My December – The Jaya

Where I’ve been:

A map is more unreal ...

How it felt:

...than where you've been...

... and how you feel.

Imagine: fresh, cool ocean-borne breezes gently ruffling your hair as the sun melts into the dusky clouds and stains the entire sky an ember orange.  And imagine the sky is bigger and rounder and more complete than you’ve ever seen before — a whole and crystalline dome sealing you underneath. Imagine the light quiet of the open sea interrupted only by the lullaby creakings of wood and rope. Imagine the movement of the ocean surface in your legs and in your guts and in your shoulders. Imagine the bleaching winter sun of the Andaman Sea and the perfect bliss of shade.

Imagine waking in the predawn green almost-light and squinting at the horizon, sleepy and relaxed. Imagine the sweetness of being aboard the only ship you can see, and the still-sleepy excitement of gearing up for the first dive of the day, the sun just peeking over the ocean as you prepare to drop in.

Now imagine breaking the surface tension of the ocean top like a knife as you fall, heavy with equipment and excitement, into the blue. Imagine exhaling and drifting deeper and deeper — look around: first the hazy colours of deep water, then it dissolves and there are underwater cliffs, boulders as big as houses, caverns; and everywhere coral forests, armies of fish — whole bouquets of fish. Yellow, white, blue, red, green, purple, black. Imagine the sound of your breathing as you move like a slow ghost through the coral cities. Here an octopus dancing its angry, colourful skin-flashing dance; here an impossibly small porcelain crab going about its mysterious business among the undulating anemone.  Imagine a cat-sized puffer fish and its bulbous cow eyes, passing you with its waddling swim. Imagine a lionfish in full and deliberate sail, fluttering in the current like a proud and stately banner. Imagine drifting along upside down, eyeball-to-eyeball with a half-curious, half-defensive cuttlefish. Imagine imagining it’s smiling at you. Imagine what it feels like to fly (underwater. Upside-down.)

If cuttlefish could be housetrained (and breathed air) I would willingly become the cuttlefish equivalent of a cat lady. All cuttlefish all over my house, all making W-shaped eyes at visitors, all changing colours and showing angry tentacles and all taking up available seating and refusing to give it up..

A gorgeous orange coral.

Puuuuuuuuuffer

Imagine returning to the strange surface and bobbing, salty and happy, lounging with arms wide and face to the sun, talking too loudly with your dive buddies about what it’s like underwater. The sunshine and the sky feel suddenly new as you soak up the warmth of the air. Imagine clambering back onto the rocking, creaking ship and peeling off your wetsuit as you stumble with the motion of the ship. Imagine fried bananas with sugar waiting in the shade  - and hot chocolate.

Imagine the last dive of the day and the clean, clean, clean feeling of finally being able to shower the salt off of your body, out of your hair. Imagine playing dice and card games on a rocking, creaking boat — a tiny spark of light among black ocean, black island, black bowl sky. And imagine lying on your back on the sundeck at night with the sky full of stars and a nearly-full moon staring down at you framed by the rigging and masts.

Imagine days full and long: up with the sun, into the sea, storytelling with fellow travellers, reading, sleeping in the belly of a ship, rocking and rocking.

And that, sirs and madams, is how it felt to be on the Jaya.

The Beginning

We met at the Wicked Diveshop in Khao Lak in the late afternoon of December 4, and drove in taxi convoy to the harbour about a 30 min drive south of town.  At the harbour, we clambered through another boat to get onto the Jaya. I chose her from among the enormous fleet of Similan live-aboards largely because of how pretty she looked online (also because Wicked Divers is seriously eco-conscious.) There were 11 guests including myself, 3 dive guides/divemasters, 2 cooks, and 4 crew members.

On the way to the harbour, out the back of the taxi.

Our most excellent guides: Scott, Amanda, and Colin.

My stomach was put to the test immediately. We set off for the Similans as the sun set and docked after midnight. The wind and waves were … bracing, and I offered my thanks to the god of scopolamine. Despite my body being repeatedly thrown into the wall of my bunk by the force of the waves, I remained miraculously unaffected and even managed a full night of sleep.

The next morning, I emerged just before wake-up call to find the Jaya anchored among islands 3 and 4 of the Similans. The Similan islands! The number one destination of the countless scuba magazine articles I read at Chapters during my breaks of my brief Starbucks career back in my hometown of London, Ontario. Effing finally!

