Semporna on the Mainland with a small dive operator called Billabong.
In this case the advantage of Billabong being small was that it had an
allocation of 6 of the 120 permits given out daily for diving on the
nearby National Park of Sipadan Island, but did not often use up all
the permits. In my case 1 of their customers who had been more
foresighted than me in booking ahead to ensure getting a permit did
not turn-up so I was Alexander James for the day's diving. The larger
dive companies always had much longer waiting lists.
Several years ago when Sipadan was declared a National Park the 7
small resorts on the beautiful small island were removed so there is
no permanent presence on the island, ensuring the protection of the
amazing coral and marine life surrounding it, mostly based around the
wall which supports the island, i.e. the land below the island rising
600m from the sea floor to the surface. On my 3 dives there we saw
some sharks as well as a large variety of other fish, plenty of
turtles -creatues which always amaze me in their size and
gracefulness, and even a lizard over 1 metre long whilst we ate lunch
on the island. Unfortunately there was a lot of plankton in the water
reducing visibility but it was still excellent.
The night on the island was spent at a converted locals' house on
stilts over the water. The island also has at least 4 very expensive
resorts, 1 of which provided the beach bar for us to drink at and
another provided us a pool to visit before/after diving! It was quite
striking though to see resorts costing hundreds of dollars a night
right next to locals' houses who probably struggled to make that much
in a year from fishing. However, and maybe the beautiful weather and
scenery had something to do with it, the locals were very happy with
their lot.
The next day's diving was around Mabul island, famous for its tiny
fish and marine organisms (though with larger ones in abundance as
well). A highlight was seeing some of those which were often only one
cm in size (such as crabs or nudibranches), seeing an eagle-ray (a
diamond shaped flat fish about one metre wide with spots and a long
tail), crocodile fish (ugly looking fish that look a bit like its
namesake but only a foot long and lie on the bottom camouflaged), frog
fish (also ugly and looking like its namesake, its is a vertical fish
strangely shaped that often blends into rock), large moray eels poking
their heads out of crevices, garden eels (which are small and bury
themselves in the sea floor then stick out vertically, looking a bit
like grass or flowers hence their name), a cuttlefish (a large-ish
fish often featured in films like 'finding nemo' that sits up
vertically and has almost a moustache from the fringes over its mouth)
and various others.
Diving is such fun, full of adventure looking for, and finding,
amazing things, and a reminder of how much more life and colour and
amazing things live under the water than on land. Of course the diving
in Asia is some of the best in the world and my last few years of
diving in Malaysia and the Philippines has been at some of the best
locations in the world.
One of the dives was around an artificial reef, where the fancy resort
had sunck some small boats and other items to attract fish which made
for an interesting exploratory dive around and over the various
obstacles and items on the sandy bottom. Divers are an interesting
group. There are the novices, like the couple of Malaysian girls who
were with us once but almost got lost twice on the dive and kept
hitting the coral or other divers!; there were the chinese girls who
found each other online whilst looking for travel partners; there were
all the european backpackers; and of course there were the real divers
who fly around the world just to dive solidly. Overall its often a fun
group, who like drinking, and adds to the fun.
We returned to Semporna for New Year's Eve where about 30 dive-related
people were hanging out in the only bar in town, and a day by the pool
of our favourite 3-star hotel, before flying back to Kota Kinabalu for
a day exploring a tiny island and enjoying the very hot sun and beach.
Now I've just descended through the awful pollution of Southern China
and am waiting for my delayed connecting flight to Beijing where
apparantly its snowing too much for planes to land!
I wish everyone a successful 2010!
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