Day: November 23, 2007

This is not your typical “frogfish on a rock” photo.

And who would have thought frogfishes could fly???

The day started early.

At 5am I was already up. But the winds were strong. Somehow, some of us (yours truly included) were adamant to get to Sipadan. After 20 minutes, it dawned upon us that the boat had not left the Mabul area…waves were around 2.5m – 3m high. In the end the boatman himself suggested we dive elsewhere: so when the boatman suggests, all will have to agree.

So we dived at Seaventures. The visibility was bad as the waves had churned up all the muck. But I managed to make a Frogfish (Anglerfish) fly, took photos of some nudibranch, and Chevron Barracudas. I was the last to surface, and when I did, the boat wasn’t there anymore. Apparently the guys were already seasick while waiting for me to surface so the boat sent them back to the resort first.

Went back to the resort, had breakfast, then we all went into the meeting room, played a DVD…and slept in the nice air-conditioned meeting room…all 10 of us.

After lunch we left for Sipadan. A journey that should have taken us 20 minutes became 50 minutes in total. First dive was at Barracuda Point. Upon descent, I knew the current was strong and would have swept us into the blue (yeah…the bottom there is around 600 meters). So I let all air out of my BCD and caught hold of a rock. Just then a school of Chevron Barracudas passed by and I managed to capture the scene on both still and video. There were a few sharks that I gave chase but I was wasting air fighting the current. In the end, Calvin, Ae, Min and I drifted along the edge of the drop-off. Down there, it was pitch black. 600 meters below of nothing. The death zone.

Surface interval was at the old Borneo Divers station on Sipadan. We did a photo session with the group from SWV.

After the surface interval, some of the divers wanted to see the schooling Jacks. It was off the drop-off at the beginning of Barracuda point. I went down, initially to 25 meters…but the Jacks were going even deeper, and for me to get a good shot, I had to go even deeper. In the end, I could hear the ringing in my ears as it was almost pitch black, and totally silent. I was at the 40-meter mark. That is my heaven. Very soon, the dive computer beeped a warning that my no-decompression limit was fast running out. I signalled to Kapal Selam who was above me to ascend and level off at 20-meters but it was too late. We were already in a decompression dive mode. So I led the way, mentally calculating the decompression stops needed to be completed.. Suddenly at around 25 meters, I saw this shark beneath an overhand, stationary. I signalled to Kapal Selam again. We spent time taking photos there. In the end, by the time we cleared the 9-meter mark, and the decompression sign on my dive computer disappeared. Still I continued with the 6m and 3m stops, spending longer times as we got shallower. There were lots of Batfishes…all docile…and I swam amongst them that I bumped into some of them..and they didn’t flinch much.

Anyway, I’ll let you guys read the rest of the report later. I’m busy diving and have no time to really write. Enjoy the following photos:

Chevron Barracudas

Batfish