After a small meal, we geared up with great gusto, ready to begin our diving adventure.  I was lucky enough to be diving with 1) another Canadian named David 2) my dive buddy Jens, a taciturn giant and 3) Roman, an experienced Swiss diver (“When I started diving, we just put on a jacket and carried our tanks under our arms”) to whom all of the underwater pictures in this post belong. Guiding us was the super-chill Colin. The other divegroup consisted of my bunkmate, Anneke-of-the-many-stories, Kathryn the Insanely Accurate and Detailed Fish Identifier, and George the Gamesmaster. Kathryn and George are cycling around South-East Asia. Amazing. There was also Maria a divermaster living in Khao Lak, and Libby who is an instructor and also happens to be conversant in Auslan.

A few of these, of course.

An example of some of the prettier, larger fish. These guys are the adorably named Oriental Sweetlips.

Our first few dives were lovely and warmed us up for what was to be a great trip.

Koh Bon

Koh Bon was the hook upon which I hung my hopes. To be honest, I was in the Similans to fulfill a childhood dream: to swim with manta rays. Koh Bon in particular has many many sightings. I was a little early in the season, but I had a good feeling. The mantas knew I was coming. They would find me underwater and we would frolic together and then they would take me on their great winged backs and I would fulfill my destiny as MANTA QUEEN!

Colin was kind and told me not to get my hopes up. I just crossed my fingers and giant-strode into the ocean.

The site is amazing: huge cliffs of the island harbour a mottled coral bottom. We followed an arm of the wall out towards the open blue and down to about 30 m when suddenly the current kicked in and both visibility and temperature went down drastically. We looked at each other, surprised and excited, facing into the current and finning actively to keep ourselves stationary. I had a blast dealing with my first strongish current out there on that arm, watching the thermocline coming towards us with shimmering menace, feeling seriously badass. Eventually Colin brought us to the harboured area where Amanda had said octopus were putting on mating displays.

Almost immediately we spotted a large octopus with large angry eyes displaying on a piece of coral. They always look so stern and comically angry to me. We hovered at a respectful distance to watch him while he glared at us and showed off a bit. He flowed in the magnificent way that octopus move from coral to coral, fanning out his tentacles and changing shape. Each time he moved, he smoothly and almost magically changed colour and skin texture: from palest beige to dark, dark purple, to mottled greens and browns. Then he posed for a few seconds before moving again to the next coral, always looking supremely disinterested in the parrotfish who seemed to take great offense to his flowing around and who kept darting and feinting around him.

One of the gorgeous octopus we saw at Koh Bon putting on a great display.

The crevices between the walls were filled with enormous, fluid schools of tiny, transparent glassfish. Hundreds and thousands of them: and as it got later in the day big oceanic fish came to hunt them in terrifying displays of movement. One fish would dart into the mass and the entire 5-metre-long school would all move in unison. It was so awesome.

I got even more excited to see another octopus doing much the same thing not far away. When I got a little closer, another octopus appeared out of nowhere and they had some sort of secret antagonistic octopus event with bristling skin and flashing eyes and just as suddenly the smaller one was gone again. I love cephalopods so much.

Which didn’t quite make up for the fact that when the dinghy picked us up, the other dive group already inside yelling about seeing a manta ray. A MANTA RAY THAT I DID NOT SEE! A MANTA RAY THAT WAS JUST A FEW DOZEN METRES FROM WHERE WE DECIDED TO TURN AROUND AND GO BACK! A MANTA RAY! It was not the right time to come into my inheritance as MANTA QUEEN, obviously.

*shrug* Just another excuse to keep diving. I will not rest until I swim with a manta ray. A big one. With enormous bus-sized wings. And it lets me ride on its back and we become best friends.  *sigh*

Getting picked up in the dinghy. My dive group mates were very gentlemanly and always insisted I go first. (Honestly, I really appreciated this during the wavier dives.)

After a dive - passing up our weight belts and flippers.

Richelieu Rock

The star dive site of the Similan live-aboard circuit is Richelieu Rock – famous for its lush and colourful flora and fauna. I wasn’t expecting too much. The Similan/Surin area was definitely affected by the bleaching and tsunami, but it really lived up to its reputation. It was so alive.

