November 21, 2007 – SeaDemon Says

This morning we were supposed to do a dawn dive at Sipadan.

Last night’s storm created by the tropical depression over Palawan has caused strong winds to blow all day long and we faced 3-meter waves on the way out. We had to abort Sipadan and dived at Seaventures instead.

We took a 6-hour break before attempting Sipadan again. This time the waves were around 2.5m and a journey that would normally take 20 minutes, became a 50-minute back-breaking, ass-numbing journey to Sipadan.

The tropical depression, has now become a full-blown tropical storm (one category below a typhoon, but already designated a name to it in case it picks up speed and power). Below is the update received from the Malaysian Meteorological Department:

THIRD CATEGORY WARNING
WARNING ON STRONG WINDS AND ROUGH SEAS

1) THIRD CATEGORY WARNING – WARNING ON STRONG WINDS AND ROUGH SEAS (Updated on 21 Nov 2007, 12.30 pm)
A Tropical Storm (23W) Hagibis has been detected near latitude 9.6 degrees North and longitude 115.5 degrees East at 11.00 am, 21 November 2007, approximately 176 km northwest of Punta Harbour(Palawan), Phillipines. It has tracked westwards at 28 kmph.

In this connection, strong southwesterly winds from 60 kmph and rough sea with wave height up to 5.5 meter over the coastal waters of Sabah are expected to persist till Sunday, 25 November 2007.

This condition of strong winds and rough seas is dangerous to all coastal and shipping activities including workers on oil platform.

2) SECOND CATEGORY WARNING – WARNING ON STRONG WINDS AND ROUGH SEAS (Updated on 19 Nov 2007, 9.00 am)

Strong southwesterly winds of 50-60 kmph and rough seas with waves up to 4.5 metres over the coastal waters of Sarawak are expected to persist till Sunday, 25 November 2007.

This condition of strong winds and rough seas is dangerous to all shipping and coastal activities including fishing and ferry services.

3) FIRST CATEGORY WARNING – WARNING ON STRONG WINDS AND ROUGH SEAS (Updated on 21 Nov 2007, 12.30 pm)

SECTION A

The strong northeasterly winds of 40-50 kmph and rough seas with waves up to 3.5 metres over the coastal waters of Kelantan, Terengganu , Pahang and East Johore are expected to persist till Sunday, 25 November 2007.

This condition of strong winds and rough seas is dangerous to small crafts, recreational sea activities and sea sports.

SECTION B

The strong northwesterly winds of 40-50 kmph and rough seas with waves up to 3.5 metres over the coastal waters of Straits Of Malacca is expected to persist till Friday, 23 November 2007.

This condition of strong winds and rough seas is dangerous to small crafts, recreational sea activities and sea sports.

Here is a satellite image of the storm:

courtesy of Malaysian Meteorological Department

If the winds are that strong, I won’t be able to leave this island.

DAY ONE

The day began with Woren76 arriving at Puduraya and I picked him up for him to bunk over at my place. At 4.30am we left the house for the LCCT, stopping at the Dengkil Southbound R&R for an early breakfast at 5.00am. Our flight departed KUL at 7.20am. Woren76 and I slept throughout the flight, waking up only once due to a bad weather announcement from the lead purser. I woke up some 20 minutes before arrival at Tawau. Once we have picked up our luggages, we were met at the Arrival Hall exit by Jamal, a Borneo Divers staff, and were told that there is another diver called Sharon who should be on the same flight. We met Sharon a few minutes later and left Tawau for an hour and a half journey to Semporna. We were also told that we had miss the first boat and the next boat to Mabul would be at 4.00pm.

We got to Semporna close to noon and had lunch at the Pearl City Floating Restaurant and stayed there until 2.00pm before making way to the only pharmacy in town (Guardian seems to be everywhere nowadays sans on-duty pharmacist). At 3.00pm, Sharon and I decided to while the time away by going for a half hour foot reflexology session. it was good and cheap. At 3.30pm, we made our way back to Borneo Divers’ Semporna office. It was only at 4.20pm that we boarded our boat out.

We arrived at 5.00pm, where Kapal Selam and the Borneo Divers staff were waiting for us, and were told to join them for the 5.30pm Sunset Dive at Paradise 1. We quickly went to register, then went to our respective room (Woren76 is my room-mate), quickly changed, carried our dive equipment onto the boat and dived at Paradise 2.

I struggled with my buoyancy as my new wetsuit’s far too positively buoyant, and also struggled with the settings of the new Nikon Coolpix P5100 as well as a positively buoyant Fantasea FP5000 underwater housing (previously I used the negatively buoyant Nikon WP-CP2 underwater housing for my Nikon Coolpix 4200 camera). I also struggled to take a close-up of a Painted Flutemouth (Aulostomus chinensis) – my bad for not reading through the camera’s manual before actually taking it out for a photo shootout. Anyway, I got a long shot of it.

Then I saw the photographers crowding a particular coral formation because of a very shy Mandarinfish (Synchiropus speldidus). While waiting for them to try to get a shot of this creature, I spotted a instant Nescafe wrapper and took a photo of it instead. After several minutes of waiting, the photographer group left the area. I moved into their place and waited. And the waiting paid off. The Mandarinfish came out. In the darkness, I fired my camera away hoping to get at least a good shot of it. After that, I saw Kapal Selam trying to shoot a black-coloured Striped Frogfish/Anglerfish (Antennarius nummifer). After he was done, I tried, using both auto-focus and macro. It was so difficult for the focus lock to lock onto something black in a black background. I wish I had a black-coloured slate to do a…err…white (black?) balance. Anyway, I took a long-shot of it just to make sure and it was the only shot that came out okay.

I left that shallow depth and made it down to 12 meters when something bumped into me. At first glance it was something creamy in colour, and very huge, with a Remora (Remora remora) attached to its underbelly. It happened to be a Green Turtle (Chelonia mydas japonica). I gave it a chase trying hard to photograph it…but the camera insisted on taking its time to fire away. It was always a two-second delay. Anyway, once it went deeper, I stopped chasing it.

After 54 minutes, I ended my dive, my buoyancy getting worse and I was no longer enjoying myself. Went back to the room, showered and had dinner at 7.30pm.

Tomorrow, we will be doing 3 dives at Sipadan starting with a dawn dive at 5.30am. So breakfast will be on the island during surface interval. Come back for lunch and then do a dive at Kapalai. I hope to also do a night dive at Paradise 2, which would be a wall dive, excellent for night dive.

Excess Baggage