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Published: March 19th 2007
Evening folks. First things first - Happy Mothers Day Ma and Rosalinda (mother-in-law) and Happy St Patricks Day to all the Irish and non-Irish Guinness drinkers out there.
We're still in beautiful Borneo enjoying our last few days in Asia before we hit Australia. I think Malaysian Borneo is now up as my favourite country so far - quality place. We've spent a little more than planned but it's all been worth it.
We were feeling a little delicate after the last blog due to our climbing exploits so we needed to take it a little easy. That meant having a small lie in and then heading to the airport for our flight to Sandakan (7 quid each - bargain). Landed and jumped straight in the oldest looking taxi we have ever seen. It was almost as old as the grey haired guy driving but not quite.
Went straight to the Sepilok Jungle Resort (at the orangutan sanctuary) where Vincent had booked us a room. Except he hadn't. He had been too pissed to remember. Not to worry as they had plenty of room. Dumped the bags and managed to make the afternoon feeding time.
Now, we
were on a mission. A friend of the family (Yvonne) has a monkey and he lives at Sepilok. I had promised to go and say hello whilst in the vicinity. His name is Etin. We called his name over and over but to no avail. He is not listed on the board as being a resident. Yvonne, you'll have to check that he hasn't been shipped out elsewhere or been expelled for some form on unsavoury monkey business.
The good news is that we did see a familiar face - Rosalinda. "Hi Mum" Mrs Deane called out as she tucked into some bananas. This would be the ideal place to put some jokes in about mother in laws but as it is Mothers Day that would be a little unfair.
Anyway, the monkeys were great. Feeding time was due to start at 3pm and the warm up was the Macaque monkeys. Quite a few of them swung onto the platform and began fighting and get up to a little adult entertainment (much to the amusement of the crowd - apart from those with children present). And then the trainers came out with a couple of baby orangutans and
started handing out the bananas. We thought that might be it but all of a sudden about another dozen started swinging in for bananas.
They were all about 10 yards away and were brilliant entertainment eating bananas and trying to fend off the pesky macaques. Next up a mother and baby swung in for bananas and just when we thought the fun was all ending - the Daddy turned up. His name is Mr G and he is enormous. He took a bunch of bananas that would have taken me a month to eat and just scooped them up in his feet. He then swung to a nearby tree to eat them all and survey his kingdom. All the other monkeys seemed really afraid of him.
To summarise, Yvonne - the monkeys here seem to be in good hands (although your monkey doesn't appear to be here).
Next up? Something you might not have guessed that Mrs Deane would fancy doing again.
Firstly though, we had to get there. A lovely 6 hour bus journey down to Semporna and over to Lee's Guesthouse where Vincent had booked us a room. Except he hadn't. He had been
too pissed to remember. Not to worry as they had plenty of room.
Now, all you folks at home must have thought that Mrs Deane didn't like diving? Incorrect. We are now both Advanced Open Water Divers having done our next PADI course and spent 3 brilliant days diving.
We wandered down to North Borneo Divers where Vincent had booked our 3 days diving. Except he hadn't. He had been too pissed to remember. Not to worry as they had plenty of room for us on their boats.
Vincent had booked us a couple days diving sandwiched around a day on the beach snorkelling but seen as he hadn't actually made the booking we were soon talked into doing 3 full days including completing our Advanced course on the first two days. This would mean 5 skill dives so that we would be much more confident and able to head down to 30m. Mrs Deane was very much up for it (must have forgotten the trauma of a few weeks previous).
Just when we had sorted all our bookings out and who should appear? Vincent. Turns out we would be diving with him for the next
two days. Just as crazy as ever and before we know it he's already through his first two beers.
Our first day of diving was at Sibuan, probably the most beautiful & picturesque tropical island we've ever been to. It was only small and had a thin strip of sand about 3m wide that drifted out into the sea. The water was clearer than a swimming pool and really warm. We were diving with Lien ( claims she's Belgian but we don't believe her - she speaks more English than we do) and Gerrard (Irish guy) as well as crazy Vincent.
Dive 1 was the deep water dive. No messing and straight down to 30m to check for nitrogen narcossis. At about this depth it can feel like you've had a couple of beers so you do a couple quick calculations on the surface and underwater and compare times. Both fine although Mrs Deane struggled with the 1 + 1 bit. Then off round the reef. Stunning with loads to see including some cool frogfish. At one point Mrs Deane got very excited about something. I swam over and she eagerly pointed out a stick fish. I shook
my head and left her looking at.... a stick.
Dive 2 was a navigation dive so naturally us pair got a little lost and missed our bearings a little. Found ourselves again and were fine after that and headed out over the reef again. In between dives we were just chilling on the stunning beach and burning slowly (or quickly in my case).
Dive 3 wasn’t part of the course and we just headed out to a different area and back somersaulted off the boat and into the water. Quality dive as we saw our first two green turtles - really gracefully swimming right past us and also another familiar face - Ray. Blue spotted stingray to be precise. Just glided past us as we said hi.