AND WE SAW SOME CUTTLEFISH!

At Richelieu Rock. I found three little morays swaying and peeking out of their crevices. They were so adorable I chased Roman to show him and he obligingly took a photo.

We were actually the first divers in the water for our Richelieu day. Amanda was astounded in the early morning to find that we were the ONLY boat at the site and we all hurried to get in before the others arrived. When we surfaced an hour later, there were already 10 other ships. Our second dive was very sunny and as a result the colours seemed even more vivid and bright. It was almost like being back at Sipadan (lord, what a special place.)

Mr. Scorpionfish. The Andaman Sea is crawling with these guys. Some are enormous. Some like to perch on pinnacles divers are most likely to grab or brush against like this one here. They're quite poisonous.

We saw some lovely things there: tiny moray eels gaping from their neighbouring homes, a yellow zebra seahorse swaying and camera-shy (they always look so bashful), rainbow-coloured scorpionfish, an eerie “flock” (?) of batfish by the buoyline, a sinister-looking great barracuda, a hunting long-nose emperor changed from its usual mottled-brown to a determined silver.

As always there was an inordinate number of glassfish, and the larger predator fish put on quite a show herding and hunting them: all flashing fins and glittering scales.  If you are ever in the area, GO. Go dive Richelieu. It is definitely worth it.

The seahorse at Richelieu Rock. Apparently he had a friend who was hiding just behind the purple rock there, but our dive group missed it. Doesn't matter; we saw THREE cuttlefish that dive.

A vertical lionfish. A different variety than the other picture posted.

One of the stunningly beautiful emperor angelfish juveniles we saw. Although I'd seen them in pictures, the first time I saw one underwater I was surprised at how beautiful they really are.

A couple of butterfly fish (I think), their anthius friend (I think) and me (confirmed). Although I may look as if I'm flailing, I like to think that Roman captured me in the midst of executing a complex and impressive somersault maneuver. Or something.

One of the many enormous wart slug nudibranchs we met.

Check out this fine ship

Oh hai there, Jaya. You are looking extra fine today, by the way.

Oh hai there, Captain. You are also looking extra fine today, sir. Thank you for keeping us alive and all.

Oh hai there, deck where we gear up. You are always looking fine, and you know that don't you, you saucy, saucy thing?

Oh hai my bunk. You are looking messily inviting, as usual. Oh also hai there favourite bra. You're the best. (Move along everyone, you're not going to find any "supportive" puns in this here blog.)

The Boon Sung Wreck

The last dive of the trip was my favourite besides Richelieu. I wasn’t expecting much to be honest: Amanda said it wasn’t much a wreck. Rather it was mostly broken-up metal wreckage. Visibility is usually poor, and the most commonly spotted fauna is lionfish and scorpionfish (seen enough of those already…) but it turned out to be a really exciting and stimulating dive.

The current was pretty strong as we descended, although it calmed a bit deeper than 10 m. Visibility was truly poor too, and everything seemed murky and green. Then suddenly we were encased in a translucent moving ribbon of juvenile baracuda. There must of been hundreds of them. Standing on terra firm, the sound of schools of fish doesn’t sound very exciting, but underwater it’s surprisingly overwhelming and you get to see why schooling is an effective predator-deterrent. Looking at and being near a large school of fish is disorienting and mesmerizing. They really do look like larger fish from far away, and when you find yourself inside a school sometimes it feels like there’s too much movement and eyes and fins and shapes and colours for your brain to function normally. I spent several happy minutes flipped on my back or upside down to complete my disorientation, and scaring fish with my hands and trying lazily to touch them (I knew I wouldn’t be able to…)

Teeming schools of juvenile baracuda. Some were only 15 or so cm long. Other schools consisted of bigger juveniles at 40 cm long.

Then there were the tiny white lionfish juveniles – perfectly formed, tiny and cute, but somehow more menacing than the adults. There were so many! We counted 6 on one coral-encrusted beam alone, all sitting in a row like peas in a pod.  Scorpionfish were just as abundant but unlike the other fish there, they were enormous! A foot and a half long at least! The puffers and porcupine fish too were scarily big and seemed to lurk in every nook and cranny. I like the way they stare at you with their big, stupid cow eyes.

