I ran a temperature the night before, that I lost the appetite to eat. The things that made me happy were the SMS to and from Wifey, being able to hear her voice, and the thought of another day of diving around Mabul.
The day began with another dive beneath Seaventures. While the boat was being tied to a mooring line, I managed to exchange waves with Lianah from Borneo Divers, my dive guide during the Celebes Safari back in November 2007. There was a slight surface current, but once I slipped beneath the waves, it was calm.
I was greeted by a school of Jacks, and the usual Abudefdufs, and I smiled thinking how Wifey would be cursing had she seen them. Then I noticed something on the sandy bottom – a discarded toilet bowl. I quickly motioned for Kimi to come closer and take my camera, as I had to have this shot of me sitting on the toilet bowl underwater; something I have always wanted to do underwater.
Then I went to the sea fan where I took some shots of the Pygmy Seahorse, and waited for my turn as there already were some cameramen doing their shots. Then I saw some of them went to take photos of something crawling on the sand; it was a Blue-Ring Octopus, probably one of the most poisonous animals on Earth. I took some shots of it before Lee, the second dive guide, signalled to me that he was going to surface with Aznan and Spena, and wanted me to buddy with Kimi. Then, some 20 divers from a nearby resort descended upon the sea fan and sand and silt just hung there, clouding the visibility. All of them rushed and elbowed each other to get an opportunity to take a photo of the Pygmy Seahorse, which, by then, I was sure, was smothered by the amount of sand these divers had kicked and disturbed. With the visibility gone bad, Kimi and I had no choice but to cut short our dive and surface.
We did a long surface-interval as Johnny, the other dive guide, suggested that we do our second dive after lunch. As I was still feeling feverish, I looked for a masseur. I know I fell asleep while being massaged.
The second dive was at Eels Garden, while the third was at Paradise 2. Renek lost his mask at Eels Garden after surfacing due to a common mistake divers do. The visibility at Paradise 2 wasn’t that good but I enjoyed the dive, especially when I happily snapped away at this half-asleep Green Sea Turtle. Huge mother!
I had fever again soon after surfacing and slept again before waking up in time for dinner. The rest of the night was spent lying down on the jetty watching the millions of stars in the sky above us.
And I was always thinking of Wifey then…
SeaDemon Says 