Diving has been an activity that I feel pretty neutral about.
Not particularly yay! not particularly nay.
Pre diving beliefs.
I am a firm believer that nature should always be left on its own and preserved that way.
Perhaps you could say that I have been brought up to be a conservationist by my frugal mommy.
Conserve water, conserve electricity, do not waste money, do not waste food blahblahblah.
On another context of conserving. I like my belongings clean.
Pristine condition is probably the better word.
I believe that when I take good care of my stuff, my stuff would in turn take good care of me.
I guess it's my personal OCD to make sure that my belongings look exactly like when I first bought it, even if its 10 years old or something. Objects have to go, because they deteriorate naturally, not because I lose interest in them.
This theory holds, even if the item doesn't belong to me. See my white macbook story here and here.
Which is why I hate the idea of sharing. After all, my notion of taking care of belongings does not equate to other people's version of taking good care of their belongings.
In truth, I get mad at my friends, when I see them mistreating their belongings. Ooops.
I do tell them off!
Anyway. My take on nature is simple.
The lesser people dive, the better marine life would thrive.
Humans, so it seems - are damn good at messing up the environment.
We deplete our natural resources, kill forest, destroy the ocean with oil spills, wrecks, adventures, and litter... Ahh so many to list out...and the creatures living in these natural environment, are often affected by our selfish actions.
With regards to diving in particular.
One person less in the ocean, will probably do the marine life a lot of good in my own word.
So my take on diving is NO. I will not pollute the ocean unnecessarily.
I shared this theory with Claudia years back, when she asked if I would consider taking up diving.
She asked, because she had just returned from her Open water course, and was relating to me about her experiences and we left it as that.
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Years later, le boyfie is a diving enthusaist. He asked if I would consider taking up diving.
Nope. nilch. Nada. No.
Hello! Conservation theory still stands.
Love does not mean that I give up my principals okay!
But it is also about giving and taking.
For the love of the ocean, le boyfie gave up eating sharks fin.
I think he probably didn't like it much to start with. Hurhurhur.
That is what he does, to protest against the cruelty of the shark.
His stand on conserving the marine life.
I'm a foodie. My dad raised me up on sharks fin being one of the yummiest food in the chinese world of noms.
Special days of rewards means bringing the family out to enjoy good food.
In return, I do my part on keeping the ocean free of Daphne Lee.
How is one action better or worst than the other.
I don't know. It's debatable.
I'll probably still consume sharks fin and still dive down to meet them in time to come.
It's like staring at the chicken pecking the ground and eating it the next minute in my chicken hotpot (yeah this happens in China - I hear my chicken dying before it gets served to my table).
Life has to go on.
All changes starts with me.
we are all advocates of something in this life time.
But I still need to eat just because I need to eat.
Too much side tracking. Sorry!
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April 2015
I believe in being evergreen.
That we truly stop living when we stop changing ourselves.
Taking up new skills, opening up to new activities, changing a personal style, accepting something new in my life.
The gang decided to spam our group chats with diving trip and the ADEX convention was on going.
Le boyfie was telling me that he would accompany me on my dive lesson if I choose to take it up.
Le claudia was virtually nodding her head separately in my personal chat with her on the phone about me taking up diving with the group.
Le Daphne was thinking, life is short. Change quota needs to be upped. If dad can die singing KTV. I can die eating sharks fin.
Let's go and kill some corals, change the PH levels of the sea and learn a new skill.
That's how I did it.
Hahaha.
Mermaid Achievement unlocked.
Would I be a diving enthusiast now?
Not really.
In hard times, Imma migrate to korea and be a diver auntie and start selling fresh abalones
to be cooked in porridge okay.
That was my exact words after I suited up before heading out to the sea.
Lol. Im not sure if my instructor was amused or not.
I say the weirdest things sometimes.
Comeon!
Haenyeos are totally my heroine when I travelled to Korea at 5 years old.
It was freezing cold in the winter, and they could still bring themselves to jump into the sea to get fresh seafood on my table.
Doesn't help that my dad dramatised everything.
I survived the entire korea trip living off instant cup noodles every meal.
Kimchi? No.
ginseng chicken? No.
cold ikan bills? No.
Pickled radish? OMGeee No!
Back then, korean food tasted putrid to me.
Hahaha.
That aside, that bowl of abalone porridge that I ate in that trip.
Most. delicious. thing ever eaten for the entire week.
Hurhurhur.
Diving journal started out like this.
*cricket chirps*
With such gorgeous legs developed from the lessons... I don't even know where to start liking the activity.
My expression hovered between smile or cry...
Picture says it all..
That yugly leg tan aside, water lessons went pretty well for me.
After all, I never had issue with water.
Pool at home is 2 metres deep, and as a kid I was always throwing things into the deep end of the pool, and dive deep, retrieving objects like a water dog according to mommy, and sitting like a buddha under water with Da and attempting to sit and balance on our swimming boards...somersault into the pool and whatever I could think of every possible weekend ever.
I waded through childhood as a tanned scrawny kid with goggle tan marks on the eyes.
The diving downsides for me, would be all the weight that I had to carry.
My tank is about 15 kg.
Buoyancy vest... weight belts 2lb x 4 (~4kg?)
that's approximately an additional close to 20kg.
I could barely stand on my feet with all that weight! Talk about walking!
Rwarrr!
I'm in pink hair strap!!! I'm the only girl in our noob group.
that's Kelvyn, Kangwei and Ramzie if you can spot who's who.
Pictures courtesy of my 24/7 boyfie.
That's what my diving instructor refers to DL. :)))))))))))))
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Kelvyn's camera captured all of us after our "n"th ascend.
I'm still a happy bird despite the mark on my forehead, with a new friend featured in the background.
She's the first friend that I've met who has the exact same operation scar as me! Talking about coincidence!
Our first couple picture under water!
Seriously with all that equipment on my face, this picture could be anybody!
Le boyfie kept to his word and accompanied me on my first ever dive trip in the open sea!
He reminded me that I was darn lucky to meet a sea turtle on my first dive.
*flicks hair*
With beginner's luck, "we" apparently spotted a shark - but it went into hiding. So on the record, I really only saw a turtle feeding in a bed of corals.
That's me finning around with my dive buddy. Captured by MF's go pro.
My pink power ranger suit was super easy to spot. Awesome.
After my weird tan line fiasco... nothing. NOTHING. Not even funky colour suits is going to stop me from getting a proper full body one!
My gloves are lovingly sponsored by DL, to ensure that accident prone Daphne, doesn't end up getting cuts - in the event that I could not control my buoyancy and smash into sea urchins or something. :/
Groupfie / wefie
This marks the end of my first dive trip, glad that it is with the friends.
Looking forward to more happy times ahead with them!
