Diving Sipadan: Even better than I remember

Getting ready

I grabbed a vegetable murtabak with curry for breakfast washed down with a kopi tarik. That wasn’t quite enough so I complemented it with toast and kaya (ordered specially without butter or margarine).

The instructions from the dive centre was to standby at 0730 on one’s first day. They do really mean standby as they didn’t open till about 0745 but I was fortunate as I could sit in my hotel lobby and look across at their shop.

The diving experience

After doing the paper work and fitting the gear we left at 0830 for the one hour boat ride to the famous Sipadan island where we signed in with the authorities. Since the pirate kidnapping over a decade ago, the resort island has been converted into military base (for surveillance of the maritime area) with only one small section available to the public for their surface intervals, snorkelling, picnicking and toilet; a horn sounds if one ventures into military area. All three dives are at Sipadan today:

• The first at South Point was good with plenty of turtles and white tip reef sharks. There were also three such sharks resting on the sea bed in one place. Other fish of interest included a puffer fish.
• The second was at Mid Reef. As I descended from the surface, I realised I was going down into a river of barracudas. I swerved gently to one side then turned around to watch them go past. For a moment I thought I was at Barracuda Point where the famous swirls of barracudas take place. There were also plenty of white tip reef sharks, turtes, nudibranches and a few lion fish and puffer fish.
• The third and last was at Barracuda Point. Sadly the famous swirls of barracudas weren’t here today. But instead, we had a seemingly endless number of Humphead Parrot Fish in shallow 3m coral pools. There was also a large school of jackfish. We swam through them for quite a while before re-descending. Further along we saw plenty of turtles, plenty of white tip reef sharks (including two resting under a large flat sheet of coral) and a very large cowtail ray. There were also a few lion fish.Weirdest of all was a turtle cleaning station, which is an outcrop where turtles park up to have themselves cleaned by fish. There was one in particular that was parked on an incline. Some turtles are so big they’d be bigger than a human torso … about from one’s shoulder to one’s knee.

Even though we didn’t see the barracudas in a tornado swirl, I was more than overjoyed.  The divemaster had asked us to play with our nipples in circular motion as it supposedly gives a guaranteed sighting but some people didn’t cooperate.

It was truly an awesome day (that’s a word I use very reservedly). I wonder why I bother diving anywhere else. I hope the western governments (including New Zealand) continue with their travel warnings against visiting here (due to the piracy and kidnapping risk). Quotas are hard enough to secure as it is.

After

I’m kicking myself for not booking for next year. A couple of weeks ago in Mandalay, I booked for AirAsia’s sale next Xmas. I kept it simple with HKG-KUL-KCH and vice versa rather than stop over here. As I was unwell, down and missing my darling, I flagged the idea of diving in Sipadan again and also the possibility of going to the Harbin Ice Festival in Manchuria through Beijing.

Life is full of little regrets; it is just my little kavadi to bear (Kim and I have been using this expression for many years, using the word “kavadi” instead of “cross”).