Getting ready
Ryan and I met up for breakfast at a local café, a different one from yesterday. I opted for their version of vegetable murtabak with curry (much better) and kopi tarik again, then shared a fried rice. I introduced Ryan to thosai which he enjoyed very much. I’m proving to be a good host and eating buddy.
The diving experience
As there had been a cancellation, I managed to get an upgrade to dive Sipadan again for RM50, which was just the permit fee. The rain going out to Sipadan was torrential. The boatman lost his orientation slightly after passing Mabul as he was operating on visual navigation. We all kept an eye out for any island, any island. He climbed up onto the roof and then came back down and took us safely to our destination where we hopped out and signed ourselves in. Our dives were as follows:
- Lobster Lair: This was one of the most beautiful wall dives I can remember. There was plenty of small colourful fish and coral. These were complemented with white tip reef sharks and turtles. Due to the weather and depth (up to 25m), much of the dive was dimmer than what I’m used to.
- White Tip Avenue: Despite the name, this was similar to the first dive but with slightly better light. We also saw a grey reef shark and a moray eel.
- Barracuda Point: Visibility here was worse than yesterday but the turtles put on a stunning display at the cleaning station. There were 5 turtles on the crown of the high outcrop, seven more circling around it and a handful lazing at various levels below. There were also plenty of sharks, a huge school of shiny jackfish which we were able to swim through. For some reason we saw a huge school of Humphead Parrotfish but didn’t frolic with them like yesterday. As we all played with our nipples before our dive (supposed to bring on the tornado formation of barracudas), we saw a few barracudas but they weren’t in a tornado formation. I was told that the formation only happens when they are sleeping and it is a special sighting (like the school of humphead parrotfish) … I was merely lucky four years ago when I first dived here.
Our first surface interval was as miserable as our ride to Sipadan. We were all cold and shivering. I warmed myself up with coffee from a communal cup as our caterer had forgotten the cups today.
Again, Sipadan (especially Barracuda Point) was truly astounding. I don’t know how I can be satisfied diving anywhere else. In fact, I haven’t really been impressed by my dives in the Pacific and Indian Oceans … it’s going to be even harder to impress me now.
After
I wandered around the markets in the evening and saw lots of parrotfish for sale, all cooked up over the BBQ. I didn’t feel too bad as I’ve seen the destruction they do to the coral around Sipadan; the divemaster says Sipadan is quite well-patrolled and there is no dynamite fishing … confirmed by the fact that we didn’t hear any underwater explosions.Then I found mangoes for RM10 (USD3.50) for a bundle of five. They were the pale-skin Filipino variety (much like the Thai). Extremely sweet and juicy and can only be eaten over the basin in the bathroom.