Adventure Time with Keri!: "We work as a team and act as a family."

"We work as a team and act as a family." - Yours Truely

Posted by kurrym ,

The above title was conned by myself today when I was deep in thought on the boat. I was thinking about how blessed I am to be able to be here and dive with our crew. We have a fantastic staff and crew and they really have become like family to me. It's fun to come in during the morning and straight away have everyone greet you and then everyone is teasing each other. It makes for a happy day. =) And I always know that they've got my back and I've got theirs. I mean, I guess it does help that I'm a girl and I'm the boss' niece....hahahaha! No, but seriously, I love them all...even the jahat and gila ones. ;)

Sandrix being stupid...lolol.

Yan, one of our awesome boat drivers

Sandrix being stupid again...smh.

Staff meeting!

Jeffry chairing the meeting

Last week I got the opportunity to dive Sipadan three days and once again this week. =) Love seeing the school of jacks, barracuda, turtles, sharks, bumpheads, and everything else. Sadly I didn't bring my camera on the third dives which is when we saw the bumpheads...so I don't have any current pictures, but they are HUGE fish.

The first day we had mostly guests from China and they were decent divers so nothing too exciting happened. The second day we had two guys from HK/Canada (I think) and they were pretty cool. The third day....ohhh mannnn...it makes me laugh just thinking about it. We had another group from China and the whole group had their advance license except one guy...so I kept an eye on him....and the WHOLE time him legs were moving, not up and down in a kicking motion (like in swimming), but in a constant stepping motion while horizontal. I swear he was doing jazzercise or something and it cracked me up! Unfortunately for him, he ran out of air pretty quick, so I had to escort him to his safety stop and hang on to him before he floated to the surface. He was almost a fly-away on the third dive b/c of the strong current and his inability to kick properly. I had to go catch him and then escort him up b/c he was almost out of air. When we finally surfaced he was completely out of air! Rough times for him.

Big jackfish and school of jackfish

Jackfish

Barracuda

Turtle!!!

School of barracuda

Fishies and coral

Lobster

Letter leading a dive

Letter and two of our divers

One of our divers with the school of jackfish

Both of our divers mesmerized by all the fish...hahaha.

Black trying to scare the fish....I mean........

Black thinks he's cool. Hahaha.

One of our divers trying to do Oppa Gangnam style underwater...hahaha.

Ok, the next two pictures deserve to have a short explanation. We had left the big school of jackfish finally and were cruising along...and all of a sudden it got dark overhead and Letter jerked his head up...which caused all of us to look...and the huge school of jackfish were booking it above us. It was so cool to see!!

This picture just shows PART of the school of fish.

White-tip shark!

Black likes to pose for my pictures...haha.

Fish!

Me, Letter, and Stanley (one of our divers)

Me, Letter, Kelvin (one of our divers), and Black

This is the "We work as a team..." part of the day. Hahahaha.

And this is the "...act as a family." part of the day. Hahaha.

Our stallion of a boat....and someone doing a back-roll entry.

View looking out from the mouth of the cave.

Letter being an underwater astronaut....stinkin' divers got in the way...haha.

This section is dedicated to Roslee, just one of our many DMs that I love. When I first met him I could barely get a word out of him b/c he was so shy, but now we're joking around and laughing as if we've known each other for years. Someone today even asked me if we'd known each other for a really long time and they were surprised that I have only known him for less than a year. He never ceases to make me smile or laugh and I've learned so much from observing him and asking him questions. Today he let me semi-drive the boat...it was funny b/c we were both sitting in the seat, my hand on the wheel, his hand on the engine controller (I don't even know what it's actually called...hahaha), and he's sipping coffee as if this is totally normal. Oh you know...two ppl driving a boat, one drinking their coffee. SMH. Sorry, I thought it was hilarious...but then again, I find a lot of things funny. =)

Oh you know, just chilling on the floor of the boat. Lol, he makes me laugh. =D

We're always fighting and teasing each other. I'm usually punching him....oopsiesss.

So the other day, I went with Jef and Roslee to Mantabuan and Bohey Dulang. My uncle and aunt came along with the group of four Malaysian divers and an Australian. Jef made me do the dive briefings for the second and third dive. It went ok...but then I had to guide the dives. Oh man. That was stressful. And Jef was telling me all this stuff and it made me feel pressured and I was getting frustrated at him...and then there was a strong current during the second dive and I couldn't find anything worth looking at except for a couple of ugly nudibranches and a small lobster. Rough times for me. Hahahaha! But everyone was still alive and breathing by the end of the dive, so I guess that's a good thing, right? Lolol.
At one point I was perusing the reef and I stopped and just stared b/c it looked like a scene from Finding Nemo. I kid you not. It was absolutely beautiful and I wish I had my camera at that very moment. It was awesome....and I couldn't share the moment with anyone that would've understood. Hahaha. Fail.

The next day I went to Sipadan and we had a grand ol' time, especially on the second dive. The second dive was pretty great. We saw the huge school of jackfish, the bumpheads, the school of barracuda, tons of white-tip sharks and turtles, and THEN I spotted a zebra shark about 10 meters below us and I was banging on my tank to get everyone's attention since I was at the back of the group. I think that's the first time I've seen one of those, and it was a lot bigger than the white-tips. So excited. =D

OH, and I almost forgot. So last week I was in the car with my Uncle Apo, Auntie Beth, and Kian...and all of a sudden after talking they were like...hey, let's go to Sandakan to eat tomorrow. Ok, Sandakan is about 4 hours away by driving. Who drives four hours just to eat? We do. Yupp, that's how my family rolls. I mean, yeah, we stayed overnight and we did see a bunch of family, but that's besides the point. I think I might have gained about 5-10 lbs in a 24 hr period. Rough times for me.