Adventure Time with Keri!

In the season of love, weddings, and engagements, I have been having my own love affair…with the ocean…lol. I’ve also have been having a blast with my family in nature. =D My lovely parents and baby cousin finally arrived this past week (at the time of this writing...which was  LONG time ago) and we’ve been having a grand ol’ time.*they actually arrived like....4 weeks ago...which tells you how long I've not updated....epic fail on my part*

But let’s back up. 

*Btw, congrats to all my friends that have gotten hitched in the past few weeks!!*

After diving last Sunday, I was determined to study my Divemaster book and take the test before the parental unit arrived. So I scheduled to take my test on Monday night. That gave me a whole day to review everything without having my brain go to mush from all the information.  Monday night came around and Hafiz postponed the test till the next night because he claimed he didn’t have the test. =.=
But I didn’t want to do it at the night since my parents were arriving in the afternoon I wanted to take the test in the morning…so we finally came to a compromise and decided to do an hour or two before mummy and daddy were to arrive. I studied some more the next morning and was totally brain dead so I took a nap…and it wasn’t even noon yet! Haha. I finally went to the office to take the test and 45 minutes and 120 questions later I proved myself and got a 98% on the test! Jefrey took a marker and tattooed me up after that as initiation. Usually they make you do crazy drinking stuff, but since I don’t drink, fake tattoos had to suffice. Five tattoos and many congratulations later I finally booked it out of there and met the family at my amah’s house where my parents and cousin FINALLY had arrived.
Thank you to my lovely instructor, Hafiz, and his assistant, Jef, for teaching me and also to my uncle for giving me this opportunity to further my diving education!!

I had called my aunt while I was still in the office to ask for an address and got to tell my mom about my awesome score.

Me: Mom!! I got a 98% on my DM test!!

Mom:  What?? You didn’t get a 100%?!?

Problems of a Tiger Kid. SMH.

Haha, anyway, we all had a good reunion and I am a proud owner of two boxes of mac & cheese. Hey, sometimes you miss comfort food...but only sometimes. Haha. 

The next day I got to go diving again at Sipadan with Roslee and Black and a few guests…we had a grand time FREEZING our butts off. It rained ALL day and it was windy and just awful. Actually we had a good time trying to stay warm and the visibility underwater was actually pretty good considering the conditions. On our third dive we saw all the schools of fish that are famous around here. There was a current while we were looking at the huge, ugly school of bumphead fish (I still have yet to take a picture of them this time around) and one of our divers REALLY wanted to see them…so Roslee hooked himself to a rock and just relaxed. Not to be left out, I grabbed onto him so I didn’t have use up all my energy kicking against the current. The other two divers ended up grabbing onto either him or the rope in the end…so there were four of us clustered together trying not to get swept away while the other diver was just holding on to another rock in a trance. 

The next day, Baby and I ran around town running some errands and going between houses. Oh…and we also had a steamboat night and BBQ night somewhere in there. =) Our family knows how to EAT. *those pictures are somewhere later in this post....*

Friday dawned gloomy and cloudy. This was a problem mainly because we were supposed to climb a mountain. This wasn’t just any ordinary mountain, but one of many islands that make up the Tun Sakaran Marine Park. We all piled into one of our boats and zoomed over. I was feeling particularly ill that morning and was slightly thankful when we got there and they told us it was too slippery to climb. So I laid down to rest and everyone else jumped in the water to snorkel. An hour or so later it stopped raining and looked as if it was clearing up. I finally felt a little bit better and they gave us the go-ahead to climb up. Let me tell you…it was still extremely slippery. Six hundred meters and a lot of slipping and sliding later we finally reached the top!!! And boy, was it worth it! The view from up there was amazing!! It was one of those, “wow…I live in a beautiful world” moments. After snapping a bunch of pictures and admiring the view, we slipped and slid our way back down 600m and finally made our way to the ocean. 

We spent the rest of the afternoon snorkeling, eating, and spending time with each other. Auntie Belinda claimed the award for falling the most that day…hahaha! She slipped on the way down from the mountain and then on the jetty, she slipped and fell on three steps. BOOM BOOM BOOM!!! Hahahahah. She had a HUGE bruise on her butt the next day and she was lamenting about how it hurt so much. Lolol. Aku Apo actually slipped on the same stairs but managed to roll sideways into the water. Lol. 

