazed the second I entered the main lobby with how picturesque the place really was. The water was vast and crystal clear. On top of that, the place was also not swarmed with people, which made it less touristy and made the experience felt more like a real 'get-away'.

View from the Main Lobby

See the those pointy huts over there? Those are actually the guest accommodations. It really made the experience feel really different from your typical hotel room stay by having more of an 'adventure' vibe.

Our Tent

You'd think that a tent like that may have the interior of some make-shift beds and furniture, however it really still looks like a hotel room inside.

 Interior

I swear, the whole interior looks like some couple oriented place. The initial idea of a bunch of guys hanging out inside was quite funny.

Shower Point

The shower was really amusing. The entrance to it was behind our tent and was essentially an 'outdoor' area where you could literally hear people passing by outside. There were also live plants being grown from the soil right in front of the showering point! 'Nature calls' huh.

We had lunch at a restaurant bar in the vicinity. Price-wise, it was quite expensive, given that I'd expect things in Indonesia to be cheaper. But then again, it's still in the lagoon area, so probably no surprise.

The Patio

Nasi Goreng

The food was acceptable I guess, given it's price (12,000 Rupiah). Had to order something though as we were really hungry after arriving and it was the closest thing we could find.

Mangrove Kayaking

After the meal, we headed out to the activity center to see what was available. I've already seen some of their activities available on their website and thiswas something that I really wanted to try.

The cost for the trip was around 45,000 Rupiah per pax. It is inclusive of a guide, but we were lucky as on the way, a local that was familiar with the mangroves tagged along with our guide as well.

Transport (UTV) to the Mangrove

Mangrove Entrance

Bridge leading to the Kayaks

Ready to go!

I must say, I was pretty thrilled when I arrived. I've never Kayak-ed in a swampy area before and first time experiences are always the most exciting. Also, seeing that noone else was around, we had the whole area to ourselves which made it even better.

Me and my bro were supposed to share 1 Kayak, but we somehow managed to convince the guide to let each of us have our own for the activity.

After being briefed on the route, techniques and some of the safety guidelines that we should follow, we got on our kayaks and headed off!

 Starting Area

Smile!

 Paddling down the Mangrove

During the paddling phase, I had some problems at first going straight at first, but eventually got used to it. We were initially paddling upstream as well, so it was quite shack on the shoulders. Still, glancing around once in awhile and seeing no one but us in the whole river stretch feels really good man.

Within the Mangrove

Guide brought us off the main wide river stream and into one of those small passageways at the side. When we paddled in, the trees were all closer and there was a lot less space to maneuver around. This was the time where there was some feeling of uncertainty and danger.

In this area, the guide and the local also pointed out a snake to us which was literally just above my head at one point in time. Seriously, those things are really damn camouflaged and it's super hard to see. Good thing that none of them dropped on me.

Continued to make our way to the end-point, before taking a short break.

Victory Pose!

Spent a good couple of minutes trying to get the balance right lol.

The way back was actually a lot easier for us. Remember I said that we were paddling against the current before? Well, now it's just pulling us back. At times, you didn't even need to paddle, but only adjust at certain points.

This made the return trip quite relaxing, we could literally lie down in the kayak and chill while the current pulled us back.

And... We're back!

Gave our guide a good tip as he was super helpful and accommodating (gave us water, told us about the history of the place, helped us take photo & all that). 

Jetovator

Well since I was already wet and dirty from the kayaking trip and was too lazy to change my clothes, I figured that I'd go ahead and do the Jetovator straight away after.

This was one of the activities that I've been eye-ing to do even before the trip. However, it is fucking expensive (189,000 Rupiah for 30mins incl. coaching). That's approximately 195 SGD. Ouch, but meh, I just paid.

Had to sign the usual indemnity forms again before the crew proceeded to get the whole thing set up.

Jetovator

The Jetovator is essentially a water powered flying bike that is powered by a Jet Ski via some kind of hose. 

Received a briefing from the crew regarding the Jetovator.

Basically, there are 3 nozzles that the water shoots/gushes out from. One in the middle, which is at a fixed angle and the other 2 which can be controlled via the 2 handlebars at the front. The advise given was to always pull or push both handle bars at the same time and not to pull/push 1 more than the other. Also, don't over pull or you'll flip backwards and crash into the water.

Body positioning is very important throughout it's whole usage. The whole machine is seriously super sensitive to any slight shift in weight. Sometimes even when I thought that my body was straight, it was actually tilting slightly to the left, causing me to flip even before I start to move.

Had to wear a motorbike helmet as well for safety purposes.

First Few Tries (Falling)

Initially, even before flying, I kept flipping around in the water and fell a few times at the start which was slightly depressing.

