Advertisement
Published: July 26th 2008
Edit Blog Post
Mabul
The view. KK and BK
We arrived late in Kota Kinabalu. I was starving . . . since all I had eaten that day was some bread and jam in Macau. Once we finally found a place to stay--many places were booked up . . . I guess it's travel season for Europeans, we went hunting for a place to eat. The only places open for business at nearly midnight were KFC and Burger King. I'm sure you can guess what we ate . . . Burger King got our business. After dinner, we wandered around the town a little bit looking to see what was going on--too bad it was really late and there wasn't too much to see at that time of night. It seemed nice anyway. The next morning, we took a flight from KK to Tawau. Luckily, we found a van/mini-bus/taxi ride to Semporna where we would then take a boat to our little island of Mabul.
Mabul . . . 2,000 People 2 Little Space
When we finally arrived in Mabul, we were ready to lay out at the beach. After a quick lunch, we headed to the nearest beach. The water was everything we had hoped for--crystal
Sipadan
Another amazing turtle! clear and warm as bath water. It was fantastic! We laid on the beach all afternoon. When evening came, we went for a little walk around the island. We found out that about 2,000 locals are living in shacks and shambles around the island--mostly on houses extended on tall stilts over the water . . . like a tree house but minus the trees add the ocean. A third of the island is taken up by 4-star resorts, while the other two-thirds are guesthouses surrounded by the ghetto. We, of course, stayed in the guesthouse ghetto, but we traveled daily to the resort hotel side of the island to lay on the clean, quiet beach. For a pretty nice price, the guesthouse provided all of our meals . . . which was good, though we really only ate rice and jam with bread for about 4 1/2 days--though, the one vegetable there was a plethora of eggplant . . . nice and soggy--just the way Billy likes it. Oh, and we did have our pick of watermelon at most every meal, so that was a bright light at the end of a long rice tunnel.
Attack of the Puffer Fish
Mabul
Sunset On Sunday, we made two dives. First, we went to a part of Mabul Island where there are sunken ships and sunken docks where millions of fish and sea life have made their home. It was so fun, because I had a Puffer Fish encounter. There was this puffer fish that was about 12 to 15 inches long. As we swam by, he didn't swim away--which is what most fish do . . . avoid the giant divers. This puffer fish just swam closer to us and kind of looked at us like he was checking us out a little bit. Then he got way too close to me. I didn't want to run into it, so I tried to swim a little bit away from him. That way, I could get a good look at him without running him over. As I moved away, I bumped him a bit with my flipper . . . he got furious and swam at my flipper and bit it! That scared me, because as he bit, I saw his little teeth and figured he might be able to take a good bite out of my finger or leg. So, I lost sight
Sipadan
Diving at Barracuda Point. of him, but I still tried to swim away to get some distance between us. Little did I know, that I whacked him right upside the head with my flipper as I was moving away from him. That made him even more furious . . . luckily, our divemaster had a little metal rod, and she used it to whack the puffer fish to get him to chase after her. He did . . . then he saw Billy and decided that Billy needed to get some of his "attack" action. He swam at Billy, and Billy whacked him upside the head with his flipper to get him to swim away, and the puffer fish got the idea and swam off. It was so funny! All three of us were laughing so hard. About 5 minutes later, we were looking at a variety of fish in one of the sunken docks when . . . low and behold, here comes Mr. Puffer Fish looking for another fight. He swam right up to my face level . . . about 2 feet away from me and just stared at me. The divemaster looked at me and signaled that he was after
Mabul
At low tide . . . such a cool palm tree. me! We all started laughing again and swam away to find something else to fight with. That dive, we saw: a HUGE school of jack fish circling to protect themselves from a couple of barracudas, an angry puffer fish, a box fish, a crocodile fish, and a million colorful and neon fish small and large alike. It was a great dive, but little did we know that the best was yet to come! Our second dive that day was at Lobster Wall. This dive was at a coral wall that dropped off deep to the ocean floor. Here we saw our first sea turtles. It was incredible! We swam with nearly 10 turtles and of course, a zillion colorful fish. It was really fun.
Scuba Time with Billy and Tasha--Featuring Sharks & Turtles
On Monday, we went on two more dives and one fantastic snorkeling trip. This time, we went to Sipadan Island. Before 2005, there were several resorts and guesthouses that occupied this beautiful island. Now, it's a national marine park, and it's preserved for it's wildlife. Which means, no one is allowed to stay on the island and mess up the beautiful surroundings. Also, only 120 divers are
Semporna
Billy and the sea turtle. allowed to visit per day, which also prevents it from being too crowded. Our first dive was at Coral Gardens. This is a coral wall that drops into the ocean down to the bottom at 600 meters--that's nearly 2,000 feet for you Americans. We, however, did not dive down that far! This dive had some amazing coral, colorful fish, and of course, an easy current with which we floated and meandered to view all of the incredible sights. Our next adventure was the most amazing snorkeling at the Hanging Gardens. This bunch of coral was so full of life and color, I have never seen anything like it while snorkeling! You almost didn't even need to dive here. We saw--up close and personal--every kind of fish imaginable. We saw 5 to 6 sea turtles and swam with them for a while and even a couple of sharks . . . white tip reef sharks. One fish--I have no idea what it was--was HUMONGOUS! It was the biggest fish I have ever seen in real life. It was at least 6 feet long and nearly 3 to 4 feet wide . . . fat with big lips! I was amazed. I
Mabul
Inscription couldn't take my eyes off of it. I stared at it until it swam out of eye sight. Our last dive was at Barracuda Point. Here we took our underwater camera--Kodak disposable . . .which is why the pictures aren't really as colorful as they were in real life. We drifted down a nice current and saw at least 10 sharks--whitetip and blacktip. We also got really close to and swam with some giant sea turtles. We probably could have reached out and grabbed on to their shells, but we have to let the wildlife touch us--we don't touch the wildlife . . . according to our divemaster. I saw a lion fish . . . which is a very poisonous fish. It was beautiful! We really enjoyed our dives, and we were lucky to see many wonderful and beautiful creatures of the sea. The diving in Borneo is incredible and the snorkeling is top notch. Our trip was worth every effort to get there.
Final Day and Heading Home--to Bangkok
On our last day, we spent more time at the beach . . . getting a suntan and reading our books. Billy did a little snorkeling around the beach,
Mabul
The building in the center is a dive station where you can stay as well. We did not. and he found a few starfish and one little invisible fish that hides by blending in with the white sand on the ocean floor. It was a relaxing day . . . not unlike the previous 3 we had spent there on the islands. At the end of the day, we took a boat ride back to Semporna and began the long trip from Borneo to Bangkok.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.127s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 11; qc: 50; dbt: 0.0654s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Christi Willson
non-member comment
Puffer Fish
What a gorgeous place. I LOL at your puffer fish experience. Oh my! You are brave. What an incredible journey you are taking. Awwwww