Mataking wreckdive, Jetty dive and Pompong Night dives

When we were diving near Mataking and Mandarin Valley , it was quite terrifying to experience first hand the loud blasts of dynamites underwater.......

For a few split seconds I thought my or someone else's oxygen tank had exploded .....and I would have panicked if not for the reassuring hand signals from Ah Peng, our experienced DM.

Yet despite myself, I couldnt keep calm at all for the remainder of the dive and the mood for photography was also all &*(*&^ up!!

No wonder the wreck was devoid of edible fishes...no wonder the corals were all bleached and we found mostly nudibranches , lots of poisonous species like the stonefish, rockfish, devil & tassled scorpionfishes.....
And the only silver lining amongst these bleak environment, dwelled the splendid but elusive Mandarin fishes, hopping amongst the fragments of the dead coral and in the refuge amongst the spines of the sea urchins .

When we surfaced , the dynamite fishing was all we could talked about. And we were told that the blasts we heard that sounded so near was probably about 20-30km away....and its a daily affair, around noon time!!! Idoits , thats what those fishermen are!!! Killing so many for pittance when they could have earned more from ecological tourism....not to mention putting their own ricebowl in jeopardy by destroying the very source of food and habitats from which they make a livelihood!!!Imagine a group of 10 divers like us would pay $3000 each to just go dive at a barren site that guarantees a glimpse of mandarin fishes ....now what if this site promises more than mandarin fishes....and that's why the dynamite fishermen are dumb morons!

At the Mataking Jetty, the corals were slightly more healthy better, we were there to film the schools of fusiliers and trevallys...and it was not a disapointment.

The best was night diving at Pompong's house reef to see the groupers, the oscellated spotfin lionfish, the hermit crabs and its fancy shells, the juvenile batfishes. For someone like me, who never was a fan of night diving..and that I went 2 nights in a row, just do the maths. ;-)

Pompong's Reef Life Specials

I remember someone once aptly told me.....the ocean is like a giant pot of soup !

A healthy reef is a crowded place... where the inhabitants compete for space and much of life is revolved literally around eating or avoiding being eaten.

I think it was Adrian or Patrick who related how a symbiotic shrimp was gobbled up by predators split second moments after it strayed from the cover of its featherstar refuge.....it happened so bullet fast right in front of their camera lens that they didnt even have time to snap a single photo!!!

Here at Pompong, where the marine life are found abundant and so beautiful .... likewise in the game of defense or offense... many of its reef inhabitants were masters of deceit and so perfectly camouflaged by its host...

However if one takes the time to look closely at every nook & corner, this place is a photographer's dream come true....

There are so many species of all colors and sizes....the photo opportunities are just limitless .

Diving , photography, videography here is quite simply heavenly.

POMPONG's gardens of eden

I just find the movements of the polyps and flower-like tentacles of the soft corals in POMPONG amazingly mesmerizing...so colorful, so richly inhabited by countless species....Thank goodness, here the corals are still healthy , not yet degraded or over exploited .

Be it algae, anemones, sponges, cnidarians, ascidians, worms, echinoderms....whatever they are called scientifically....they all look like flowers .

To me, it symbolizes the gardens of Eden underwater....