Advertisement
Published: November 1st 2008
Edit Blog Post
I remember (when I was a boy) sitting at home watching David Attenborough doing documentries on the wildlife in Borneo and remember thinking it was a world away from our own and somewhere totally inaccessible!!!! BUT thanks to Air Asia they make it possible for Budget folk like us to explore these far wild reaches.
Our main reason for coming here was the diving (we saw a picture of the marine life at Sipadan way before we began saving to come away and decided it would be one place we would love to visit!)
Nic - We arrived, totally exhausted at 4am after a momouth journey. It began with our night in the airport, followed by a day of walking in circles to kill time, before an overnight bus which arrived in the empty and scruffy town of Semporna - the base for our underwater adventures....2 nights without sleep, and we were going slightly potty!
We'd originally booked 3 dives a day, for 3 days but we enjoyed ourselves so much and it was so good that we stretched our budget to add an extra day...ooopppss!! We also hired a camera from the dive centre, so all the
pics you see here are ours!
The diving over the first couple of day was AMAZING, and we could understand why this area is renound as being one of the best in the world. We visited one island called Mantabuan which is rarely visited, and as a result the corals were pristine with no damage at all - we could never have imagined such beauty before these dives!! The only problem with this days diving was the emergence of millions of small jellyfish, which unfortunately we hadn't noticed before jumping in the water!.....oooouuuuuuuch!!!
The peak of this trip was our days diving to the marine national park of Palau Sipadan - a limestone pinnacle rising 600m from the seabed and producing a tropical, white sandy island on the surface - almost paradise itself! As a result of it's rich marine life, the island which was once an exclusive beach resort, has now been declared a protected area and permits must be obtained before visiting (no longer a resort either!) There is a massive military presence here for this reason and also because approximately 8 yrs ago a group of tourists were kidnapped by PIRATES!
So our first
dive at Sipadan was totally awe inspiring: White tip reef sharks, Grey reef sharks, a massive wall of Baraccuda - too many to see through, a huge shoal of massive bumphead parrot fish and too many turtles to count....plus all the other amazing things that we'd seen in previous dives. I really thought it couldn't get better than this!!!
A SPECIAL DIVE!!!!.......
We eagerly anticipated our second dive, and couldn't wait for our surface interval to be over and jumped in as soon as we were able. Again we went down to 30m, the deepest you can safely dive without special equipment. We were surrounded again by sharks and turtles and when Dan pulled on my fin to hold us back from the group I gladly obliged in order to spend longer with these amazing creatures. When after a few seconds he tugged on my fin again, I became quite agitated and was about to turn and pull the reg' out of his mouth, only to find him hovering there with a small box and inside a NICE SPARKLY RING!!!!!!!! He gave me the underwater question of "OK?" and I replied with the massivest of smiles and the
biggest "OK" I could, before snatching the box from him (after realising the ring wasn't secured) and stuffing it in my pocket so that it didn't drop into the blackness of the 600+M below!!!!!
Dan - I had that ring hidden in my backpack for 8 months and was proud that I managed to keep it a secret!, Very relieved that she said yes we shared a kiss (Not encouraging people to remove their air supply 30m under the water!!) and held hands while we swam along for a bit..........Then for some reason Nic decided to feel her pocket to check the ring box was still there and started to have some kind of a panic LIKE A REALLY BAD PANIC!!! Hysterically patting all her BCD pockets and with SHIT loads of air coming from her reg. She luckily managed to find the ring box at the back of the pocket tucked away by her tank and started to calm down!!!!!!!! Strangely I would not have minded in the slightest as it was soooo funny to watch the panic set in!!!!!!
Nic - Yeah ha ha!!...well, it wasn't funny at the time, I thought "I've waited far too
long for this, I can't have lost it already!!!" and just for any other divers info - It's really difficult to cry underwater and you use far too much air!!!
Our third dive was pretty uneventful after all this (but still amazing, I think we're getting greedy!!) and after a quick shower we headed out for dinner and treated ourselves to a litre of Red wine - our first drink for a VERY long time!!!
Dan - So from here we head to Sipalok to hang out with some Orangutans and who knows from there onwards.!!!
Us
xxxxxxxxx
Advertisement
Tot: 0.172s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 18; qc: 106; dbt: 0.1359s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb
Andreas (from Don Det)
non-member comment
That is so cool !!!
Congratulations to you ! I'm so happy for you. Can't imagine a better way to ask the question. You're making a wonderful couple ! And by the way, the pictures are awesome, can't believe I was just diving in Koh Tao, definitely have to go there too, some day. So enjoy your trip and keep the blog going, It's always nice reading it, while just having the everyday life and studying at home at the moment. Love :) Andy