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Published: March 29th 2010
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Arrived to Paradise
Just after landing at Mabul Island. Day 1 of our dives. Semporna - the gateway to great dives!
Ok, Semporna, how can we describe it: Lush palm trees covering a boulevard, some sunny beaches (good for snorkeling), some eating places and couple of dive shops. So we arrive there with good hopes. But alas, reality is not the way as we just described it. The description was the imagination we had before arriving. Reality is a bit different: no palm trees, garbage floating in the water. Haven't seen a beach for miles and there are no dive shops.... Instead a small market under a concrete cover, some lego-style blocks of buildings and some dive operators who REALLY suggest you to go to a resort island: Not our budget. So we're at a rat invested floating resort right next to Semporna's shore where the showers are not reliable, but THE DIVES ARE GOOD.
5 islands in 4 days
We already booked a 3-day dive package from Bangkok, just to be sure we can fit into one of the Sipadan boats as places are limited. 120 permits per day. We gave ourselves 2 free days before the dives would start, just to enjoy the Semporna beach, but
Kids on the beach
Mabul is an island near Semporna, where a small gypsy village is located (besides the diving resort). These kids are locals having fun. as you could read above, this latter could not happen. So we bought an extra day of diving for some "warm-up bubbles".
First day we dove at Mabul and Kapalai Islands, nice place with lots of sunk boats and wooden house frames to inspect underwater. Schools of jack fish were floating around us and all the "typical stuff" was swimming around. Our second day was at Mantabuan Island. No, there were no manta rays there, but still, we had great dives around this beautiful island. However, the best of all was the first dive on Sipadan on day 3.
Once more: 4 days of diving, with 3 dives each day. Out of these 4 days, one day really stands out: Sipadan Island - one of the top 10 dive spots in the world. Wow, 1-2 meter white tip sharks, 3-5 meter reef sharks, loads of huge green turtles (including a couple of them engaged in procreation - well done guys, this is important for the future!), nudybranches, eagle rays, barracuda vortex, a group of huge hump head parrot fish chewing loudly on dead corals, color changing octopuses and our own private pet who visited us during lunch time:
ERA Plongee here you go!
One more sticker lodged, this time at Sipadan Scuba in Semporna. a huge, slimy lizard. Really, this place is like a wild underwater zoo. You don't even have to descend, just look down underneath you through your mask and you can see them floating below you! So non-diver, don't worry, snorkeling is also wonderful here!
We don't have underwater photos yet, but this will follow in the next blog entry, as a nice Dutch guy promised us to share his photos. Just be patient!
Today was our last diving day, this time in Sibuan Island. A beautiful island again, loads of lion fish, crocodile fish, nudybranches and harlequin sweetlips. And to top all of that: a banded water snake was curling around us posing for photos. Later on we found out this is one of the most venomous snakes, but thanks God it only bites rarely when it's extremely annoyed. We kept the distance, so it was fine.
Tomorrow we leave this underwater paradise, try to give an other chance to see wildlife in the jungle. You might remember, we were not so lucky in the forest in India. So for now, enjoy the photos!
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