However, after a few tries, I started to get the hang of it.

Getting Better

After a while, I realised that the trick (for me at least) was to ascend slowly. I initially focused on going straight and tried to prevent myself from flipping around in the water. Once I could do that, I'd slowly pull the lever towards myself and straighten my body to a standing position, without tilting as much as possible. 

It's seriously all about feeling and managing the handlebars properly and getting your weight distribution correct.

Once I was slightly up, I experimented turning and it was seriously quite delicate business.

Couple of tries in, I was finally 'flying' and it felt DAAAAMNNN SHIOK MAN!! I actually shouted 'WOOOO!!' the first time I flew up.

Felt so boss riding this thing. The sound of the water jet propulsion is really quite loud, so all the aunties, uncles and kids passing by or are in the area will keep looking at you LOL.

Happy Man

Would totally do this again some other time. If only it weren't so pricey, I'd be all over this shit.

The Kelong Seafood Restaurant

Had to book a car to fetch us to this place as there were people that wanted to try the food here due to certain good reviews that they had online.

Restaurant Sign Board

Kelong Dining Scenery

Even though it is called 'The Kelong', the whole place is quite modernised and is nicely built over the sea. It is essentially a chinese restaurant serving all kinds of related cuisines.

Broccoli with Mushrooms & Salted Egg

Scallops

Fried Chicken

Dessert - Mango Pudding

The food was really tasty and the view of the sea made the whole dining experience a lot more flavorful.

Bill added up to be approximately 90SGD for 4 people, which is quite similar to a typical restaurant back in Sg.

On our way back, we made a stop at Pujasera Village to stock up on supplies (water, snacks, cup noodles, etc). Some of the locals couldn't really understand english and we had to use hand signs to communicate which was quite fun. Also, the stuff was really cheap - 1x 1.5l bottle of water cost only 5000 Rupiahs (0.50SGD).

Sunset @ The Canopi

Headed back to our hotel to rest and retire for the night.

The next day was a pretty chill day and we were mostly just walking around/sunbathing/swimming/lazing around on the beach chairs or in our room.

In the morning, we had our breakfast at the resort, which was those typical international buffet. Me being me, I just took 1 of everything that didn't look disgusting.

Day 2 Breakfast

Gobbled that up quickly and headed over to the activity center to get my hands on a scooter as I've always been wanting to try one. (Ever since my mom told me to f-off when I asked about getting a motorbike license >.<)

Scooter Rental

Me and my Scooter!

Rider's View

The scooter is actually electric powered and has no gears. Basically, just the throttle, the front break and the rear break. Balancing on it is somewhat like a bicycle, you have to accelerate to help keep your balance.

Oh ya, the throttle is quite sensitive, twisting a little already pushes you forward by a considerable amount.

Vroom Vroom

Wish that this thing could go faster though, they probably mod it to be super slow. Then again, it is probably the reason why they let you rent one of these without a motorcycle license.

Indoor Air-soft Range

Passed by a shop letting you shoot some BB guns. 30 bullets for 60,000 Rupiahs, why not?

 Air Rifle

Air Pistol

The stuff really felt like the real thing. I asked the guy about it and he said that the weight and make is quite similar to the real thing, the only difference was that it was shooting BB pallets instead of real bullets. 

The pistol is actually harder to aim as there is less support and is more prone to shaking + my shooting skills is quite cui already.

Ended up shooting 90 bullets, before walking to some neardy make-shift road side stores to get lunch. Ate satay, 2 ramly burgers and 1 beef noodle soup (with the excuse of bulking of course).

Day 2 Lunch

Lazed around the beach seats after and watched some Harry Potter back in our room (they were playing every single movie consecutively, without commercials).

Almost ate (but didn't) our 2nd dinner at the resort, which was super boring. 

Went to the counter and asked if there was anywhere outside to go. The staff recommended me a Kampong restaurant where you had to take a boat ride to get there. Seeing as we had no other plans for the evening, it'd be a good way to go out and kill some time.

Mangrove River Kampong Restaurant

This dinner trip was quite interesting as we had to first take a car to a jetty area, where we then had to get onto a boat which then sent us to some ulu restaurant in the middle of nowhere AT NIGHT.

Boat Bringing us to the Restaurant

The journey was actually quite an eye opener. The boat was literally travelling in pitch black darkness. I couldn't see anything at all aside from some outlines, highlighting the semblance of a couple of small islands around us. 

The boat trip took around 5-10mins before we finally reached the restaurant.

Outside View

It was another chinese restaurant, but this time, the prices were more reasonable than the one we ate yesterday. There were also performances of the locals doing some traditional dance/martial arts as you ate.

