Bubble of Hope is a charity dive event in which a group of young divers did what they love most - scuba diving while donating for charity at the same time. This event was organised by Project Vacation and this time they collaborated with Small Changes, a NGO whose current project is to provide english education for underprivileged children. The diving trip took place in Tioman Island.
I am so proud and happy to be part of the event.
The diving trip took place from 16th to 18th September 2016, during the Malaysia day weekend. I joined the trip along with my dive buddies, Hidayah and Thiru. It was also our anniversary trip as we became certified divers about a year ago in August 2015.
We stayed at Bayu Tioman Challet, Kampung Genting (http://www.bayutioman.com) and was pleased with the cleanliness of the place. The food provided was also good. What was more impressive was that they tried to cater to Thiru's vegetarian needs despite such short notice (we told them during lunch and at dinner they prepared special vegetarian food for Thiru).
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| The challet |
We have been to a few dive centres and for this dive, we went to Bayu Dive Centre. So far, they are one of the most organized, professional and comfortable dive centre that we have been to, almost like Dive Downbelow in Kota Kinabalu where we took my open water and advanced open water courses (we had such good experience with Dive Downbelow that they have become our gold standard for dive centres).
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| The chill-out place |
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| Platform overlooking the sea where we setup our gears prior to a dive |
Bayu Dive Center is managed by a young guy, named Najat. Guess what..he is only 24 years old! From what I heard, the dive centre was set up by his father initially and he took over the management probably about a year ago. I have to say that he did a great job. No doubt if I were going to dive in Tioman again, I will head to Bayu Dive Center without much thought.
We dived for 4 times at 4 different dive sites; Pulau Renggis, Tomok, Batu Malang and Teluk Gaduk.
The dives were great. Thiru and I were placed in Group B along with another 6 divers. Hidayah was in Group C. They had to separate us into groups as there were quite a number of us hence, the easiest and safest way to handle us would be to place us into groups.
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| My dive master, Irfa. Small but strong. Kecil-kecil cili padi. |
I had good dives at all 4 sites. The corals were pretty and extensive still, unlike certain islands where the corals are sadly dying. There was a lot of marine lives that never failed to impress me as well.
At one of the dive sites, Renggis if I am not mistaken, there was this 'playground' as they called it - artificial reeves which made good photo-taking spots. All camera-holder problem - I took people's photo but none of mine.
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| Another diver, Hafizi struck a nice pose on the treadmill |
Apart from the dives, the organiser had also prepared other activities. We had ice breaking session where each of us had to tell stuff about ourselves. It was so interesting to listen to people's travel adventures and experiences. We also had sharing sessions in which they had invited 2 speakers; one of them was Apat who shared about his UW photography interest and his experiences over the years. Another was a very experienced master instructor who has been in this field for more than 10 years, oh it is a shame that I could not recall his name now.
On the last night, we had Acoustic Night and the theme was Hawaiian/floral. All of us were such a sport that we all dressed accordingly. We had performances by most of the DM/instructors in Bayu Dive Centre. My DM Irfa, she sang very well. She sang while her fiancé Haris played the guitar and sing along with her. They were such a cute couple. Late that night, we had photography and firework session to end the day.
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| The ladies in Hawaiian/floral themed outfits |
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| The firework |
To my buddies, Thiru and Hidayah, where should we celebrate our anniversary next year? *wink*
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| The whole gang of Bubble of Hope |
