day 2 – 2nd August 2010

Posted by on Aug 11, 2010 in | 0 comments

return to day 1

this is the day i’ve been waiting for! but first, let’s get on the activities during the day. gonna be a long one, if you’re ready, then let’s carry on.

woke up super early for breakfast and not wanting to miss the 9.30am snorkeling boat ride. the morning sessions are always at the marine park headquarters, where the beach there spans over 400m long with plenty of corals and fishes alike. it takes 15 mins to reach there. sure enough, there were plenty of tourists donned in life jackets on the surface of the sea. some people who don’t know how to swim engaged locals to pull a floating tyre-tube so that they can just ‘glide’ and gaze at the seabed.

we didn’t carry our cameras for our snorkeling trips for fear or losing or damaging it. however i did purchase an underwater disposable camera at only $17 for 27 shots. i could have bought a casing or a dicapac but i really didn’t want to spend anymore after buying the snorkels and masks.

there were more fishes and corals here compared to the laguna’s beach. everywhere you go, it’s either a human beside you or a whole school of fishes below you. most of the corals seemed dead, or was it bleaching, i’m not sure. in some rare instances, i spotted a small sting ray sitting comfortably on the sand bed, camouflaged. now, how did i realised its there if it’s camo-ed? well, it was like around less than 2m away from me and when i was approaching, it moved slightly forward. i noticed it and took a quick snap. snorkeling is really fun and without realising it, one can float blindly without knowing where you are.

pretty soon, the laguna staff starts to call, “laguna time’s up!” and everyone starts to gather. there were other people from other resorts, each with their own colour to identify. ours were red, some were in pink. lol.

headed back to the resort, we washed up and it’s lunch time! the fare today was better than before. probably our appetite got better. yet interestingly there were more people too. the dining hall has 2 buffet counters, a grill counter, 2 fruits counters, a water station and 2 dessert counters. seating-wise, in total there were 4 sections, adding up to almost 100 hundred tables. there’s a mix of food selection from local malay, chinese to western.

after lunch, we walked about shortly and soon enough it’s the 3pm deadline! time for open-sea snorkeling! again, we head back to our room and collected our gears, attended the briefing and boarded the ferry. duration of the ride was only 10 mins to pulau kerengga besar/kecil (i can’t recall which). there were more people compared to the morning one. 4 ferries launched one by one as soon as it’s filled up. it’s _that_ exaggerating, ok.

once we reached the destination, the ferries anchored next to each other in open sea. the staff signaled for us to drop into the sea and off we go! the feeling was kinda scary considering it was open sea. although the waters were quite clear, still visibility is only up to max 8 – 10m at best. and i heard there were black-tipped sharks too. overcome by excitement, we swam around towards the bay. anywhere further and we can’t really see the corals. to my disappointment, the open sea snorkel wasn’t as fun as i thought it would be. not much fishes and there were more dead corals! oh well.

nevertheless, after returning to the resort, time is closing in to my main agenda. on my first day, i had the staff prepared for a private dining featuring a 6 course western dinner with a bottle of sparking juice as well as a choice of white/red house wine or cocktails. now it’s time to delay until dinner is setup around 8pm. she was getting all hungry and wanting to proceed to the usual buffet dinner which starts at 7pm. there were long queues during dinner and people would start to queue early to get the good seats as well as the freshest food. i pushed for some sight-seeing at the gift shop. some lame tactics, eh?

well, fortunately her slippers gave way and the strap torn, so it’s time to get new pairs at the shop. bought one pair and since i’m carrying an extra pair of slippers in my hands, she asked me to bring it back to the room. the trip back was about 10 mins thru and fro, so that would buy me sometime.

she wasn’t too happy that i left her alone for too long and she was very very hungry! i kept pacifying her and finally brought her to the poolside. she seemed slightly annoyed, but all for a good cause. waiter came and instructed him to start serving the starters. the staff presented a bouquet of roses (another surprise which i arranged on the first day as well) to me and i gave it to her. she starts to smile now. thank God for that! speaking of which, there were no florist on the island, which means the staff arranged the delivery of the flowers by ferry from mainland. that is some 40mins to an hour plus boat ride depending on which jetty it took off. i was very sure that she was the only one on the island to have a bouquet of roses.

seeing that she’s hungry and all, i let her enjoy the fare while i start to play some soft music on my trusty iphone. it wasn’t until dessert time that i finally got down to my knees and ask for her hand in marriage. overjoyed, she said, “ok.” and she ponders a while and said again, “yes!” =D

SUCCESS!

let’s move on the day 3