 Day 2 Dinner

We ordered Salted Egg Calamari Rings, Mussels, Kai Lan, Hotplate Tofu & a Black Grouper.

I must say, the food is seriously damn good. I'd even rate it higher than some of the higher end chinese restaurants back in Sg.

After the meal, it was around 8-9pm and we headed back to The Canopi. Apparently, the Harry Potter marathon was still going on. Watched finished the 'Goblet of Fire', before packing up my stuff to get ready to check out the next morning.

The following day, we packed our bags, checked out, took the ferry back to Tanah Merah ferry terminal, before making our way back to home sweet home.

Special shout-out to all the staff there as well. They were all super helpful and really did go the extra mile to provide good service. Kudos!

Even  though the trip was short, I felt that it was a nice break to have.

Also managed to get a nice tan. :D

Night Bike Ride

Remember the mountain bike that I had restored 2 years ago? Click here to read about it.

All along, I've mostly been using it to get to hawker centers and marketplaces nearby to get food or drinks. Haven't actually ventured into the long distance/mountain biking thing yet.

So I've always known that cousin JJ liked cycling and we had talks at times about going on some kind of cycling trip together. I asked him if he wanted to do some cycling together (longer distance) and he was up for it.

He suggested that we did it at night though, which seemed a little scary at first, but it ended up being quite fun.

Thought it was just gonna be some chill casual night-ride but the crazy thing is that we somehow ended up at Marina Bay Sands (from the west) & the whole journey to and fro took around 8hours! Saw lots of cool and interesting sights that I might've lost touch with here in Sg. The view at night is really different.


The Trip

Packed a bag with stuff including bike locks, some food & water and other stuff that may be needed for the whole night journey.

Heading Out!

Met JJ at Pheonix LRT station abit after 9am. I arrived early and was waiting for him to reach. Was still kinda thinking of where to go, so I just tried to think of a couple of places at a reasonable distance, but it all seem kinda underwhelming. I could only think of shopping centers, which was quite lame as a final destination.

I remembered JJ mentioning something about how cycling to MBS (from the west) was actually not as hard as it sounds. So I checked google maps on my phone to see how do-able it is. Surprisingly enough, it looked ok.

Map from Pheonix LRT to MBS

When JJ arrived, he was quite stunned that I suggested going to MBS. He was like 'Ok, we go to Botanic Gardens first, then see how'. Somehow, we ended up going the distance and made it to MBS in the end.

Picture for good luck

And off we went!

Started off cycling through Upper Bukit Timah road and down the whole stretch of Bukit Timah road.

Cycling at night is really quite therapeutic, it's cool and relatively quiet. You can go relatively fast and the wind blowing on your face feels really nice.

Reached Adam Road food center and we decided to take a quick break there.

 Adam Road Food Center

Ordered a nice bowl of ice kachang to cool off. Surprised that there were still quite a number of people there at around 10.30-11pm.

Our next stop was the Botanic Gardens. We made several intermittent stops in between to catch up on things and had some talks about random shit.

Reached the Botanic Gardens at around 12am. Haven't been there in a looong time and the scenery there was quite good actually and the fact that we were virtually the only ones there since it was late added to the feeling.

Our Bikes at the Botanic Gardens

Night view of the Botanic Gardens

Excuse the hand phone quality photo at night.

We cut through the park and exited out at the other end, where we tried to look for Gleneagle's hospital as it would put us to the path on Orchard Road.

Navigated around a little and finally made it to Orchard at around 12-1am. The place is still surprisingly busy still, but certain areas looked sleazy as fuark with so many chicks in tight dresses and ang mohs in their suits hanging around drinking on the street

Orchard Road

What was really annoying about cycling along Orchard was the crazy amount of Traffic lights and how we needed to make detours to cross the street. Really burned quite some time and at this point, I was somehow super awake, despite the conditions, but JJ seemed sleepy already - probably slightly bored of already having done this a few times.

Cycled all the way down and we finally made it to our destination - the Marina Bay Sands! Mission Accomplished! Ha.

Marina Bay Sands end-point

Feels good man, it was my first time making it all the way here on a bicycle. (and probably the furthest I've been on a bike iirc)

We then headed to the Marina Barrage to rest for a while before heading back. Snapped a couple of photos of the CBD scenery at night.

Night View of CBD & Flyer

The picture really doesn't do the photo justice. It's hard to take the same pic as what our eyes were seeing with a hand phone camera in an area with no surrounding light.

The trip there, including all our rest stops and slow-ish chill cycling took around 4-5 hours.

Re-stocked at a 7 eleven along the way back, 1 bottle of 500ml water cost $3?! Fucking Orchard, oh well, got no choice anyway.


