An evening at Marina Barrage

I’ve always been longing to do a photo-shoot trip in Singapore from the day I got my SLR. I kind of done it once last year, but it was not an exclusive photo-shoot trip. After my exams, I shortlisted the places I would like to visit for a photo shoot. I planned it with my friend (who is interested in photography and is better at it than me). One of my top choices was (and still is) capturing sunrise from MacRitchie Reservoir. I decided to start my long weekend with this trip and planned it for Saturday morning. For that I had to get up early in the morning by around 4:30am. It had been a looooooooong time since I had wake up so early and I couldn’t get the right mood and messed up the whole thing.
That’s when I decided to do another one. Since I suffer from “I-want-to-do-it-now” syndrome, I decided to do it that day itself. The next choice in my photo-shoot list was ‘sunset/evening at Marina Barrage’. From there, one will get an excellent view of Singapore city skyline and the night view is simply awesome. I had been to Marina Barrage once last year.
This time I got the ‘pieces’ right (only after some effort) and it was one ‘hell-uva’ a photo-shoot trip. I got tired pretty fast due to the hot and humid climate, but only after clicking lots of great snaps. I wanted to do more, may be another time.

The moon was really lovely and BIG.

When we started, there was wind and the reflections were not perfect.

I tried some monochrome versions too.

After some trial and error, I settled at this settings and the atmosphere was getting windless.

This is one of the best photos I took and the reflections are near perfect since there was almost no wind at all.

I wanted to stay longer and try more combinations, but I was damn tired and wanted to return home and get some rest. I was not particularly fond of night photography. After this experience, I am in love with it. Singapore is an extremely photogenic place for city and night photography with lovely skylines. I want to do more and I hope I will be able to do justice to this hobby of mine.

Just can’t get enough of it!

If I don’t (re)start it now, I may very well never do it again. Yeah, I am talking about my blogging. Its been around 5 months since my last blog. So much has happened and I never got enough time to sit down and write anything. Five terrific months have passed, and many exciting things happened. The more I wanted to write, the busier I became. I didn’t want to put so many technical things in my blog and scare off my readers. That’s when I decided, “ok that’s all, I will give myself a break from blogging till I get over with my hectic schedule” – which is the end of my current semester.
Almost one month has passed since my exams are over and my days are still hectic. The only difference is that I switched from a work/study mood to a party mood. Even though I thought about blogging at times, I got too lazy and never got to the point of writing one. To continue/restart something like blogging, I needed a lot of inspiration and motivation to overcome my laziness. After last weekend, I am feeling the urge to write, once again. Hope I haven’t lost the grip and I can continue writing from now own.
As the title says, it seems I just can’t get enough of it. The more I do it, the more I am falling in love with it. You might have guessed it - diving. I am in love with sea and the water and the corals and the creatures and anything and everything to do with diving. Every time I am in water, I feel like I belong here and when I see my air less than 100bars, I feel so sad. And the worst part is the surface interval; you can’t simply be in the water continuously. The maximum number of dives you can do a day is 5 (including the night dives, if you really start early).
After my open water (beginner) diving certification last year, I did diving in Phi Phi, Thailand and Manado, Indonesia. Those were the times I really missed blogging (about the trips). But I couldn’t help it as I landed back to loads and loads of work. Last week I did my advanced certification and that was one of the best trip I even had. I got more control of my buoyancy, equalisations problems are disappearing and the best part – made a complete new set of friends. To really enjoy a dive trip you need,
1. A good dive instructor – I did it with the same instructor as I did my open water – Monica, one of the best instructors out there in my opinion and an extremely skilled one. I wonder how she stays so still in water without a bit of fining or BCD adjustment. Duncan – our DM is also a really cool person.
2. A good place with lot of marine life – which exactly what Pulau Dayang (Malaysia) is. The corals are beautiful and as my friend Boon stated, “I lost my soul over there in the Reiner’s Rock (dive site)”
3. A good dive resort with tasty food and lot of drinks – which is exactly the resort provided.
4. And above all, lots of friends to enjoy it with. Most of us were alone when we started the trip but made friends real quick – Boon, Max, Neeraj, Haider etc and we all had a great time together.

oH! Man, I want more.

Yeah, that’s our resort, it has got a breathtaking view and the dive sites are very near. You can see lots of snorkelers in the beach. There are corals very near to the resort.

A breath-taking view from the jetty

That’s Neeraj with his “Diving totally rocks man”

Boon - There are very few things this guy has NOT done. His interests include archery, diving, motor bikes and a lot more. Oops, I missed one thing, this guy is a professional photographer.

That’s a large bat fish. I had to get under a coral to get this shot.

That’s Monica (on the left side) correcting Dave’s navigation. She is energetic and real fun to be with.

These are not some see plants, but are worms called the Christmas tree worms. They grow on corals in all colours.

That’s me, this photo is stolen from Boon’s collection. Thanks Boon for this.

I didn’t use a wet suit for this dive and wow, its too good, I am never going back to a wet suit.

Duncan found this big moray eel hiding under a coral.

Even though I’ve done more than 20 dives, this was the first time I get to see a ray. This one is a blue spotted sting ray.

Haider trying his tricks upside down and below is Neeraj. Neeraj and Haider are two real cool guys to hang out with.

Duncan – while doing our safety stops

We saw a lot more things than in these photos. I took my camera out only on the first day after which the battery died and I didn’t have a charger. We saw a barracuda hunting – it was so fast that all of it was finished even before I could switch on my camera to get a shot, a titan trigger fish circled around us at 30m depth and scared the s**t out of me, did a daring rescue – helped 2 fishes stuck in a fishing trap, did night dive, drift dive, deep dive, navigation and above all, it was a pure 100% fun weekend. Hah! How I wish I had more of it.