Once again, it was time to dive. Theoretically, this year’s Silver Diving Expedition took place on 28-30 June. I say theoretically, as all of us future divers had to unfortunately attend lessons and training during the mid-year break. Let’s just say it wasn’t pretty. Watching videos and reading a textbook on how to dive was uneventful to say the least. Of course, the best was saved for last; our actual dive experience at Pulau Redang.

Before we were able to enjoy ourselves, we had to endure long hours on various modes of transportation on land, air and of course water! First up, the bus ride at four in the morning to the Low Cost Carrier Terminal (LCCT). Next, the hour long flight to Kuala Terengganu. Following that, another bus ride to the local jetty. After that, two ferry trips just to get to the island. Imagine this: seven hours worth of travel time just to get there. Seven hours of travel time can get us to another continent!

All the trouble it took us to get there was forgotten as soon as we had a peek at the sea. In my honest opinion, I had never in my life before seen water so clear. It was out of this world. I never thought that I would be as enthralled as I was about seawater! Forget the seawater momentarily; the beach at Pulau Redang was simply mesmerizing. The view of the beach looked like it came straight out of a postcard. It was so picturesque and as cliche as it sounds, perfect. The world seemed the most beautiful there.

So, enough about the small details; time for the gritty stuff! Time to talk about our dives! Our first dive was rather dull. We simply continued our underwater training during that first ‘dive’. If we were lucky, our instructors would’ve taken us for a dive around these two big rocks. We were only about 6 metres deep if I’m not mistaken and ‘diving’ at snorkel sites was annoying to put it politely. People swimming above you in snorkels stared and almost kicked you every five seconds. In a nutshell, we didn’t see much during this ‘dive’. Due to time constraints on the first day, we only managed this one dive. We had three left. We prayed tomorrow would be a better day!

Surprisingly, the second day was indeed a better day, the best in fact. Our second dive was what I would call a real dive. We took a boat out to sea and actually backflipped into the water like how it should really be done! Being underwater is a whole new different experience altogether. Seeing the corals form large kingdoms of their own was breathtakingly amazing. It’s a world of its own, the underwater. During this dive, we were all stunned at how foreign everything was and how crazily awesome it was that we were actually breathing underwater. A couple of hours after that, we went for another dive, this time to another dive site. This dive was better than the first in terms of all the marine life we saw. There were more colourful fishes.

Finally the time came for our last and final dive. We were told if we were lucky, we could see a turtle. I did! In short, we all savoured that moment and took in as much as we could during this dive: straining our eyes looking out for more and trying to remember and recall the sensation of being this deep underwater breathing like it’s normal. All in all, this expedition felt like a holiday. It was relaxation at its best. Good company and the sand, sun and surf made everything infinitely memorable. It is safe to say that all of us on the trip have a licence... a licence to dive.