I think what your friend meant when he said the sentence ("if you can dive in Singapore, you can dive anywhere in the world"), is gaining on experience.
I was trained in local waters on my Open Water. Later I did my Rescue Course in Hantu as well.
What I have to say is that when you dive in Hantu, it trains you to sharpen your skills (bouyancy, navigation, alertness). Though I can't say it applies for every diver who dives there. But when the visibility is bad, you will have to depend on your equipment and sometimes depend on your hearing (especially when u are searching for a lost diver).
When I did my Rescue Course, my instructor taught a little on search and recovery. After graduating the course, I did a leisure trip to Hantu assessing some Open Water divers. On one of the dive I lost my jetfins (I continue the whole dive and throughout the dive, my buddy didn't even notice I was diving with one fins. <laughs>
Anyway, I borrowed a pair of fins from the students and did a search and recovery. We have to take note of each other location, the current directions, the no of fins we did in each direction, the direction we are searching (compass), the depth we search (depth gauage). We did all this in water visibility less than 2 metres.
I believe if you can control your dive in such low visibility, you won't have much problem diving in other countries. I have seen divers PANIC in such environment before.
Its an experience diving in Hantu. It's a love/hate thing. You either love or hate Hantu. If you want to see how you fair in your diving skills, give Hantu a try.
And yes, I found my fins. I have since changed to spring strap after the incident.
Happy diving.
Cheers.
