Blogs from Mabul, Sabah, Malaysia, Asia
August 6th 2011
I first heard about the islands of the Celebes Sea from a scuba instructor at Eco Dive Center a few months ago. He told me it was the best diving in the world. Sipidan and Mabul are the kind of places that are really hard to find on the map, which is exactly why I wanted to go. It is the most remote place I’ve ever been. We flew into Tawau Malaysia Sabah Borneo. Which has one run way upon which the plane makes a U-turn to get back to the single gate airport. Then a Scuba Junkies driver took us to the dive shop in Semporna. Then we had to wait for a boat that could take us out to Mabul which is normally a 45 minute ride but there was a storm and the ... read more
August 5th 2011
So, with the hostel being a little on the noisy side at night, and with us having to be up for the taxi at 4am, we only managed about 2 hours sleep each. The perils of this kind of travelling but nevermind, sleep when you're dead and all that jazz! Still, the night guard at the hostel had put breakfast out for us - which was very nice of him - and the taxi driver was already outside the hostel, asleep. Needless to say he never really fully woke up. The journey to the airport invovled a lot of talking to him at a substantially increased volume, to ensure he stayed awake. Hairy doesn't quite cover the one or two moments of "drift" that occurred on the monotonous motorway section. At the airport, check in was ... read more
August 4th 2011
The alarm was set for a little later on for today (7am) as there is no deadline on Mabul or Kapalai for registering divers like there is on Sipadan. Breakfast out the way (I'm going to miss a morning of all you can eat fresh food like that) and then off to Kapalai which is a collection of raised huts in the middle of the sea with no actual visible land. We didn't hire a camera for this one so no underwater photos this time. Apparently there had been a storm over night (even with the immense pain of the sunburn, we still didn't wake up for it) so the air was noticeably cooler, the water was significantly colder and the visibility was considerably worse. Thankfully (?) though, Kapalai and Mabul are famous for their macro ... read more
August 3rd 2011
So once again, an early start. This time 5am arrived and we were up and ready before the sun came up. We were going diving at Sipadan, so we needed to be ready to go at 6 - they only have a set number of permits to dive the area a day and you have one registered to you personally so your name is assigned one the day before so if you don't go, you still pay for the permit. As we descended on the rig's lift, the sun was beginning to peek over the edge of the horizon and as we approached the registration point on the island itself, the sun was shining quite brightly in the sky. The first dive off the boat was calm and we saw numerous tropical fishies. We were also ... read more
March 27th 2011
Just a few kilometres off the coast of Semporna is one of Sabah's most impressive and newest marine parks. It includes places such as Pulau Sipidan which is classed as one of the best dive sites in the world. Dave had organised for us to stay on nearby Mabul Island with Scuba Junkies, as it provided us with a great base to explore the islands. However a few weeks prior to our arrival... It burnt to the ground! We were quickly offered a few options in the form of nearby Longhouses which are large, basic, wooden guesthouses on stilts. When we arrived, ours could definitely be described as basic. For 80MR per person per night (£16) we had all meals included, a private bathroom (woo hoo!), dribbly cold shower, electric at certain times of the day, ... read more
January 24th 2011
Today was a free day with nothing planned for any of us. We decided to go snorkeling around the island to check out the shallow reefs. Matt had done some snorkelling earlier but on a worse day. We first headed to lobster lookout which is a pretty good reef with a drop off. We snorkeled along the top of the dropoff for a while and eventually Matt got way ahead. We found out after about 10 minutes that actually James and I were way behind. The boat driver was waving at us to hurry it up and keep up as we were snorkeling in a group of around 8 people. We saw some cool fish and corals and I was taking underwater pics with the camera. Unfortunately I couldn't find any o the massive turtles that ... read more
January 23rd 2011
I woke up today expecting to dive in the afternoon. My instructor was just finishing a course in the morning so I was to start after lunch. I did some of the boring paper book work in the morning then James, Matt and I set out looking for a beach to relax on. I ended up at the Internet place while they left for a beach. There was a bit of a rain spell just before lunch so we all ended up back at the hut. After lunch I got some bad news as my instructor was feeling sick so I couldn't start the diving. I ended up finishing most of the book work instead and we chilled on the docks.... read more
January 23rd 2011
I woke up early this morning hoping my instructor was good to go. Turns out he was so we did about an hour of briefing then headed out at 9:00 for my first dive. I was kind of lucky as no one else had signed up to start the course on the same day so I was solo with the instructor. The first dive is mostly learning skills for diving in shallow water. Luckily I was he only one so it went really quickly. We finished up in about 10 minutes so we spent the rest of the dive actually diving. It is one of the coolest things I have ever done. I'm hooked already. After our dive we headed back in to the dock where I had a quick turnaround to head out again for ... read more
