Hammer-head Hunt

A school of 40 hammerheads in front, another school of 70 below, 20 manta rays sweeping around during the safety stop, dolphins swimming by the boat on the ride back… Sounds amazing doesn’t it? Well that wasn’t our trip. That was what we wanted to see, what many had planned to see and what almost every other group saw, except us!!! Nevertheless, we had a much better trip than the group that went the week after and had 2 non-dive days due to bad weather. (And trust me; there is absolutely nothing to do in Lalang Layang if you don’t dive!)

I actually had a brilliant trip despite the limited sightings. I decided to join Rachel & Daniel last minute, not really prepared and not expecting anything in particular. I only found out later that divers go to Layang-Layang on a mission: To swim with schools of hammer-head sharks!! That being the case, nearly every dive was a drop to 35-40m followed by 40mins of swimming in the Big Blue till one spots the infamous hammerheads or runs-out of air!! 90% of the diving was hence nothing but blue and bubbles. In fact, we were staring so hard into nothingness that I often thought I sighted hammerheads to have them miraculously transform into flying pink elephants!!

I wasn’t the only one having hallucinations though. Chin, my endearing room-mate and newly found soul sister was on a completely different plane all together. Chin saw things that no one else saw and didn’t see any of the same things we saw…. We had feared that these were nitrogen induced delusions but were relieved to learn that our house-bimbo had in fact got her left contact lens in her right eye and vice versa!

Frog Fish

Reef Shark

Nemo

Anyway, we sighted a total of 7 hammerheads in 5 days of diving. Not quite the schools of hundreds that the group expected. That is the problem with “Expectations”. The rest of the diving wasn’t really all that bad. On our 2 non-hammerhead dives we saw in total more about 40 other sharks (white-tips, black tips and even a trasher shark or was it a shadow of one??), schools of travelleys (truly amazing), turtles, lionfish, frog fish and tons of other really beautiful stuff.

I had never done any deep blue diving prior to this. It is not all that different from other dives (despite Daniel freaking me out about safety and danger prior to the trip). There was only once when I felt a tad bit uncomfortable. We were out during very bad weather with poor visibility and the group got separated. Buddy Daniel was worried about sister Rachel and went off looking for her; signaling for me to wait. (Yes, all alone in the deep blue ocean.) After a few minutes, I lost sight of Daniel, Richard who was initially not far in front swam off after Janice and I found myself looking at nothing but blue; never-ending blue in front, bottomless blue below and nothing but blue everywhere I turned…….. The blue started closing in on me and that was freaky. The claustrophobia lasted merely seconds but the thing that was really disconcerting was loosing all sense of direction and orientation. I had no compass and no idea where we were so could not swim towards any particular direction, no ‘sausage’ (orange floatie thing that divers release so that the boat can find us when we surface) therefore I was not about to surface and find myself in the middle of a storm and choppy waters, so I stayed put and waited for Daniel to come back, and he eventually did……. Phew!!

It was pelting down with rain so badly that we couldn't even take a photo!!!

That little incident aside, Daniel was a great dive-buddy; especially when it came to yelling at me to get the hell up since I had a tendency to sink towards dangerous depths and was completely oblivious to the bippings of the dive computer. I never knew that one could yell under-water through a regulator, but Daniel could distinctly yell out my name, which he did at least 2-3 times per day!! In fact, Daniel had another interesting noise-making antic………. The Island Warrior Shark Call, which resembles a chest thump Tarzan style. The sound resonates quite far if you have a hollow enough chest.

There are many possible shark calls but evidently, none of them were very effective.
The Smacking Fish Shark Call involves removing your regulator, pursing your lips to imitate a fish breathing. Kindda ridiculous and abit of a hassle. The Fist Thump is easy to do (clench one fist and hit the base of the fist against the palm of the other hand), but I think the fish may get offended since it resembles a rather rude gesture. Anyway, my theory is that everyone was bored senseless so they were just inventing things to do!!! We even practiced under-water yoga…

You must be wondering what I am doing on a diving holiday when I was supposed to be taking a year off on a spiritual journey. Well, diving can be quite a spiritual experience; there is loads of quiet reflection time (when one is not making Shark Calls), and the long deep breaths is perfect pranayama practice!! The whole searching for hammer-heads experience is also a great lesson about contentment and not having expectations.

In the same way as Yogis are fixated with taking a dump, divers have a fascination for pee……. Peeing on one’s jelly-fish sting is quite common and not terribly exciting despite what can be excruciating pain. Real adventure is derived from peeing in one’s wet-suit. Yes, it seems that peeing in the wet-suit is quite a ritual with divers. I had previously thought that this was reserved for emergency occasions only when one cannot reach a bathroom in time, but that is not the case. Some divers actually hold their pee until they get out to sea specifically so that they can pee in their suit! The excuse for this ghastly behavior is to keep warm. The urine is supposed to circulate under the wet-suit and keep you warm. Grossness!!!

The sequel to the pee discussion is even better; The pee evacuation debate. Yes, I am puzzled, I thought we were peeing so that the pee could keep us warm, so why the elaborate process to get rid of it? Anyway, once you pee in the suit, it is not easy for the pee to get out as the wetsuit is skin-tight and it is not easy to flush out the pee. The obvious method would be to pull the wet-suit away from the body by grabbing the suit at the chest and letting water flow through the neck of the suit. This however would be too obvious. Diving etiquette allows you to pee in your wet-suit but you have to be discrete about it. So, the Island Warrior Chest thump was actually devised to allow divers to subtly place their hand to their chest to camouflage a pee-evacuation!! The Germans, have a more complicated solution which involves purging the octopus down the neck of your wet-suit and using air to evacuate the pee. Ya, those are Germans for you, they have to be all high-tech don’t they?

In addition to the pee-ing, we also get to spit in public. Cool! At the start of each dive, we get to spit into our mask and rub the spit ceremoniously around. This is supposed to stop the mask from fogging-up. And even though there are de-misting sprays and gels that do the job, many still relish in the good ol fashioned spit!! There are after all very few occasions where one can legitimately practice what would normally be considered socially unacceptable behavior.

All that being said, I think my re-initiation to diving is complete and I am itching to go again….

Dive Group : Daniel, Rachel, Chin, Richard, Janice with new faces sexy Dr Ben (Moody and plays the bass), hilarious funny "Heman", shark Mark (with 3 lawyers in the group, no wonder the sharks stayed away! those hammer-heads knew there were bigger sharks than them in the water!)

Rachel and her super-duper cool fins......

He-man herman showing us the hand signal for turtle (or was that a ray.... can't remember)