Sadly I'll be leaving Semporna soon. It's been great here and I really just can't get enough of diving. A few days ago I finally got my trip to Sipadan Island. It turns out is is everything it's cracked up to be.
The first two dives of the day were strictly ok... I saw things that I hadn't seen before like grey reef sharks and white tip reef sharks but other than that the dives were just average. The third dive was spectacular! We went down to the Turtle Tomb and then along Drop Off and the scenery is simply amazing. It's a wall dive where the wall stretches down into the deep as far as you can see. It apparently goes down over 600m deep. Swimming along this wall as new scenes opened up in front of us as we went around every corner was just amazing! The wall was hanging with coral and on some little shelves you could find turtles resting. To our left we always kept a watch out to try to spot any rays that came by or if we were really lucky a hammerhead or whale shark. The divemaster did spot a devil ray and gave a bang on his tank while he waved urgently towards us. I took off after him and swam hard to catch a quick view of the ray as it sped by. Amazing!
Further along the wall we found a small school of barracudas playing in the current and then came upon a massive school of jackfish as well as a school of humphead parrotfish. The humpheads were great! They're pretty big fish (close to 1.5m long) and while they milled about chomping on the coral they looked kind of like a heard of buffalo.
While we waited and watched the parrotfish, one of the guys in our group put his hand down on a piece of coral to steady himself. As he did this I looked beside his hand and there was a big scorpionfish sitting less than a foot from his right hand. I carefully went around to the left side of him to tap him on his shoulder and gave him the old "there's a scorpionfish sitting right beside your hand" signal. He didn't seem to get it so I followed up with a "just carefully come towards me please before you get yourself poisoned" signal. He did come towards me but he still didn't seem to get what I was trying to say although he seemed quite grateful later when I explained it to him on the surface. He even gave me a cookie :)
So after the parrotfish we went back to the school of jackfish and swam through them. It was really awesome being completely surrounded by the fish as they swirled around. There is also a big school of barracuda at Sipadan which was at the time apparently just a little further down the reef. It would have been really awesome to swim with them. I spoke so some people who did and they just said it was an incredible experience being in this swirling vortex of barracuda. Oh well... maybe next time. Overall, Sipadan was really great!
So I have been trying to figure out how to spend the rest of my time here. I have Mount Kinabalu booked for the 15th and wanted to go see some orangutans up in Sandakan before going there. I had heard great things about Uncle Tan's for the orangutans and jungle trekking from everyone that passes through there so I booked with them. I've been told it's basically like summer camp but with beer. Can't wait!
After Uncle Tan's and the mountain I'll only have 4 days left in Borneo before catching my flight up to Singapore. I still haven't figured out what I'll do with that time but I might head south as there are supposed to be some spectacular caves down there. I'd also kind of like to pass through Brunei even if it's just for a few hours because I kind of want to get another stamp on my passport. I'll have to look into it all in the next few days and decide what to do. If all else fails I can always spend the time diving in KK! I feel like my vacation is coming to an end too fast, only two weeks left.
The first two dives of the day were strictly ok... I saw things that I hadn't seen before like grey reef sharks and white tip reef sharks but other than that the dives were just average. The third dive was spectacular! We went down to the Turtle Tomb and then along Drop Off and the scenery is simply amazing. It's a wall dive where the wall stretches down into the deep as far as you can see. It apparently goes down over 600m deep. Swimming along this wall as new scenes opened up in front of us as we went around every corner was just amazing! The wall was hanging with coral and on some little shelves you could find turtles resting. To our left we always kept a watch out to try to spot any rays that came by or if we were really lucky a hammerhead or whale shark. The divemaster did spot a devil ray and gave a bang on his tank while he waved urgently towards us. I took off after him and swam hard to catch a quick view of the ray as it sped by. Amazing!
Further along the wall we found a small school of barracudas playing in the current and then came upon a massive school of jackfish as well as a school of humphead parrotfish. The humpheads were great! They're pretty big fish (close to 1.5m long) and while they milled about chomping on the coral they looked kind of like a heard of buffalo.
While we waited and watched the parrotfish, one of the guys in our group put his hand down on a piece of coral to steady himself. As he did this I looked beside his hand and there was a big scorpionfish sitting less than a foot from his right hand. I carefully went around to the left side of him to tap him on his shoulder and gave him the old "there's a scorpionfish sitting right beside your hand" signal. He didn't seem to get it so I followed up with a "just carefully come towards me please before you get yourself poisoned" signal. He did come towards me but he still didn't seem to get what I was trying to say although he seemed quite grateful later when I explained it to him on the surface. He even gave me a cookie :)
So after the parrotfish we went back to the school of jackfish and swam through them. It was really awesome being completely surrounded by the fish as they swirled around. There is also a big school of barracuda at Sipadan which was at the time apparently just a little further down the reef. It would have been really awesome to swim with them. I spoke so some people who did and they just said it was an incredible experience being in this swirling vortex of barracuda. Oh well... maybe next time. Overall, Sipadan was really great!
So I have been trying to figure out how to spend the rest of my time here. I have Mount Kinabalu booked for the 15th and wanted to go see some orangutans up in Sandakan before going there. I had heard great things about Uncle Tan's for the orangutans and jungle trekking from everyone that passes through there so I booked with them. I've been told it's basically like summer camp but with beer. Can't wait!
After Uncle Tan's and the mountain I'll only have 4 days left in Borneo before catching my flight up to Singapore. I still haven't figured out what I'll do with that time but I might head south as there are supposed to be some spectacular caves down there. I'd also kind of like to pass through Brunei even if it's just for a few hours because I kind of want to get another stamp on my passport. I'll have to look into it all in the next few days and decide what to do. If all else fails I can always spend the time diving in KK! I feel like my vacation is coming to an end too fast, only two weeks left.
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