Something interesting happened on our way back. We actually tried to pump my bike tyre at some petrol kiosk using the air pump there, but it was an epic fail as the valve on my bike was different from the 'standard' schrader types. Mine was a presto valve, which needed some kind of a suction attachment between it and the pump for it to work.

End up, I had a deflated front tyre (really long story) and we were stuck at the station for around 30mins. I had to literally use my finger to squeeze and redirect the air from the pump to that small hole in my valve, it was such a chore.

Even after that, I could only inflate my tyre enough for it to be barely rideable, but - desperate times, so oh well lol. This actually made it really difficult to pedal and I needed a freaking whole lot of strength to cycle forward.

Really just rushed back afterwards with whatever energy I had and a shitty back tyre.

Made a last food stop at Al-Azhar opposite beauty world at around 3-4am to eat and rest for a little while, as the both of us were quite hungry.

 Chicken Murtabak

Milo Godzilla

Started to make the final stretch home at ~4am.

Surprisingly, the trip back took only about 1/2 the time we took to travel to MBS. We were probably just rushing to get home and weren't exactly admiring any scenery on the way back.

Finally reached home at around 5am. Took a shower and crashed for the night (day).

 Had a couple of blisters on my food and abrasions, but it's nothing too uncomfortable to deal with.


Just happy that I did the night bike trip and it will yet be another mini milestone for me, making the whole 7-8hour journey worth it!

Who knows whats next for my bike? Maybe the mountain bike trail at Bkt Timah Hill or something? We'll see.

Spartan Race (15/11/15)

So my life's been pretty hectic recently due to work and school, hence I've never had the initial intentions to do any special activities these couple of months.

My bro sprung this one on me though, saying that he had free tickets for a 'Spartan Race' that was going to be held here in Sg. I've heard several things about this spartan race, such as it was a long muddy dirty obstacle race course which sounds pretty interesting and fun. I could use some outdoor time.

Arrived at the 'Spartan Race Village'. Went ahead to collect our race packs which had our time chips and the relevant wrist bands needed to run the race and claim a couple of free stuff at the end.

Big Crowd

Made the bag drop, luckily a new line opened up and it got settled pretty quickly. Otherwise it'd have been a long wait.


Spartan Race

Our heat was scheduled to start at 1:45pm. Headed down to the start line and was greeted by the lively and friendly staff there.

1 of the guys gave us a pretty energetic pep-talk which was quite fun. He told all of us to go down on a knee and started getting us to chant 'I AM A SPARTAN, AROO ARRO ROO AROO. WE ARE SPARTANS!!!'.

'NOW GO!!!' was the queue he gave as the line was drawn and everyone just started to chiong, just like the start of any other race.

1st few obstacles just required you to crawl under some nettings and scale a few low wall which was still pretty manageable. After which, you had to run for ~2km before needing to climb up and down this triangular rope ladder above people.

Think the first leopard crawl through barb wires station came up next. It's been awhile since my army days that I've leopard crawled. I totally forgot how tiring it actually was if you were trying to do it fast. What's nice about it was that they hung lots of flags on some of the barb wires with a lot of different 'motivational quotes' - it was literally in your face. Felt that gave more spunk to the whole atmosphere and event.

Had to run another few kilometres before we reached a sand bag station. This was was still manageable (the real shit is yet to come), they packed it in some soft material which you could carry on your shoulder. It wasn't exactly light though. You had to carry it for maybe about 100-200metres? Kept changing shoulders, then gave 0 fucks and just put it on my head. =/

Reached this 'memory' station where you were given some sort of random fact to memorise based on the last digit of your head-band number. Thought that you had to recite it for someone else somewhere later on, apparently I didn't get to do so, or missed it somewhat lol.

Monkey bar station was next. This one looks and sounds deceptively easy but it's where 60-70% of the people drop and have to do the 30 burpees. Basically, the bars were all connected to the whole line of people trying to go across and everyone was shaking it like crazy. The vertical ropes that you need to grab onto to traverse across required some grip strength lol. Fell twice, but just kept trying until I finally managed to clear it on the 3rd try (not supposed to do it >1 time but fk it lol), used 2 lanes though (grabbed the other lane's stuff).

Bag pull was next. Oh my, this was actually quite heavy and I had to haul ass with my full bodyweight lol. I was pulling and my back literally came very close to touching the floor while I was pulling. The staff said that you can't let it drop, or you do the 30 burpees. You had to slowly let it down. This one really sucked, gave my hand a couple of rope burns.

A long boring run followed till the next couple of obstacles.