It was time to say goodbye to Sibuan and head back. When we got back we were told about a night dive. Big surprise to us but in for a penny, in for a pound. Hung round for an hour or two as the sun went down and then headed out. Donned our gear and grabbed torches and jumped in. Couldn’t see a thing in the murky water at first
so Mrs Deane thought better of it and hopped back out. I persevered and descended down. After a couple navigation bits we headed off to the reef. Totally different in the eerie torch light but definitely worth a gander. Didn’t see as much marine life but still worth doing.
Day 2 and we were off to Kapalai and Mabul islands to finish off our advanced course. First up was a wreck dive as we swam all round about a dozen sunken fishing boats. Really cool. Second dive was a drift dive which is totally relaxing as you just sit in the current and float past the reef wall. Saw more turtles and loads of big colourful fish (we know loads of the names now but there were just too many to mention). Personal favourites were crocodile fish, scorpionfish and stonefish (unfortunately no toadfish or flathead).
After the second dive we saw something we haven’t seen since Hue in Vietnam (over two months). It started to rain. And it kept raining. And then it poured. The heavens opened and didn’t stop for the next 30 hours. Proper torrential. Crazy that the sea was warmer than the boat.
Final
dive of the day was a fun dive for most of us except Mrs Deane. As she had skipped the night dive she had to do a Fish ID dive. She got given a slate and had to record all the fish she saw on our dive. It was round the base of an oil rig and there was loads of things to see. The highlight was spotting a mimic octopus just behind a rock.
Came back to the surface to really choppy waters and more torrential rain. Wanted to go back down but it was back to base for us. Freezing on the way back. Tom (our instructor) reminded us that we had a few knowledge reviews to do which cheered us up. Got back to our guesthouse and filled them in while toasting St Patrick with a Guinness (foreign extra so 8%). Very nice. Then it was down to the dive shop for a bbq with all our fellow divers. Beautiful steak and chicken satay and loads of other bits.
Final day diving was the big 1. Sipadan. One of the top 5 dive sites in the world. Not quite sure why they allowed us to
dive but we weren’t complaining. More rain and lots of it but it didn’t take away from the day. We did 3 dives and saw about 50 huge green turtles, about 15 sharks (white tipped reef sharks and grey reef sharks) as well as huge bumphead parrotfish and a school of over 500 big barracudas. At one point we were sat in the middle of them and it was brilliant. Got within a yard of one of the sharks and some of the turtles were close enough to touch as they swam past.
The reef here is probably one of the most amazing places we have ever been. More marine life than you could shake a stick fish at. About 50 yards from the island the reef just drops off deep into the ocean and you float down the wall and are just surrounded by colour and big & small fish. The only minor problem is that we don’t have an underwater camera so can’t do it justice. You’ll have to google it and have a look.
If anyone is planning on coming out here bring a digital camera with an underwater housing unit and you won’t regret
it.
So, we’re now advanced divers and all ready to hit some of the other dive sites on our travels in Oz, NZ and Fiji. In the evening we celebrated with the others and a few glasses of red wine (after finding somewhere with a glass for less than a quid).
Today’s just been a 6 hour bus back to Sepilok and another visit to see the orangutans feeding. Not so many this time but still really cool. We’ll see them once more tomorrow morning and then it’s a flight to Johor Bahru and then a skip over the border to Singapore. We’ll be down under before you can say Rolf Harris and Skippy the Kangaroo.
Bye for now. Mrs Deane says “Bubble, bubble, bubble”
Dave & Mrs Deane
P.S. Vincent's heart is definitely in the right place and he's still made it a quality stay in Borneo despite his admin faux pas so don't let that put you off staying with Tropicana Lodge.
Beer 36: Skol, Malaysia, Can, 5%, 6.5, Not the crap version served in England but not much better
Beer 37: Bali Hai, Indonesia, Can, 5%, 6.5, no more Malaysian
beers around so we’re sampling some of the neighbouring countries. Ok but nothing better than Skol.
Beer 38: Andaman Gold, Burma, Can, 5%, 7.0, not too shabby and pretty cheap.
Beer 39: Guinness Foreign Extra, Ireland, Bottle, 8%, 8.5, excellent. Nothing beats a drop of the black stuff on St Paddy’s day especially if its supercharged foreign stuff.
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Sara
non-member comment
TV mention
Hi - think they were showing your mountain climb and monkey trip on some BBC1 Holiday prog the other day here, sure i recognised their description of the trip from your blog, watching the sunset, climbing overnight, monkey place etc . Didnt see the first part of the prog though, where they actually explained where they were, which may have been helpful! But good timing eh! Rest assured that the bloke presenter looked equally knackered as you said you were feeling, by the end of it! I was looking out in the background of all the shots, for a Peter-Andre lookalike with long flowing curls, and a dark-haired girl in a balaclava, but to no avail, unfortunately... Look forward to seeing the pics of diving xx