The Grace in Grace

Trust me, you don't want to bump into fire corals, much less crash into them. Live on board was great, very much like ship's life only smaller. Less tiring and we get to dive at sites less dived. Great food too, those boat men can really cook! After night dive, Henry and me even fished. Keep seeing the huge ass pipe fish swimming pass, but they never came to my rod. We even manage to spot 2 sharks swimming near our boat. I knock out at 1a.m, Henry continue till 3a.m, he wouldn't sleep until he catch something.

The first check out dive was an experience.. I was suppose to lead 3 other guys, but when we were all down already, Mark couldn't descend. I went up with him to get more weights and by the time we were down, the rest of the group were gone with Everett's. For the first time, I lead the dive and along the way praying so hard that we wouldn't dive out into the open sea or get lost. When we finally surfaced, we were near the boat! Thank God!

The rest of the dives were good, but visibility is dropping. Eugene even went up to tioman to get ice cream for everyone. Poor bugger, he fell and now he got unequal size ass. Night dive was quite disappointing, didn't see much, just a small crab in the corals.

In the second last dives, don't know why but the OW students keep diving very near to each other and it felt so sardined. I went lower, so they were above me. Out of the blue, I got kick and I crashed into something stingy. I turned and look, I thought it was the anemone. I tried rubbing it off and just leave it, cause usually after awhile the pain will go away. But through out the rest of the journey, the pain got worse! When we surface, I looked at my thigh and it was as thought I got stung by a million mosquito! The pain was burning and all along I thought it was those anemone. Everett and Eugene poured vinegar on it to kill any toxins and I soak in sea water for the next hour or so. After we came back, then Eugene analyze that it couldn't be anemone, they don't sting that bad... must be fire corals. I think back and it made sense. During the last dive, a small part of my leg touched the anemone, it was painful but not as burning as the ones I had earlier and after awhile, the pain went away.

Later in the night, boils appeared. Confirmed, it's fire corals. My first fire coral stings, and they are not small... 15cm by 10cm I think! Grace was telling me, "Wah, people got stung a small patch and very pain already... your whole thign got stung!" That really explains those tears. Actually, those tears were a combination of the fallen tank, my grandma hoo-ha and of course the burning pain.

Oh well, it's recovering well now, I think. Sometimes it still hurts, but not as much. No jeans at work, I teach in 3/4. I counted the number of red spots I have... 80. Now, divers and soon to be divers who never got stung before... stay away from them. See, no touch.
*PS, this was better already. You don't want to see the more gruesome picture of it.