PADI rescue diver-Emergency First Response

Tuesday night Shirish and I started our rescue diver course with PADI. One thing I had hoped to do was to go through the course with SSI or NAUI but it just didn’t work out. I have nothing against PADI but wanted to see what one of the other organisation’s training methods was like.

In PADI, you have to also certify as an Emergency First Response/Responder (EFR) or basically just get some training in fundamental first aid skills. The EFR training is not scuba specific, in fact, all the scenarios were from the office or other non-scuba situations. Overall, it is very valuable training.

A few months ago I was chatting with a friend and we were griping about Malaysian traffic. We then started talking about the high probability of seeing a road accident or coming upon one just a few moments after it had happened. I have a strong belief in “Be Prepared” so we talked with a friend of ours who used to be a paramedic in the UK and he conducted five 2 hour training sessions on the basics of first aid. The PADI EFR course covered most of what he taught us during those sessions.

The difference, I found, was the PADI session was conducted by a trainer who probably had never or only once or twice had to administer first aid in an emergency situation. When we trained with my friend, he obviously had been in hundreds of situations where he was part of a team administering first aid. Although the information wasn’t different, I found his sessions better than the PADI sessions.

Maybe I misunderstand the PADI EFR training but I believe it is a certification developed by PADI. Wouldn’t it be easier to outsource this training, and in the place of EFR require an internationally recognized certification that is conducted in a hospital, university, clinic, the Red Cross/Crescent or by the fire brigade? Then first aid professionals are training the students rather than someone who has studied first aid and rescue in theory only.

Here is a course syllabus for training through the Red Cross. This is a course in the US. An internet search for a similar course in Malaysia yielded no concrete results although Mercy Malaysia does have a training course for people going on its humanitarian missions.

CPR/AED for the Professional Rescuer - 9 1/2 hours, $74

Our professional rescuer courses are designed for people who have a job-related duty to respond in an emergency. This course is known by other names such as BLS, Healthcare Provider CPR or “Level C” CPR.

Students who are required to take this level of training include nurses, law enforcement and EMS personnel, fire fighters, business and industry response teams, lifeguards, flight attendants, and others who must take action in emergency situations.

Upon completion participants will receive a one year certification in CPR and Automated External Defibrillator (AED) for the Professional Rescuer. The books and pocket masks used during the class are included in the fee and are the students’ to keep after the course.

Professional rescuers will learn how to:

• Recognize and provide care in respiratory and cardiac emergencies in adult, child and infant victims
• Perform two-rescuer CPR and techniques for special rescue situations
• Utilize techniques used in saving a victim of choking
• Use resuscitation masks and bag-valve-masks for ventilating victims
• Use an Automated External Defibrillator (AED)
• Reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease

I don’t want to be negative but I do want to think outside the box. I do appreciate what PADI is trying to do in training people in general first aid and applaud that effort. I just wonder if it isn’t easier to work in conjunction with the health care community to provide a higher level of training.

Dive Report: Pulau Payar-Sunday, 5 November 2006

This last Sunday, 5 November, the gang from Scubafiends headed out to Pulau Payar for a couple of dives. It had been a couple of months since our last dives so we were all starting to crave a fix of salt water and wanted to breathe some air from a tank.

The ferry trip out from Penang was slower than usual. We usually leave at 8:30 and arrive around 10 a.m. but on this trip the boat was packed with over 200 people, mostly from a Korean Lion’s club tour group. So, the boat never went fast and we just chugged along until we reached the island around 11 o’clock.

We transferred right away to East Marine’s large boat they use as their dive centre. Since the ferry was late, we were rushed to get our gear ready and into the smaller boat for transfer to the dive site. I understand the late arrival of the ferry made the rushing necessary but I hate that feeling of being pushed faster than I want to go. I want to take my time and enjoy the entire experience from beginning to end.

Our first dive was at Lembu Rocks. The visibility was outstanding for Payar, around 10 meters. There were four of us and a dive master, so 5 in all. We enjoyed taking our time and observing the marine life for long periods of time. We saw a pair of lionfish, a boxfish, several nudibranches and at least two species of triggerfish we hadn’t seen before. Since the dive was shallow, only around 18 meters, our bottom time was 45 minutes. This was a great dive and I think it was the first time any of us had dove Lembu Rocks despite the fact between the four of us we had logged 30 plus dives at Payar. Check it out next time you are there.

Then we headed back to the big boat and transferred to the shore for lunch. The box lunches they provide are just not very good. I didn’t eat mine and opted instead to have the watermelon and take pictures of the guys feeding the juvenile black-tip reef sharks. Always a tourist pleaser. Terror-terror!

Our second dive was at Coral Gardens. Definitely not the first time for us to dive this site. It seems to be nudibranch mating season. We spotted at least four pairs of nudibranches. Maybe they aren’t mating, but that was our guess. Could it be nudibranch fighting season? A batfish checked out for a few moments during our initial descent and there was a moray sighting about halfway through the dive. The visibility deteriorated a bit during the dive and at the end was about 5 meters.

As we headed back to Penang, we all wished that the ferry left a little later so we could have squeezed in a third dive. We had all enjoyed our day and the dives at Payar. The visibility is good for Payar and definitely worth your time if you are in the area. I can’t promise it will be this good in a month. Happy diving!

Dive Destination: Pulau Payar

Pulau Payar is located just over halfway between Langkawi and Penang and is a favourite with holidaymakers from all corners of the globe. While it doesn’t have the crystal clear waters of Terengganu or Pahang on the east coast, it does have unique attributes.