The first was to fill this bucket with gravel till almost the brim. Holy fuck this thing was quite fucking heavy. On top of this, the grip was super bad - the bottom was not flat, it had like this round protrusion along the circumference around the base and it keeps sinking deep into your fingers. Damn pain. Got to carry that bucket and walk through this 'relatively long' route.

A series of higher looking walls came. It looked intimidating at first, but just ran, kicked up it, pulled myself over and managed to clear.

There was also this 45degree wall where you had to climb on the underside of it and go over. Looked scary too, but was surprisingly manageable.

A mini 'Rock wall', just that its small wooden grips. Cheated abit on this one lol, grabbed the scaffolding instead of strictly the small grips at some parts.

Javelin throw. You had 1 try to hit the red area or you gotta do burpees. I psyched myself up and act like some olympic thrower, doing a 'set-up' run and tossed it. Tyco that it hit. :D

Huge tire flips before another long boring run back with another concrete carrying station in between.


When I got back to the race village area and saw that there were more barb wired leopard crawls, I was damn sian. 1 of the barbwire sections was actually quite low and this shit actually hurt a little cause the floor isn't too muddy, so your skin keep scratching on the ground, giving me alot of scars, bruises and abrasions all over my body. Fuck (Partly my fault still for wearing shorts)

1 part had to jump into a muddy water area, which soaked the shit out of my shoes. Quite funny though.

There was also a 'low rope'. It's pretty high though, did it army style by making the knots, wasn't exactly easy then though. (Shacked from the run and leopard crawls)

Slippery slope rope climb. There was some girl was stuck on it in the middle with her body flat on the tile and her hand on the rope. I tried to climb and push her up but was already having problems hanging in there myself, so I just let her drop and went to the top when she seemed like she wasn't trying anymore. =/

 Fire-pit Jump

Final station before the finish line required us to jump over a pit of fire!! (Looked underwhelming though - expected a bigger blaze, but then again it's Singapore)

Finished! Got the medal, finisher's tee and a pack of 'goodies'.

Post-Race

Went ahead to get our free beer and took as much free stuff as we could from all the random sponsor companies around (cheapskate).

There was a queue to this guy spraying a jet stream of water on you to wash you up. The jet was fucking strong, no wonder fireman/police could use 'hosing' to control riots. Learnt that one then.

Took a couple of photos:

Me & Bro

Overall, the race was rather fun. With regards to the obstacles (may have forgotten to mention  a few), it really ranged from ridiculously easy to quite challenging. I'd give the monkey bars the hardest rating, you really need momentum for that one.

Got bruises, abrasions and cuts all over my body, but I feel so manly right now, just like A FUCKIN SPARTAN :D

Trove, my Progress & Thoughts

For those of you who are unaware, Trove is a 3D Voxel RPG. Essentially, it's kinda like minecraft with RPG elements with a focus on killing monsters and getting loot.

Understand that some of you may believe that the game looks gay and kiddy. I really don't blame you, I initially thought so too as well. I was looking for time to kill and thought this was something that would be a 'casual past-time'. Was I casual in the end? Nope of course not rofl.

Gonna dedicate a post to the game and share my experiences.

My Time in the Game:

Literally

I started off as a Candy Barbarian and got him to level 20. The leveling experience was generally quite enjoyable as the different worlds that you're exploring looks crisp and generally quite well made for the genre.

On top of that, gearing up and unlocking stuff was also quite pleasant. The concept may seem like those typical run-of-the mill RPGS at first, but I could feel that the emphasis  of the game was actually more on character progression and how you played it, instead of pure levels and gear power alone.

and then...

I essentially got all 12 classes up to the lvl cap, 20 (lol). It did take awhile, but it was nice to check out the different skills of each class and how they are able to contribute to groups/dungeon parties differently.

Then the grind started... The game had a mechanic called 'Mastery levels' which had a cap of 200. Every time you level up your mastery, you were able to gain passive bonuses or unlock specific stuff such as wings/mounts/costumes and the likes. Leveling up mastery was the longest and most tiring journey of me playing the game. I was only able to get to rank 176 before calling it quits.

 Shadow Towers

My most recent and notable experiences from the game usually included boss battles in the Shadow Towers (recently released). Hard mode bosses are generally challenging and would require a competent group to clear. DOTM hard mode was like a 30-45min fight non-stop.

Spike Walker - Hard Mode

Daughter of the Moon

The shadow towers are definitely one of the more fun and challenging aspects of the game as far as end-game content goes.

Fun fact: Before Shadow Towers were released, all the community had to work with were Shadow Arenas which were pretty easy to clear with a geared group.

Cornerstone

A cornerstone is essentially an instance hub that you can spawn at specific locations in a map. In your cornerstone, you can access whatever tools that you have built in it, or simply ogle at how aesthetic some people built theirs.

