For those who may not known, Sipidan is one of the top 5 or 10 dive spots in the world. Jacques Cousteau once said that Sipidan is "an untouched piece of art." Though Sipidan has suffered some erosion from man-made causes, it is still an amazing place to see marine wildlife.
This time, my dive buddy was Melanie, the sunburned German from my first day. We were with 4 French speakers, a couple who really didn't speak English very well, and another couple from Switzerland (the guy is Polish and his wife is French). On the other dive group were two American guys whose wives work for the US Embassy in Bangkok, the Koh Tao dive masters and a McKinsey consultant from Paris traveling alone. Melanie and I didn't speak much on the first day because the 4 Germans were speaking in German. We hit it off immediately, and never ran out of things to talk about (I know, it's a shocker). There were so many of us with cameras this time, that our dives took on a more leisurely pace. That was good, because all the dives turned into drift dives with the stronger currents around Sipadan.
What can I say -- Sipadan lives up to all the hype! I said after our first dive, I've met more Germans on this trip than any other travelers, but I saw more turtles in one 60 minute dive than all the Germans I've seen in Malaysia. I almost had one swim right into me -- his eyes were watching me carefully as he glided past slowly. You'll be proud that I took two shots of him as he swam by. The coral here is so amazing that I started taking lots of landscape shots as well. Visibility is great -- over 20 meters, which makes for very nice pictures. Turtles turtles everywhere -- they're taking naps on little patches of flat patches of sand amongst the corals, or just hanging out watching us blow huge bubbles out of our regulators. There were schools of HUGE bumphead fish (about 2.5 feet long, big fatties) and tons and tons and tons of smaller reef fish. Yes, I have a video of Nemo as well, hanging out in his anemone home. Around Sipidan, we also saw some white tip reef shark. One was sleeping so I got a pretty close shot of him, but others we saw were much bigger and swimming about. No worries, reef shark aren't interested in eating humans, and they're not at all aggressive.
At the end of my second dive, we saw a most gorgeous school of chevron barracuda. You've seen those National Geographic pictures of long, silver fish making big circles in the ocean. Well, I saw a bunch of them and steadied myself to take a video... then my camera said "memory card full." NOOOOOOOO!!! I was swearing profusely underwater (sorry baby tutles and fishies) and started deleting my Chicago pictures from the Obama rally when I realized that my head hit the surface of the water. Uh-oh. I didn't mean to come up top, and I hadn't done my 3 minute safety stop (to prevent nitrogen narcosis). I looked down at Paul, my Scottish dive master and he just looked at me asking if I was okay. Yeah, I feel fine, except I still have 60 bar left on air and no more space on my memory card! I'm guilty of having a horrible dive profile. You're supposed to go down, maintain depth for periods of time and come up in steps. I'm like a little kid chasing one pretty fish to a pretty coral landscape shot to oh, look there's another turtle, and where's my dive buddy now? But I'm very aware of safe diving and mean to always do my 3 minute safety stop. Well, I blew it this time. The good thing is that it was toward the end of our dive and I wasn't in very deep water anyway. I also didn't swim to the surface, I just floated up as I was frantically focused on my camera. So in the great scheme of things, it's okay.
Semporna is a pretty sleepy fishing village except for the dive shops and foreigners that come to it, but Friday night is Party Night, so I was looking forward to a crazy time. The thing is, when you've had 3 dives after getting up pretty early, you're pretty sleepy by 7pm. I had two cocktails and listened to a local cover band play everything from I Will Survive to CCR to Bryan Adams while hanging out with Melanie and Martin. Martin tried several times to convince me to stay longer and do the Rescue Diver course with him. I would love to, but I have to get home to my "real" life... I'm sure I have 400 emails to read, and I will be flying to New York the day after I land in Chicago. And the thing is, as much as I love diving, I hate the heat and humidity of the tropics and never feeling like you're clean. I feel like I'm covered with a combination of sunscreen, DEET and sweat all the time. Plus I'm sick of wearing the same 3-4 outfits I have with me.
It's a strange thing about dive buddies -- I get so attached to them.
I'm still somewhat in touch with my Chinese-English dive buddy from my
Thailand liveaboard, and I hope to keep in touch with Martin and
Melanie. We are all on Facebook, so it will be even easier!
Melanie was supposed to come fetch me from the Internet cafe and she isn't here yet. She's always running late! That makes us a devastating combination...
I'm taking a taxi at 4pm to Tawau where I will catch a flight to Kuala Lumpur and stay the night at Hazdy's backpackers. Early in the morning, I head to Kuala Lumpur to make my long journey home. I love my life in Chicago, but I'm so not ready to leave...
asami