 

Daddy used my underwater camera while he was snorkeling and I was climbing.

Another pastime of ours recently has been climbing Bukit Tengkorak which is a volcanic rock-shelter site and part of a volcano mouth that is 2km in diameter. It’s apparently an archaeological site and is said to be the largest pottery making factory in Southeast Asia during the Neolithic period. It’s about 600 ft or 183 m above sea level so it’s a pretty easy climb once you do it a few times. It’s absolutely gorgeous up on top b/c you have a pristine view of Semporna and the numerous islands around the coast. It now has stairs 95% of the way up, but I can remember back in the day when we were little kids having to hack our way through the brush and scramble up volcanic rocks. Anyway...it was a beautiful view of Semporna.

Baby has adjusted pretty well to the time zone over here but she still wakes up at random times in the morning. This particular morning both of us were awake at 7am and no one else was…and we were hungry. So we took one of the trucks and hightailed it over to a martabak (roti) place since we heard it was pretty good there. It WAS and we enjoyed martabak telur (roti with egg). =)

Somehow we ended up going out to breakfast AGAIN with the rest of the family when we got back home (we’re such fatties). In the next hour or so I found myself in the trunk of the SUV with Baby on our way to her cousin’s house. 

Unfortunately her cousin’s newborn baby had passed away due to cardiomegaly. It was so heartbreaking…especially when they were dismantling the baby’s crib in the family room and putting it back into the box. SO SAD. It was, at the same time, fascinating to witness a Muslim funeral. In true Muslim fashion, they must bury the dead as fast as possible, preferably in less than 24 hrs. They wrapped the baby in many white sheets and then in a Persian rug…and then the imam (Muslim priest) recited a prayer with men that were haji...I’m still trying to figure out that…but Hafiz, my instructor, was one of them standing there. It was quite intriguing to say the least.  

So…my family is very spontaneous. It was 9:30pm and I was getting sleepy and contemplating going to bed when all of a sudden, we decided to go get a massage….for TWO hours. Yeah...I was so tired when we finally got back…hahaha. 

Another thing my family is good at is eating. I kid you not. We’re forever eating. And it’s always good food too. =)

Monday night, Jefrey, Roslee, Auntie Beth, Baby, and I all embarked on Baby’s first sunset and night dive. We went on this endeavor for a number of reasons. First of all, Baby needed to try out her new equipment and second of all, she needed to complete a night dive to fulfill her Advance Open Water certification requirements. The sunset dive was pretty uneventful but the night dive was quite fun. Actually, all night dives have a level of excitement…mainly b/c it’s at night. Obviously. Haha. Yes, we all used flashlights, I can assure you. I had a lot of fun coming up behind Roslee and scaring him…and catching him when he tried to sneak up behind me and scare me. Lol. Another thing about night dives is that if you close your light and wave your hand around in the water you can witness bioluminescence plankton…or what I like to call, underwater night glitter. It’s the coolest thing ever. I think I could just sit there and wave my hand around for the whole dive and play with it. It’s so cool to close your light and then follow behind someone b/c their fins create the glow as well and it’s like they’re kicking glitter!!! Hahaha. The only drawback from night diving is that your light attracts lots of little tiny worms and other squiggly creatures that squirm and make you squirm just looking at them squirm. Hahaha. 

The next day the girls and Wang-Wang all went to Tawau to get pampered…well Wang-Wang had to go get his teeth fixed…lol. Rough times for him. 

So, I forgot to mention the fact that after I flew back from Bali, I had to stop over at KL overnight…and I got to hang out with my friend, Apong…AKA Raja Tolek!! Hahahah. I met Apong a few years ago when he was working as a DM at Mataking Island. Since then, I have Skyped with him countless times, especially late at night when I was doing my homework during college. Haha. He has been my source of encouragement from the other side of the world all these years and I am forever grateful to him. Anyway, it was already late when I got in…so what did we do?? We went to eat…hahaha. Of course. SMH. 

Now, comes the dedication portion of the post. In the picture below is Letter and myself. He was a DM at BGS and has recently been summoned for police inspector training which is sad for me b/c he won't be diving with us anymore. We've had some good times diving, talking, eating, teasing, learning, and spending time with each other. Thanks for the memories and I wish you the best of luck, my goh-goh (哥哥)!! I hope to dive with you again in the future!!