Perhaps the biggest asset that Pulau Payar has is ease of access. It is very easy to get up in Penang, head to your favourite mamak stall for roti canai, catch the ferry for Payar at 8:30 a.m., dive twice and be back in Penang for dinner at the famous hawker centre on Gurney drive. Most dive locations are quite remote, requiring a long flight or bus ride and then a choppy speedboat journey to the resort. The Penang-Langkawi ferry is posh compared to most of the speedboats plying the waters on the east coast of Malaysia.

The second asset Payar offers is marine life. I once spoke to an old fisherman who said, “God blesses some places with clear water and no fish and some places with murky water but loads of fish.” This comment often comes to mind when I am diving at Payar. No, the visibility isn’t great and, honestly, can be very bad some days, but the dive sites teeming with marine life. I dove Pulau Redang in April and then in early May dove Payar and saw more nudibranches at Payar, not to mention moray eels, soft coral, batfish and lobster. I thought then, “If Payar had the crystal clear waters of Redang, it would be a better dive site.” Rather than being someone who gripes about the poor visibility of Payar, I would rather appreciate what it does have, which is a large variety of marine life.

The downside to Payar is the aforementioned visibility conditions, which on bad days is 1 meter and on good days is 10 meters. Also sometimes frustrating and alarming are the crowds of people snorkeling. This isn’t usually a problem for divers because there are usually only a handful of divers (unless you are really unlucky and go on a day where a big tour group is diving). But there is usually a horde of snorkelers and they are not easy on the reef. Rumors have circulated for the last year about closing Payar for a period but it is a cash cow so that will probably never happen.

The last negative thing about Payar is the limited number of dive sites. Of course, you don’t go to Payar for 10 dives over four days, but there are only around six dive sites. There are four islands, Payar, Kaca, Lembu and the distant Segantang. The big island, Payar, has the sites Coral Garden, Japanese Garden and the House Reef. Coral Garden is a nice dive with lots of soft coral and a large variety of fish-life. House Reef and Japanese Garden are virtually the same site and usually the dives are long and shallow and so you cover both of them. Huge groupers and barracudas hang out near the dock or pier and juvenile black-tip reef sharks patrol the shallows as well. Around 12:30 the hands gather the snorkelers and feed the sharks so usually quite a crowd gathers to watch.

Juvenile blacktip reef sharks gather expecting a meal.

A crowd gathers to watch the sharks eat.

The beach at Pulau Payar.

Pulau Kaca and Lembu are about a three minute boat ride away. Between the two islands is a site with several sunken fishing boats and more massive groupers. There are some tyre reefs here as well. Further out around Pulau Lembu is a site called Lembu Rocks which is quite nice but not usually on the itinerary. It is a boulder site that is usually circled and yields a nice variety of triggerfish, nudibranches an occasional lionfish and a boxfish or two.

Segantang is further away, around half an hour by speedboat. I was on a dive that tried to dive here once, but we didn’t get dropped close enough to the island and swam around without seeing a single fish. Worst dive of my life! They do see whale sharks here occasionally and purportedly there is a rock wall that is nice to dive.

In summary, Pulau Payar is not a place you travel thousands of kilometers and sell your prized possessions just for the chance to dive it. However, if you are spending a week in Penang and need a way to work a kilo or two of that extra weight gained from the nasi kandar dinners, Payar is a great little day trip that the whole family can enjoy.

Waves gently lap the sand near on of the elevated wooden walkways at Payar.

Book Review: Reef Fishes, Coral and Invertebrates of the South China Sea

When a person picks a new hobby, they are often overwhelmed by the amount of information available on the subject. How do they sift through the myriad of possibilities and choose what is right for them? This is how I felt when I first started looking for a fish identification book.

I chose Reef Fishes, Coral and Invertebrates of the South China Sea by Elizabeth Wood and Michael Aw by chance really. I was browsing Popular and happened to find it. It was cheap, around RM40 so on a whim I decided to pick it up.

This is a photographic guide to marine life. I find photographic guides problematic because for so many species it is difficult to get good, clear photographs and second because juvenile or variant colourings are rarely included. So it is with this book. For example, on page 54 the author comments that 50 species of sharks occur in the South China Sea but the book contains pictures of three: the whale shark, leopard shark and the blacktip reef shark. Hmmm, and the 47 other species, where are their pictures? And so goes most of the book.

I find that identification books with good plates of the animals are the best way to go. The problem is that often the plates are hit and miss. Sibley’s Field Guide to the Birds of North America is a work of art just in how great the plates are. I haven’t found a fish identification book that matches it's quality.

The pictures in this book are good: sharp and clear. The book is also ordered quite logically with an introduction to reefs and their unique ecosystem, then how to classify fish into families based on their silhouettes or bone structure. Next comes the sections showing kinds of coral, invertebrates and then the fish.

There is nothing wrong with this book but if you are looking for an exhaustive encyclopedia of most of the critters you will see while diving, you will be disappointed. If you want a brief introduction to the world of the coral reef for an affordable price, then this is the book for you.

Blending without colour

Try to spot this cheeky lil' fella:



I have seen frogfishes before and have usually been able to pick them out from the patch of corals they paste themselves on. In their attempt to blend in, somehow something about their disguise usually gave them away, and it was usually because they carried a slightly different colour from their background.



It wasn't until I took the black and white shot above though, that I truly appreciated the effectiveness of their disguise.

Unlike divers, most fish are colourblind (only able to make out shadings of colour, shape and movement), which makes the disguise of this particular frogfish deadly effective.