Mabul - Sipadan, 3 - 8 February 2011 (Day 5 & 6)

Day 5

Diving at Sipadan! This is the climax of the trip. People all over the world come here to dive. Here's me at the island's jetty. Entrance is controlled and based strictly on issued permits. Maximum of 120 divers per day

Anis tagging on our dive guide. Before our guide pulled the shark's tail fin hehehe

Map and profile of Sipadan Island. See the profile? It's like a vertical wall around Sipadan. All the way down to a depth of 600m!

Anis, stressing a point

But here trying to fish, sans the fishing rod

See that? The wall on the left and darkness into oblivion on the right. Scary

I just love these small fish

Army post on Sipadan Island

Some scenery shots of Sipadan Island. Taken during our surface interval

Another view

Our third dive. Straight away greeted by the view of this school of jackfish. Amazing!

Turtle. There's so many of them at Sipadan

Bumphead fish. Check out the size of the fish!

Me, trying to keep up with the turtle (and failed miserably)

That's a school of barracudas. They do have scary, sharp teeth!

The school of barracudas. Amazing!

A big jellyfish

Anis & me!

See that boatload of oyster? It just costs RM20. It's being sold by Bajau Laut people who lives in small boat around Mabul Island.

Then did sunset photoshooting. Practising my off camera flash skill

Another shot
Day 6

Last day here. No more dives as we are not allowed to dive 24 hours before flying. To avoid risk of decompression sickness. That's Yoko, my dive instructor. We call her Cikgu Yoko. She's a Malay speaking Japanese

Anis & Kenot!

We spend the day visiting this place. Kapalai Island resort, which is a high-end resort on the sandbanks of Kapalai. A really, really nice place.

See what I mean?

Another shot of the resort

Catch of the day. Big tunas!

We left later in the day on the last flight out of Tawau. I am determined to be back to Mabul - Sipadan soon!

Mabul - Sipadan, 3 - 8 February 2011 (Day 3 & 4)

Day 3

Spent practially the whole day diving. Completing my open water dive course. Did 3 dives today doing some skills which I myself not sure why I have to learn e.g. removing & putting on scuba gears on water surface, removing & attaching weights, and the scariest to me, removing and putting on the scuba gear under 18m of water! But I did completed all of the skills test

But managed to capture some nice sunset shots at the end of the day

More sunset shot

View at dusk. The transition time between night & day. Nice!

Another view

Day 4

I completed my open water course! Done the tests the night before and passed! So did my first dive together with Anis around Mabul

Underwater shots using our Canon S95 + underwater casing. It's so hard to take pics underwater! You keep on moving up & down in the water. That's a giant morey eel by the way

Black spotted morey eel. Nice huh?

The ever popular 'Nemo' fish

Our guide, being surprised by a huge turtle from behind

Can't remember what's this. Just underneath our homestay actually

Underwater plant. A very pretty sight down there

A school of fish

More underwater plant

Later in the day, spent some time walking around the island and explore more of the village. These are children of Mabul. They're all seems so happy even with such comparatively poor living condition. Makes us think for a while, how lucky we are eh? BTW, they are always happy to pose for you!

See what I mean? Hehehe

In the evening, the children are all out doing physical activities. Unlike pampered children in the big cities. Busy with playstation & Facebook. And grow soft in the process

Anis & children of Mabul. Check out their pose

Fish anyone? RM2 only

We found this nice jetty with the beautiful sunset light. So, portrait time!

Anis & me. The camera placed on the floor hehehe
On the way back. Anis & chicken wing are inseperable

See this? Black one is soy sauce, yellow one is cooking oil, etc.. etc.. They repack stuff in smaller package to be sold at 20 cent. To cater for demand. Very creative

Mabul - Sipadan, 3 - 8 February 2011 (Day 1 & 2)

Me and wife, Anis, went to Mabul the last CNY holidays. I promised Anis to learn open water diving after she done Powerman Lumut last year. So this was fufilling my promise to her.

Didn't start well, my car broke down when we were on the way to LCCT. At 5:00AM on 1st day of CNY! Luckily my sister & husband were with us. So we stopped at a Shell station, along Jln Tun Razak, stopped a taxi and left the car behind with my sis & her husband. No choice, we had to. But luckily we just managed to make it to LCCT on time and the car was OK. Only a snapped belting

I try not to write a lot this time and let the pics tell the story. Here goes ;)

First glimpse of Mabul Island. One of the many water villages. Most people on the island live on homes built over the water

Another view of the water village

The board listing all the diving rules. I was getting excited, mixed with anxiety at this point

The groceries shop nearby our homestay. We originally thought this was the only groceries shop on the island, but boy, we can't be any more wrong than that!

Busy watching the instructional video. It was part of the PADI open water course. I had to study too!

We then followed the homestay people to Mabul's equivalent of fish market. Anis found this. Most were sold at really, really cheap price, you wouldn't believe it

The oxygen tanks in the storage house. Will be using this soon!

Anis with her iPad in front of our homestay room. Even though there was no eletricity supply during the day since the generators were off, Celcom 3G connection however was excellent! Faster than in KL!

On the 2nd day. Still busy studying for the course. This is right before I did the 300m swimming test, just below the homestay

My first time using scuba gears! Preparing for the confined water 'dive', in waist deep water hehehe to learn the first few basic skills e.g. mask clearing, making bubbles with the 2nd stage regulator out of the mouth, etc.. etc.. Diving is a very technical activity. You need to understand & remember so many procedures before, during and going out of water. All to ensure your safety. And yes, that lady is my dive instructor

There were so many of these starfish around the area. In many different colours. Have no idea why.

Me and Anis, going out for our first dive together. Actually not really together since she's joining the dive group since she already has a diving license. I meanwhile was going for my first 'real' dive as part of my open water training

Me getting ready and feeling nervous before taking the first backwards plunge into the sea

Later that day. Walked around the Mabul Island & the village. Found out there were so many groceries shops actually. But Anis was more interested with the chicken wing

One of the groceries shops. Almost 1 of 2 houses has become a groceries shop