Here's mine:

Day Time

Night Time

Level 1 (Interior) - General Stuff

Level 2 (Interior) - Portals

Level 3 (Interior) - 'My Room'

Level 4 (Interior) - Bar/Kitchen

Level 5 (Interior) - Trophy Room

The whole cornerstone took me a good lot of hours but I'd say it's a satisfying experience when it was finally up.

I did not come up with the original exterior design on my own though as I'm lacking that kind of artistic flair. I saw it somewhere on the official trove forums and decided to replicate it. The interiors were all done up by me.

Club World

Club Worlds are simply speaking, the 'guilds' in the game. 

It is an open space area of the 'guild' where members all build the whole place on their own. This shit can take a hell lot of time if you were making something major.

I've been apart of a few clubs that have huge castles and cool looking underground dungeons, however I've managed to make a simple one on my own that has all the necessities that I'll need for the game. It's something at least.

My Club World's main area

My Club World's Fishing Area + Fishing Trophies

I know that it may look unimpressive at first, but what I actually had to do was to flatten the whole area which took a freaking long time as you had to remove and add the blocks in 1 by 1. 

After which, you had to procure the mats to build all the necessary stuff you wanted. I'm happy with what I've got but then again, for those people with super fanciful and HUGE club worlds, I really question how bored they must've been.

Unlocks/Masteries/Gears

List of my Unlocks

Remember me talking about mastery levels? Everything you unlock (mounts/wings/styles/costumes/flasks...) gives you points which contributes to your overall mastery level. 

The list above shows my progress thus far.

Mastery Level

Candy Barbarian Gear

I've managed to farm full radiants (highest tier gear), fully pearled and fully upgraded on my candy barb. 

On my other toons , I usually have them all fully equipped with shadow lvl 2-5 items. 

All in all, my experience with the game was good and I've had lots of fun in an other-wise unique looking game.

Jayexa - 'See ya!'

If you'd like to check out Trove or find out more about the game, you can visit their official website:

http://www.trionworlds.com/trove/

Alternatively, you can just download and jump right into the game on steam. It's free anyway, what's there to lose?

PADI Open Water Diver Course

It's been on my mind for quite awhile now and I've recently decided to take the plunge to get my PADI Open Water Diver, Scuba-diving license!

Just in case you were wondering:
PADI - Professional Association of Diving Instructors

I've decided to do this with Gill Divers as they seemed to be a reliable and safe 5-star PADI Dive Centre.

Gill Divers Banner

Headed down to the dive centre to make fill in forms (so many indemnity/not my tai ji if something happen to you/health clauses - of course haha) and make payment. Staff there then were pretty young and energetic. They seem to be part-timers though (those at the counter).

Got mailed a digital version of the PADI Open Water Diver Manual (Wtf, it's 242 pgs long - thought that it will be simple as the whole course is so commercialised), Recreational Dive Planner tables and Knowledge Reviews that I apparently need to prepare for my upcoming theory lessons/test.

Theory

Went through the PADI manual on my own initially. Apparently there are so many risks that you run (some potentially fatal even) if you don’t do everything properly, especially with regards to managing pressures (the Pascal one) all around your body. I've also realised that diving is quite a technical activity to do.

The class preparation itself on-site at the Gill-Divers centre lasted over 2 days. It involved video-viewing and subsequent question reviews.

After all the reviews had been covered, we took a test and you had to pass it to proceed (all MCQ).

Met many people of many different ages from all walks of life as well, so it was a pretty diverse environment in the 'classroom' area.


Pool Practical

The pool practical was conducted at Outram Secondary School (Quite amazing that a sec. school has their own swimming pool).

Anyway, we were split into groups and each group was allocated to 1 instructor. I got the same instructor that taught me theory which was pretty interesting. Each of us were then assigned to 1 dedicated buddy for the day, as diving has to be done in pairs.

The whole point of the pool practical was to conduct all the skills required for the open water dive in a controlled environment, before you actually went on the actual dive out in the sea (for safety reasons of course).

They taught you everything from gearing up, to doing checks and eventually all the skills required and expected of you underwater in your scuba gear.

I must say that the first few breathes I took underwater was simply an unforgettable experience! There's like this 'exhalish steam punk-ish kind of sound' - (best description I can think of) every time you took breathes.

Had some troubles with the mask removal and clearing underwater initially as when my mask was off, I sorta 'panic-ed' a little, which caused me to breathe through my nose and took in a lot of water. Choked on it and gotta surface, quite pai seh. I managed to get it sorted out at the end though, thankfully.

I've also realised the importance of keeping calm and staying in control throughout the whole dive, regardless of what happens. Otherwise, it becomes very easy to screw up and it can be quite serious.

