SmallBell & Andry's Corner: October 2009

It had been a long time i didn't update my blog. All these photos were taken during my last 6 days 5 night diving trip at Mabul, Sipadan and Kapalai Island Borneo Malaysia. It was a wonderfull trip and i'd try my best to capture all my underwater special moment with those unique creature using my Canon ixus 860.

In fact, Andry and me had spent a 9 days 8 night at Tawau, Semporna, Mabul, Sipadan and Kapalai. Although, i suffered for diarhoe problem at Tawau but i still got to eat the best in town seafood. Fresh and Delicious. And the most important thing it was cheap. Haha....

The diving experience in Mabul, Sipadan and Kapalai is Marvelous. Personally, i prefered mabul although it was not well known internationally. I missed the experience when we 1st jumped off from the boat at the bottom of oil rig and looked for the small pinky pigmy seahorse. Unfortunately, only one pigmy seahorse was spotted at this location. Where were others? I still remember the time where i make a special request to the dive master that i wanted to see mandarin fish. End up, he had to spent 15 minutes at a hard coral to look for the fish. This is because the mandarin fish was playing hide and seek with us. Naturally, it will only come out during sunset time. I still missed the experience where we were surrounded by thousand and thousand of Jack fish. It was really amazing. I've never seen such a big school of jack fish before. It was also the 1st time i saw crocodile fish. At 1st, i thought that crocodile fish must be very fierce. But in fact, it is a very tame fish. Slowly look at the eye of this special creature and i am sure you will like it. Never forget about the octopus. I've never encountered so many octopus in 1 dive, but we experience it in Mabul. Others than that, we saw school of pipefish, a lot of poisonous scorpion fish, the colorful banner eel, the small and soft Nudibranch and many more.

As for Sipadan, what i still remember was the big school of baracuda at the Barracuda Point. You need luck if you want to see school of them. A lot of divers envy at us when they browse through our photos. Haha.... Others then barracuda, we also saw a lot of turtles. Don't feel suprise if your buddy always point to your top for a turtle, then to your bottom, then left and sometime the turtles even suddenly swim out from a small cave. You will definitely get shock of it. And i did have an experience on this. Do make sure you have enough sleep the day before you dive in Sipadan as you need a pair of sharp eyes. Sometime you will saw something that others not. i saw a big school of shark swimming below us. Was really a big school but too bad i was the only one who spotted it. But, don't worry if you don't have a pair of sharp eyes as you can see white tip shark everywhere at Sipadan. Don't be panic and slowly swim near to it if you wish to take a nice photo. They aren't that scary.

The last dive spot is Kapalai house reef. It was a very shallow dive as only 8-10m below the water surface. Normally the diver who came here was looking for big grouper. Not kidding, a real huge grouper.

We're staying at Uncle Chang dive lodge during these 6 days. If you ask me how was my experiece with Uncle Chang, then i will say good. Nothing much to complain but a little bit expensive for the food and stayed they provided. but, luckly he did had some good and friendly dive master. We get to know a lot of diving friend from around the world at this dive lodge and it's such a wonderful moment chatting with them. Most of them were backpacker and backpacker always very friendly.

Photo 1: Andry and me at Barracuda Point with School of Barracuda as our background. It's Cool!!