Colin was determined to find a couple of bastard seahorses that are rumoured to hang out around 14 m (that is the legit name of the seahorses) and although we failed at finding them, the mission was fun to have. We did find some nudibranch eggs which are laid in a gauzy white spiral, and lovely white nudis themselves, as well as  … CUTTLEFISH!

Seriously, I’m starting to believe that cuttlefish are the answer to all my problems.

A ghostly juvenile lionfish.

Another feature star of this dive were the honeycomb moray eels. They are unbelievably beautiful.  I was stunned.

One of two drop-dead gorgeous honeycomb morays at the BoonSung Wreck. They absolutely shimmer and they have these wild ridges along their backs. So beautiful.

Reluctantly, but feeling completely satisfied and happy with the last dive, we ascended and did our last safety stop – this time for around 10 minutes. The current was strong again. I actually like the feeling of hanging onto a buoyline while the current banners your body out behind you and your regular purges a little and your mask fills a little from the force of the current. But you know … in moderation.

I grip the buoyline embarassingly tight while Colin manages to chill effortlessly.

Serious thanks to the competent and kind crew and guides of the Jaya, as well as my fellow-divers. You made my first live-aboard experience such a precious time. I hope I dive with you again someday.

With mantas, obviously.

My December Trip 2011 – Khao Lak

Where I’ve been:

Landed in Phuket Airport, and went straight to Khao Lak (purple circle).

How it felt:

Often when I set off alone on a (poorly planned) adventure I get the melancholies. Usually they set in a day or two before I leave and may linger for a while even after I arrive at my destination. Sometimes I even think longingly of home before I’ve left home.  And understand: I love travelling.  My theory is that the travel melancholies are the last vestiges of my earlier days of caution. Grace factoid: until just a few years ago I was a very, very careful person and to some degree I still retain that care, but through determination and enablement by some key, dangerous friends, I now consider myself to be a pretty laid-back lady. I am in my A-Game.

But Grace, said Careful Grace back in September after the Sipadan trip, finger hovering over AirAsia’s “Pay and Continue” button, are you laid-back enough to travel for a few weeks in Thailand without plans or friends or pre-booked domestic flights, or anything?
Oh lord, yes! Yes yes yes. Please yes, let’s go! replied A-Game Grace.

And I was off! Two and some weeks in Thailand followed by a week back in Bohol to spend Christmas with family. On Nov 30, I  returned to Singapore from a school choir trip to Shah Alam, Malaysia where I had a trial by fire first chaperone experience (the stress!!!) On Dec 1, I cleaned, packed, did some boring school stuff. On Dec 2, I tried cleaning again, gave up, taxied to the airport and flew to Phuket.

Research and planning I had done on Thailand before I got on the plane:
1. Against my better judgement, I booked an expensive 5 day live-aboard dive trip in the Andaman Sea leaving Khao Lak on Dec. 4. (I get violently seasick.)
2. I booked a flight from Singapore to Phuket, and from Bangkok to Tagbilaran, Bohol.
3. I downloaded the Thailand Lonely Planet onto my Kindle (but did not read it.)

On the plane, finally consulting my guidebook, I decided to go straight to Khao Lak and skip the insanity of Phuket because, quite frankly, four days of being mom/best friend to 30 tweens is enough insanity for a month, plzkthx. Safely on Thai land, cheapskate that I am, I shunned the $50 direct taxi ride to Khao Lak and instead took a bus to Phuket Town bus terminal, and then transferred to a local Khao Lak-bound bus. Money saved: approximately 42 SGD.  Travel time: approximately 5 hours (4 hours longer than the taxi.) Worth it? Yeah. The expense of travel is twofold: you need money and you need time. Which one is more valuable? I think time. What do you think?

School girl seen from the Phuket bus.

I was treated to a gorgeous sunset en route to Khao Lak and this is the best picture I was able to take of it. BUT I SAVED 40$!

Khao Lak is a strip-of-highway town dotted with German bakeries and tour agencies trying to get you to go to “James Bond Island” and “Elephant Camp BEST!” It also has the dark distinction of being the hardest-hit area during the 2004 Christmas Tsunami, but today it doesn’t bear many visible scars.  The accommodation is expensive and catered to older European couples/divers. Upon stumbling off my bus, I made a beeline to Tiffy’s Cafe, a German restaurant with a clean dorm room in the back. At 180B/night, it is without a doubt the cheapest bed in town. Check it!

