Yes! 1st dive trip of the year. Felt excited prior to the trip, as it brought us many of our 1st time memory. It was fun to have bunch of close friends who dive together. We had achieved the best collaboration ever in a friendship, compared to others experiences, I am very pleased to have such a pleasant group buddies whom can travel together without much hesitation.
Alright... what's 1st?
- First time driver to the east coast - she enjoyed it and plan to do more... yeah! means we will have more of such trip?
- First time stopping by for dinner at Cherating - yes, my partner is from the east and he never bring me there before, nevertheless he introduced us this place for dinner
- First time checking in a remote hotel passed midnight, in the middle of a 'kampung' golf course - yes, we pulled over a night at KT Golf Resort before continued our journey to the island
- best still... we booked the hotel on the same morning itself, via Agoda (it was on 50% sale!)
- First time for me, visited KT China Town - we went round and round hunting for breakfast, since it was fasting (a.k.a. puasa) month, it's impossible to get nasi lemak or nasi dagang for breakie
- Enjoyed the slow ride and patient search for every single direction, no issue for having a wrong turning, coz the group will keep ourselves up with positive energy...
- First time holding my new GoPro Hero3 Silver edition - but I lost all my pictures and UW videos due to rewrite setting on the set (ouch!! such a good lesson learned, should have learned from a friend whom eagerly download the pics every day)
- Pic/Vid which I missed the most? - A doggie came by sniffing my camera @ Turtle Alley & the cute Nemos underwater :( (well, at least I kept them in my memories for the mean time)
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| Here we go... off from the office |
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| Restaurant Duyong, Cherating for dinner |
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| Atap restaurant view |
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| KT China Town - stopped for breakfast |
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| Turtle Alley |
Other 1st?...
- I twisted my right ankle while stepping off from the ferry, oh no.... on the 1st day of dive? I could not believe it, but I didn't gave up... managed to get myself up and asked for some iced on it while my friends proceeded with check in
- Didn't injured myself badly, I guess (at that moment). Had my Phiten gel handy, that saved my ankle from further swelling. Thanks to my friends who being patient with my slow baby steps while walking up and down the stairs, and the sandy path towards the dive boat :(, guess I burned more fat and energy that time, for dragging my foot with the heavy tanks on my shoulder
We settled at
Redang Bay Resort. Rooms are not as great, typical budget Redang styled! 3 of us had a newly renovated room but the other 2 had a bad experience with the old room just next door. Thank god they are not those who made a great fuss on such services. Our team leader tried to ask for change, unfortunately it wasn't successful.
Despite some minor indecent experience, we did enjoy the company. Dive visibility wasn't great, and we didn't seen much compared to our last year's trio trip. Any, the experiences and togetherness counts.
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| Mo Mo Tea place... still exist after so many years |
Last day... check out day. We need to gather rather early that morning, around 7am as the main ferry will depart the island 730am. The island authority has centralized the ferry service for all the resorts, instead of having own boat service, they are now sharing a larger ferry departing and arrive at Shah Bandar, KT ferry terminal. It's disadvantage for timing reason... not many options except the few we could take.
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| Early morning 630am view |
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| My tired ankle... |
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| Bye Redang Island |
Many many 1st time experience within the trip, some wasn't a good one.. nevertheless, it was a great outing. Good company, good food, good laugh... Till then for the next trip. Due to my busy schedule this year, looks like I will only have this one and only dive trip in 2013. Hope to have more trips this year. Till then buddies!
