SeaDemon Says

The sunburst of life…
back here I’m lonely
and dead

I miss Sipadan

I miss diving

I miss tranquility

I miss my sanity

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

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

Rotate

Landing time…zam zam alakazam!

Woren76 with the aircraft

Woren76 and Sharon surfing the menu

Killing time by having reflexology

Sailing

My bed’s on the right

Woren76 unpacking

Flutist

Snappy guys

Chinese guy

Black guy

Creepy guy

Spooky guy

For those who want to imagine what I will be doing for the next 6 days, here is what the program will look like:

Tuesday

My flight to Tawau departs at 7.20am tomorrow morning, so I’m leaving home at 5.30am. Woren should arrive tonight from Kuantan and he’ll be putting up at my place too. Upon arrival, we’ll be transfered to the jetty in Semporna at 11.30am, and in turn be transfered to Mabul island at 1.30pm. Lunch will be at 2pm followed by Dive #1 (Mabul or Kapalai) at 3.30pm. At 7.30pm will be dinner, followed by speeches and event briefing.

Wednesday

6.30am – breakfast
9.00am – Dive #2 (Mabul/Kapalai/Sipadan)
10.00am – tea break
11.00am – Dive #3 (Mabul/Kapalai/Sipadan)
1.00pm – lunch
4.00pm – Dive #4 (Mabul/Kapalai/Sipadan)
5.00pm – tea break
7.00pm – optional night dive (dinner starts at 7.30pm)
9.00pm – Chill Out session at the Beach Bar/ underwater photography workshop

Thursday

6.30am – breakfast
9.00am – Dive #5 (Mabul/Kapalai/Sipadan)
10.00am – tea break
11.00am – Dive #6 (Mabul/Kapalai/Sipadan)
1.00pm – lunch
4.00pm – Dive #7 (Mabul/Kapalai/Sipadan)
5.00pm – tea break
7.00pm – optional night dive (dinner starts at 7.30pm)
9.00pm – Chill Out session at the Beach Bar/ underwater photography workshop

Friday

6.30am – breakfast
9.00am – Dive #8 (Mabul/Kapalai/Sipadan)
10.00am – tea break
11.00am – Dive #9 (Mabul/Kapalai/Sipadan)
1.00pm – lunch
4.00pm – Dive #10 (Mabul/Kapalai/Sipadan)
5.00pm – tea break
7.00pm – optional night dive (dinner starts at 7.30pm)
9.00pm – Chill Out session at the Beach Bar

Saturday

6.30am – breakfast
8.00am – departure group photo for Celebes Safari 2007
11.00am – Dive #11 (Mataking)
12 noon – tea break
1.00pm – Dive #12 (Mataking)
2.00pm – lunch at Mataking
3.30pm – depart Mataking for Mabul
5.00pm – arrive back at Mabul followed by tea and beach games
8.00pm – dinner and closing ceremony starts (slide show, stage performance, award presentation, beach party)

Sunday

2.00am – end of ceremony
6.30am – breakfast
11.30am – transfer to Semporna jetty
1.30pm – transfer to Tawau airport
6.35pm – my flight departs Tawau
9.20pm – ETA KUL

I’ll be doing 12 dives during the day and I hope to do all 3 optional night dives. It’s not every month that I get to be in the Sipadan area, so I might as well whack. Whether my body is up to it or not, I’ll put that aside and recuperate when I’m back in KL.

I should be blogging and will update every now and then. I’ll post pics here too. To all of you, take good care of yourselves while I’m gone. I am going to miss someone terribly – that, I cannot deny.