And I had the room all to myself.

The next day, there was a slight blip at the diveshop when I admitted I had had childhood asthma and I was told I couldn’t go on the dive trip anymore due to so and so liabilities. I spent a helplessly preoccupied day alternately biking up and down the highway and sitting in German cafes to avoid the torrential rain with perma-sad puppy eyes, mourning what could have been a grand sea adventure. Yo ho ho, boo hoo hoo.

Typical view of my highway day.

Look at that rain! Whyyyyyyyyyy?!

During my bike ramblings, I visited Police Boat 813 which was carried more than 2km inland by the tsunami. It looked strangely everyday sitting in its grassy field so far from the ocean. I also spent some time in the internet cafe looking at images from just after the tsunami. I was shocked, especially by the images from this website. Besides the police boat and tsunami escape route signs, there isn’t much else around to remind short-term tourists of the disaster. Locals and expat lifers don’t talk about it; 4000 people died and everyone lost someone.

Tsunami escape route sign.

Police Boat 813

Flowers and candles for tsunami victims. They're building a memorial statue up the road, but for now, the boat is the most tangible piece of remembrance in Khao Lak.

These days, tourists (myself included) mainly come to Khao Lak for liveaboards to the Similan and Surin islands. Bored, in the evening I returned to my diveshop with desperate hope and to my delight, a dive medic told me I was ok to go on the trip after all. Sad puppy eyes disappeared instantly, I hugged everyone in the shop, and biked like a madwoman into the dark Thai night to go eat some food at the weekend market a few km up the highway.

Market TIME!

The ground was a mud slurry from the rain.

Drink stand

Flavoured powders at the same drink stand.

Fed up and happy, I stuck on my last scopolamine patch (a little patch that you stick behind your ear and which renders you immune to motion sickness for the next 3 days,) and passed out, ready for my grand sea adventure. Melancholies: DEFEATED!

The Other Thing that Happened to Me 

I got electrocuted! By my adaptor/iPod charger! Check out my entry and exit burns!

Entry...

Exit

I’m not at all sorry if you got grossed out.

Pulau Sipidan

The Journey

The beginning of September brought with it the beginnings of the “winter” rains, the end of Term 3, and the long-anticipated week long holiday. Due to some happy accident aligning public holiday with school holiday, I also had 3 days from the week before off; but due to school choir responsibilities I couldn’t leave until the Monday of the holiday week (missing 4 precious days of travel time.) *shake fist*

I knew I wanted to go scuba diving somewhere fabulous and after some deliberation finally decided on going to Pulau Sipadan off the east coast of Malaysian Borneo. A few words:

1. Sipadan is from “Si Paran” meaning “dead Paran”. Paran was some dude from a neighbouring island who died in the ocean and washed ashore onto the pristine beach of this anomalous volcanic cone island jutting alone out of the deeeeeeeep sea. Whenever I think of the island now, I also wonder about Paran. It’s famous all over the world for its underwater beauty and since the early 2000s has been a protected marine park. No one can sleep on Sipadan anymore. Only 120 people can visit the island per day and competition is FIERCE.
2. “Pulau” means “island” in Bahasa (Malay).
3. Borneo!!!! I went to Borneo! Borneo: land of my documentary-dreams. Attenborough’s voice suddenly cuts through my head, “The deep Bornean jungles of Sabah province…” “The colourful coral-encrusted seas of the Bornean coast…” “The Bornean orang-utan … is super rad but I didn’t get to see them this time…”

I left Singapore the same day I was done my choir duties, packing a little backpack with a few clothes, my scuba licenses, an apothecary of anti-nausea meds (Alice is familiar with this apothecary,) a Discworld novel, Valentine the ukulele, and my journal. I transferred in Kuala Lumpur but in order to get as much time as possible diving, had to sleep over at the airport. More on this later.

Before dawn, I boarded another airplane, passed out, and woke up as we landed in Tawau. The manager of  Billabong, the diveshop I chose to dive with, picked me and two others up in his car, drove us to Sempornah to take care of money business, and then a little motor boat ferried us to Pulau Mabul. Mabul is where most people sleep when diving at Sipadan.