Other than that, I was pretty confident of the other skills required of me. Thinking about it, you better be, as the reality is that there's some kind of risk involved in something like that.

Overall, the feeling of being underwater and swimming around is so quiet and peaceful. (I know it's only a swimming pool, but still.) Any communication done is done through hand signals, which is a pretty new and interesting way of communicating.

Looking forward to the actual dive trip to Bintan.


Dive Trip - Bintan

Day 1

Arrived at Tanah Merah ferry terminal about 30mins earlier prior to the meeting time. Bought some breakfast ($3+ Egg Mayo Sandwhich...) at a nearby coffee store and chilled in the vicinity for awhile before gathering with the diving staff.

Departure Hall

Boarded the ferry after and the boat took around 45minutes to reach Bintan. The ferry kinda resembled the one you took to Tekong during army lol.

Bintan - Welcome Sign

Arrived at Bintan and we met up with all our group mates, diving instructors and dive masters. Took the bus which was another 1 hour journey to Bintan Agro Beach Resort, which was our accommodation for the next 2 days.

Went ahead to have our lunch which was a little miserable, it was just a small bowl's worth of rice and 1 egg with another miserable cucumber slice and tomato. Was not filling at all and we had to go diving on semi-empty stomaches lol.

The crew proceeded to load up all the scuba gears onto a total of 2 boats. The people were then split into a total of 4 groups: Groups 1,2,3 & the leisure group; 2 groups to 1 boat.

The first boat housed group 1 & 2, while the 2nd held group 3 and the leisure group. I was in group 3 and was paired up with the same buddy I had during the pool practical!

Our Dive Boats

After changing and doing all of our necessary prep work, we boarded the boat and headed out to sea!

The whole build-up was pretty thrilling as there was a whole stack of oxygen tanks, BCDS, fins, masks, weight belts, etc(other gears) stacked all around the ship and it gave you the feeling that you were going to do something bad-ass haha.

It was also going to be my first time willingly jumping into the middle of the sea. Only remembered 1 other occasion when it happened non-intentionally and that was when I fell off a banana boat when I was quite young (remembered my mom freaking out then).

Our Dive Instructor (DI), Jia Jun & Dive Master (DM), Scott introduced themselves to us. Our DI was a funny guy and our DM was a cool, chilled and skilled dude. The role of the DI was to literally be the one conducting the course, whereas the DM was the person who would follow us to facilitate the group (safety, etc) and to assist the DI whenever necessary.

Both of them were from China apparently - you could tell when they started talking. They spoke to us directly in mandarin. When I requested if they could give the instructions in english as it was pretty new to hear all the diving terms in chinese, it was quite fail. Told them that it was alright to do chinese all the way in the end.

My dive group apparently had 4 mainland chinese people (3girls, 1 guy), 1 Malaysian (My buddy) and me, making a total of 6 people, excluding the diving staff.

After the briefing from our DI, we geared up and proceeded on to work on our skills in our 1st and 2nd dives.

1st Dive

In the 1st dive, we exited the boat via the 'Back-roll entry' method. When I hit the water, I quickly broke the surface and signalled to the DI that I was ok. It was then I realised that I was actually in the fucking sea - it was truly an adrenaline pumping moment!

Instructions were to swim to a white colour float and wait for the whole group to gather before we proceeded on to submerge to do our skills underwater.

Visibility was pretty poor (1-3m) and we all had to stick super close to each other, otherwise if someone gets lost, gg.

Had to equalize a lot more often as well, as this time you were really breaking a lot deeper depths as compared to the pathetic pool depth during the pool practical session.

Proceeded on to do skills such as regulator clearing, mask removal & replacement, alternate air-source sharing, hovering & maintaining neutral bouyancy.

All forms of communications underwater was done through hand signals.

I was slightly worried for the mask clearing and removal as I had some problems with it during the pool session, as once your mask goes off, sometimes it's just instinctive for some reason that you take a slight breath through your nose which really fucks me up and made me surface during the pool session before (I've already sorted it out though). However this time, you just can't afford to fuck up. Your deep underwater and you can't surface too easily. Thankfully, I managed to clear it rather smoothly.

I was the first one that was told to surface after clearing all the skills in the 1st dive as I had the lowest oxygen left lol (50 bar), apparently I was taking larger breathes or something. Maybe it was due to my adrenaline making me breathe faster? I didn't exactly notice myself taking rapid breathes though, in fact I was breathing pretty normally imo. Oh well...

After surfacing from the first dive, inflated my BCD and back-paddled back to the boat where me and the group replaced our oxygen tanks, in preparation for the 2nd dive.


