Scuba Junkie

I just got back from a 2-week holiday in Malaysia, where I spent 10 days diving off the Eastern Borneo coast. Pulau Sipadan is the most famous of all the islands on this map, although the others have also earned a reverent tone when being spoken.

I dived with Scuba Junkie, which was really great. Cheap diving and lots of fun.

Then I spent 2 days in Kuala Lumpur (KL) enjoying bookshops and Ikea. I wanted to get more stuff at Ikea, but I was limited on luggage. The thing with having your own dive kit is you find it occupies most of your luggage allowance. So it goes.

Sipadan was, well, surreal. Fish everywhere you looked. These huge schools of fish I had never seen before in big schools. And we're talking literally hundreds of fish. Longfin Bannerfish, batfish, chevron barracuda, and so on. The barracuda school was extremely cool to see. I learned that barracuda like current, so when there isn't any existing current they make their own by swimming in a cyclone-fashion. Which is what they were doing, both times I saw them.

There were many white-tip sharks to see too. I did see one leopard shark, which was cool. Hammerheads are also in residence, although I wasn't lucky enough to see them. Unfortunately, the day after I did my last Sipadan dive, the hammerheads were out. So it goes.

We also saw a countless number of turtles, both green and hawksbill. It may sound silly, but by the third or fourth day of diving Sipadan, when you're asked what you saw, you can answer 'oh, the usual. Turtles, sharks, fish, etc.'

Sipadan is described as one large dive site, and this is true. They have marked spots as dive spots for logging purposes, but you really can't go wrong. You merely go to a dropoff and splash.

In late December, the water temps were roughly 28-29C, with vis. of at least 20m. I wore bathing suit (shorts) with two rash vests (short and long sleeve) and was fine. Others wore 3mil shorties and were fine. A couple of people were in full suit. It all depends on what your cold tolerance is. I did wear a full suit a few days when it rained. On these days, I noticed the cold more, especially with the thermocline created in the first 3 or 4 meters due to no sun. But on sunny days, when I could get warm, bathing suit was fine.

Mabul and Kapalai are muck diving for micro life. Truthfully, visibility was similar to around Doha (8 meters or less), but with the addition of cool stuff. Highlights of what I saw include green morays, white-eye morays, cuttlefish (that was a first), frogfish (grey, yellow, and leafy), lionfish (various types), nudibranchs, and a spider crab. Bottom composition on both sites is sand with artificial reefs. However, at Mabul, there is Froggy's Reef, which is quite fun.

Sibuan and Mantabuan are similar in being coral beds. I actually enjoyed these two dive days immensely, as I like to be above coral looking down rather than vertical. You can see life similar to Sipadan, minus the sharks. There was all kinds of cool macrolife to view. Here I saw more eels, nudibranchs, etc.

The highlight of my trip was Mantabuan. It was here I saw my first frogfish. But the frogfish was actually swimming in open water. It was the coolest thing in the world. You could see the frogfish opening its mouth, and the jets behind its fins pushing the water out to propel itself. Then the frogfish settled on the bottom, and it was moving along, almost like a frog. It was 'hopping' on its forward fins. This frogfish wasnt' even shocked by 6 or 7 divers gathered, watching it.

I got back to Doha on December 29th, and went to work on the 30th. I was lucky, though, as we only had 2 days before our New Year's holiday. Then two more days of work. Then two days off for the weekend.

I don't know what I will do this week, with having to work 5 consecutive days.