The long road.

East Borneo mainland seems to be entirely covered in oil palm plantations. And goats. I thought it looked a lot like Bohol, or I guess like much of South East Asia. The boat trip took about 45 minutes because it was low tide and we had to go around a bunch of islands. One island seemed to be completely on fire. Farmers were clearing land for crops by Burning…Everything…Down.

The first thing that struck me upon seeing Mabul is that it is almost completely covered in resorts and diveshops. Some are very budget. Some are obscenely expensive. One was built to look like an abandoned oil rig (as cool as it sounds.) Some have lovely Malay-style swooped roofs. They’re usually the pricier ones.

Too atas for my pockets

Mabul itself is little more than a sand hump that was built on a coral ridge just before the  600m drop to continental shelf ocean, but it’s surprisingly it’s inhabited by a thousand plus permanent residents. More on them later too.

Billabong is a homey sort of backpackers diveshop with everything the discerning traveler needs: three filling meals a day, 24/hour instant coffee with condensed milk(!!), a bed (some are fan rooms, some are a/c), showers (some are shared), dive equipment, loungey chairs, and excellent company. I mean, it’s not palatial: in some spots you can see the ocean through the floor, and the shared toilets sway with the waves, but I found it just right.

Home sweet home for a time

Upon arriving, I shoved my bag into my room, and immediately jumped on a boat heading out to a divesite reef about 80 m straight off of Billabong with snorkle gear. I was pumped. According to a divemaster (DM) who came along, turtles are always around. Mabul and Sipadan are known for their turtles. Namely, their vast numbers. I’d been told I’d get sick of seeing turtles after a few days. Sure enough, within 10 minutes the DM pointed one out to me. He was chilling on a table coral about 8 m down. I saw 4 more turtles just in that 45-min snorkle session a stone’s throw from where I was going to be sleeping. The good foot: she starts upon it.

Other exciting marine fauna sighted within an hour of my arrival at Mabul:

1. Crocodile fish (a first for me)
2. School of squid - They float like ribbons. Some look at you with their shiny squid eyes and come close to check you out. Then you move in your awkward human-in-water way and they all flash purple-red and shoot away.

In the evening I went on an island tour then I ate, met people, chilled, sang songs, and slept.

I woke up at 5:30AM as per my usual schedule, and waited until everyone else got up so we could go freaking diving.

Good morning!

From Billabong you can look out across the ocean to see little Sipadan as a little bump above the horizon. Check it out just above the boat in the picture below.

Small craft at a harbour that's still and serene ...

Pulau Mabul

After my snorkel trip, another DM friend took me around Mabul. There are no roads. This place is tiny. We’re talking, 7 minutes across one way (walking), 8 minutes across the other way (still walking.) And we’re talking slow, meandering, tropical, nothing-else-to-do walking pace. The shore of the island is mostly taken up by resorts and diveshops, although there are still islanders’ houses among them. They’re all built on stilts and the sound of gently creaking wooden beams is everpresent. Inside the buildings, you still feel a little like you’re outside. The air smells and tastes like the sea, and you can feel it in some places.

I felt intrusive, just walking among the villagers’ tightly-packed houses as they went on with their evening business, but they didn’t seem to care. There is a constant influx of tourists who invade in a similar way, I’m sure. Most of them ignored us.

Notice the high cat drama happening on the walkway.

The interior of the island is completely congested with ramshackle houses made out of any and everything built haphazardly all over the sand. Besides the houses, the land is almost completely covered with half-repaired boats, little stalls selling strings of candy or small sachets of shampoo, litter, and children. Oh. And kittens.

There were kittens aplenty on the island. Also enormous eagles. I think that these two facts are not so unrelated as they may seem.

Seriously, Mabul has the highest kitten:land ratio I’ve ever seen. Some follow you around. Some have eyes completely gunked shut. Some are so small they can’t walk yet and are living in cardboard boxes with their kitten siblings. Some have no tails. Some look like rats.

Besides kittens Mabul also boasts a small school and mosque, as well as around 3 dogs. The children seem to hate the dogs. On our tour, I made friends with one dog (the one with a dense entourage of flies because of her open ear wound,) and when she followed us past some children they began to chirp, “Oy! Ero, ero!” When I heard them, my head snapped back towards them. I understood them. “Ero” is “dog” in Bisaya, my mother’s language. Was it the same in Malay? Then the children leapt off their perch and began to chase poor Gaping-Ear-Wound, now screaming, “Patay! Patay!” “Patay” means “kill”.

