2021 Day 2: Re-adjusted expectations

I set the alarm for 0445 for my 0600 report at Scuba Gen a couple of minutes walk away.  I stuffed down a coffee and muffin before heading there ten minutes ahead of the report time.  Rather than a boat pickup from the dive centre’s private jetty, I was collected by car for a short drive to the boat.  It was within walking distance but not too comfortably with dive gear.

We set off at 0625 with three other people, all diving with Uncle Chang’s dive centre.  Scuba Gen doesn’t have Sipadan permits and they passed me on to Uncle Chang.

We reached Uncle Chang’s base at Mabul island about 40 mins later.  I was offered a buffet breakfast with their guests while we waited for the other divers to be ready.

About 50 mins later, we were in nearby Sipadan, signing in with the authorities.  We had to scan in with our Covid-19 tracing app and also write our details in the record book.  After playing with the resident cat of Sipadan, our dive master gave a briefing on-land around 0830.

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Our first dive was at Barracuda Point as it is at its best earlier in the morning.  It started with a beautiful wall with lots of colourful reef fish.  I saw five turtles and two white-tip sharks.  Sadly, there were no barracudas today.

For today, I had been assigned a small local woman as my dive master.  The others were all highly experienced and dived with one other dive master, doing their own stuff.

Due to comments I had heard on my first dive of this trip, I’ve reset my expectations.  I’ve learnt to enjoy everything the place has to offer rather than expect the tornado of barracudas which I’ve seen twice before.

Our second dive was at South Point.  This was again a nice coral wall with plenty of colourful reef fish.  I saw three turtles and a couple of box puffer fish.  The highlight was probably a huge shoal of shiny jackfish passing right in front of me, from bottom-left to top-right.

We took our longer surface interval back on Sipdan where I got to know my co-divers better.  A couple of them run Cosmic Divers on Pulau Perhentian.  They brought along their closer friends plus a broader group.  Mian, Sherilyn, Audra, Shahrul and Jismi were all very nice people and very respectful of the ocean.

Collectively they had varied experiences in life.  One is a doctor, another works with an aid organisation called MAHA and another worked as a star-gazing guide based in Tekapo, New Zealand!

The last dive of the day was at Hanging Gardens.  It was an absolutely stunning dive with a good variety of coral including fan coral jutting out.  Amongst that were the ubiquitous colourful reef fish.  I saw five turtles on this dive.  I just love looking down into the abyss and to the side into the blue.

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On this dive, I started I felt some water in my right ear, something I rarely experience.  One of my top right molars was also hurting.  It may have corresponded to the site of a recent filling.

We returned to Mabul around 1600.  Unfortunately, some of the broader group wanted to do a dive around Mabul and we had to wait till after 1700 before setting off for Semporna.  It was a pleasant place to kill time; probably nicer than sitting in my room in Semporna.  I would seriously consider staying here and diving with Uncle Chang if there’s a next time.

I arrived back in Semporna around 1800 and grabbed dinner almost immediately.  It isn’t a holiday doing three dives in a 12h day.  I settled into bed around 2000 again.  Despite the long day I wasn’t shattered like two days ago.  I realise that it wasn’t the diving that wore me out that day; it was the rowdy crowd.