2nd Dive

After replacing our oxygen tanks, we chilled on the boat for around 1 hour to rid ourselves of the accumulated nitrogen  in our bodies so that we can safely make the 2nd dive.

In the 2nd dive, we covered skills such as CESA (Controlled Emergency Swimming Ascent), Cramp Removal Exercises, Equipment R&R & Tired-Diver towing. Things went pretty smoothly here.

After we've finished our skills for the 2nd dive, we packed our gear neatly and kept them on the boat before heading back to have a nice (more like o-k actually), zhi cha dinner.

Hanged around with some of the people from my group and others as well, chit chatting and walking around the resort. It was a really nice feeling to experience a change of pace once in a while.

Turned in for the night pretty early as we had to get up early the next morning for our 3rd and 4th dives.

Oh yeah, managed to get a group photo on the boat as well:

PADI OW Diver - Group 3 (Boat Photo)

Day 2

Woke up at about 6+ am on day 2. Washed up and had an international breakfast buffet at 7am. I tremendously regret eating too much here (oily food to boot) - I'll get to why later.

Before we departed for our 3rd & 4th dives, we had some time to kill. I ended up talking quite a lot with my room-mates. 1 of them was actually a guy from England who is in Singapore for work and is clocking dives towards his Dive Master course. (He is already a 'Rescue Diver' and is part of the leisure group). The other guy, was the china guy from my group. Though he was quite soft spoken at first, he's actually pretty cool. Apparently, he came to Sg alone for holiday and this was just something he just decided to do lol.

When the time was up, we headed onto the same boats and headed out again for our 3rd and 4th dives.


Dive 3

The main focus of this dive was underwater navigation, we had to be able to swim away from the group, make a 180° turn and return back to the group. Doesn't sound too hard right? Oh no lol, the visibility was as shit as yesterday (1-3m). This simply made it hard to even spot your group after you've swam away and you just gotta pray that you didn't make any kind of parallax error on your compass watch on the way back.

This was also the dive where we descended to the deepest depth (for us, the students at least), here I could really see the effects of the pressure difference on my oxygen consumption (a lot higher). The mask and ear squeezes were more prominent as well.

The navigation exercise was done around the depth of 10-18m.

Remember me mentioning something about me regretting eating too much crap for breakfast? Yeah, here's what happened after we surfaced from dive 3:

I got on the boat, un-geared up and sat down. At this point, I started feeling seasick as fuck as the boat was now rocking a lot due to the big currents. I just thought that I'd put up with it till the end, oh I was wrong. The whole bunch of shit I ate in the morning decided to come-up suddenly (with very little warning) out of my mouth and onto the boat just like the nice damn Singapore Merlion! My whole group was shocked, especially my buddy lol. I feel so sad and guilty. :( If I was gonna merlion, I should have just done it overboard into the sea. I cleaned myself and the gears up by jumping back into the sea/ pouring water all over the boat and apologised to everyone.

Everyone was like 'it's ok, it's ok' and were really nice, but I seriously felt like a small pussy ass fucktard. It was sad then :(

Lesson learned really, eat a light and healthy breakfast next time. 


Dive 4

Apparently, after all that shenanigans we have completed all the skills required of us during the OW dive.

Dive 4 ended up being a leisure dive.

I handed my camera over to our DI, after which he and the DM brought us around, trying to show us some good sights even in the crappy visibility we had then.

The camera is an Olympus TG-860, it's pretty affordable (~300-400SGD) for an underwater camera (up to 15m). I've considered getting camera housing for a DSLR / Waterproof phone bag initially but it was too expensive / risky.

Our DM helped to take a shot on the surface:

PADI OW - Group 3 (Surface Shot) - HUAT AH!

As I did not had my mind focused on doing skills now, I managed to see corals, fishes and sea urchins. My DI also managed to take a picture of a nudibranch (think sea-snail, without the shell).

Nudibranch

He also took shots of the group in dive gear underwater. (It was my request actually and he was very happy to do so - what a damn nice guy)

SCUBA Gear Underwater

The last leisure dive was the most fun as the focus was not on doing skills, but rather - sight seeing. Although visibility was pretty bad then, I still managed to see some rather good sights after going near enough.

Surfaced after and prepared to head back to the resort where we had to pack our things and get ready to head home in the evening.

Reached back at Tenah Merah ferry terminal at approximately 10pm SG time and shared a cab home with some1 from group 1 (very nice guy btw). Home sweet home at around 11pm. :)

All in all, I had a fun time, it was also my very first time travelling out of Singapore alone. (yea yea, I know it's just to Bintan)

Made a lot of new friends and have finally become a PADI Open Water Diver! :D

Would like to thank all my group mates in group 3 and everyone that has interacted with me then for being such amazing company!