I looked at my DM friend, “Are those children speaking Malay?!”

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

“It’s just … I can understand them. Are they Filipino?!?”

“Oh, yeah! Most of them are Filipino. Actually one of our DM is Filipino too. And all our staff. You should ask them about it.”

On our way back to Billabong we passed the cook speaking to her neighbour. As we passed and she raised her eyebrows in typical provincial Filipina greeting, the man looked at us and said to her, “Guapa siya.” I replied, “Puera buyag,” and glowed with the  special pride of someone who tries out one of her only Bisaya phrases and is rewarded with delighted shock.

(He had said, “She’s pretty,” and I replied with a phrase said to avoid the bad luck brought on by talking about good things. It means something like, “Go away, bad spirits.”)

Billabong's neighbour drying fish in the sun.

It turns out lots of Bisaya people came from Sulu because it’s only an hour’s boatride away and fish are abundant in the area. Many are also Tausug (the Muslim equivalent of the Christian Bisaya people.) I suspect some of them may have been pirates. I’m positive a lot of them are illegal immigrants. Besides the Bisaya, there are also Malays, and also some sea gypsies – a nomadic people.

Typical house on Mabul. Also typical Philippine-style boat with some child's name painted on the side in Philippine-style lettering.

Visiting.

In case you were wondering: yes, you CAN feel the ocean inside. And smell it. And hear it.

Mabul's land: cluttered with cables, ocean craft, and kittens.

There is a beach on the other side of the island from Billabong near Scuba Junkie, the large resort/backpacker diveshop of choice. It seems like a really fun, social place to dive, but as a result, their Sipadan permits go FAST. I’m not really a beach person anyway; I’m too busy being in the water.

The beach.

My second night, we went to check out a new “bar” that had a pre-pre-opening night party. It was really just a wall-less hut with a power outlet for music + speakers. Everyone is nuts about Tanduay rum, and their cups they runneth over. The local DMs like to dance. I also met Open Ear Wound again there, where she was winning a fierce dog battle for what looked like someone’s sodden sock.

High tide

Can't resist.

The Diving

DAY ONE:

Everyone has to do at least one day of Mabul diving before any dive shop will take you to Sipadan. This is because Sipadan is not the easiest place to dive: it’s all wall dives which some people aren’t used to, and currents can get strong. Diveshops have to get a clear idea of your skill level, air consumption, and whether or not you’re a major jerk underwater and try to touch everything. We did three dives in between which we returned to Billabong for chilling and fried bananas. Visibility was only about 10m because of some heavy rains in the past few days, but we still managed to see lovely, lovely things:

1. Giant moray eel as big around as a basketball and lemon yellow.
2. School of barracuda
3. School of jack
4. Lots of nudibranchs

I had my heart set on seeing a cuttlefish for the first time ever but no luck. I think they’re just fantastic. Speaking of which, check out my new favourite blog. Rachel the Roomie thought I wrote it. I did not, but mad props, blogwriter, seriously.

PREPARE!

DAY TWO:

SIPADAN! I foolishly only signed up for one day of Sipadan diving, turned off by the price (because I am so cheap…) but after this day of diving scrambled all over Mabul begging other diveshops for an extra permit.

I briefly mentioned that Sipadan is special because it’s all alone out on the continental shelf. What this means is that its reef wall is an almost sheer vertical drop from sea level to continental shelf depth at around 600m. Just for context: recreational diving stops firmly at 40m, things start getting really dangerous at 60m, and at 100m you’re as good as dead in your wetsuit. And you can SEE the dropoff.

Follow my gaze if you will:

White sand beach ….

Welcome to Paradise. Thank you for recognizing that you'll never ever be allowed to stay here, ever.

… to warm shallow turquoise waters already teeming with small, colourful reef fish …

I hope it's cold where you are right now.

… to a dramatic colour change from turquoise to navy.

Just look at that. La la la knee-deep water, la la *GLUB* 600 m deep dropoff.

Pause there. That’s the dropoff. The mixing of warm, shallow waters and cold updrafts from the deep always makes for an interesting crowd. Namely: SHARKS!

You can't see my thumb pointing at the dramatic drop off. I don't mind the resulting fist pump, though. Same thing, really.

We left quite late in the morning: the DM, the two other divers from Tawau, a Dutch couple snorkeling, and an Australian named Paul who managed to find a last-minute permit. Being all experienced divers, our DM decided to take us out “into the Blue” to search for some hammerheads that had been sighted recently.  HAMMERHEADS! IN THE BLUE! A few words:

1. Hammerheads are effing rad.
2. The Blue is the water space away from wall or sea bottom. You can’t see anything but water in every direction, and the only way to distinguish up from any other direction is your bubbles. I had never been in the Blue before and was pleasantly nervous about it.

The risk is that our DM wouldn’t be able to find the wall again and we would have to cut our dive short. Worth the risk, we agreed, and after signing up at the marine park office on the island, were dropped off at Southern Point near the wall edge.

I don’t think any amount of rambling could accurately depict my feelings before diving Sipadan. “Really effing pumped,” will have to do.

Sipadan is absolutely lush. The colours of the coral are just that much more vibrant than in the other reefs I’ve seen. There is more of everything present.  It’s hard to describe, but I felt more like a visitor — an outsider — on these dives than on any other because it seemed like a more complete, alien place. In other dive sites, seeing litter or human-built structures makes the underwater world seem more hospitable to people.

Amazing things I saw on these three dives that I had never seen before:

1. Sharks! Maria the DM laughed when I told her I hoped to see a shark. “We’ll pop your shark cherry and then some,” she promised. We hadn’t been under more than 5 minutes before a 4-foot blacktip cruised past us. Just like that. I think I saw about 45 sharks that day including one big grey reef shark (6 feet!) I saw secretly hoping the sight of a shark would awaken some sort of prey instinct in me and I would feel an old primeval fear. I did feel a thrill of “oh that thing could totally take me out no problem” upon seeing the reef shark but otherwise, nothing. I’ll just have to go find some bigger sharks.
2. An octopus!!! I love cephalopods. At one point Paul beckoned me over and pointed to a hole in a coral. I saw two stalk eyes staring back at me. I couldn’t tell what they were attached to, but when the stalks suddenly changed colour and texture, I got really excited. There’s something going ON behind octopus eyes, I swear. They’re cheeky.
3. Humphead parrotfish: these huuuuuuuge hulking monsters of coral-eaters swim in … pods. They’re too big a fish for the “school” collective noun. The underwater sign for them is a fist on the forehead. I saw them from the side at first and was intimidated by their size, and then they turned to face me and I actually laughed out loud. They have ridiculous gap-teeth. Watching them go at a piece of coral is hilarious (and a little scary.)

"I wanna see a hammerhead with a hammer thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis big!" (Check me out.)

Amazing things that I did not see:

1. Hammerheads: we went into the Blue and it was a strange and wonderful experience. Every direction was a dark blue direction. We relied wholly on our gages and compasses for navigation: human brains are useless in the Blue. Because there was absolutely nothing to look at, my brain and eyes teamed up to see a sandy bottom dotted with coral beneath me even though I knew for a fact the bottom was 570m below me and there was NO way I could see it. Visibility was terrible at 10m, and I was excitedly nervous that if a hammerhead swooped into our little field of vision and then swooped out again, I might go a little nuts. But none came to visit us. Maria the DM found our way back no problem and we finished the dive with lots of other beautiful sea creatures.
2. Manta ray: not that anyone expected to. Seeing a manta will someday complete my life.
3. A cuttlefish. Enough said.

Other things to be said about Sipadan are its strong currents (fun for everyone!), and just again that it’s really effing gorgeous. I tried my hardest to get a permit for the next day too, but no luck.

I’ll just have to go back. OMG I love being underwater, guyzzzzzz.

DAY THREE:

I also dived Kapalai as well as some other sites around Mabul. I found 2 octopus all for myself, some turtles, and a few stonefish. After my third (and last) day of diving, I still hadn’t seen a cuttlefish. Some of the DMs suggested I find someone to take me on a night dive, so I joined a couple doing their Advanced Open Water night dive with another DM who promised me “if not cuttlefish, at least some other cool things.”

It was SO BEAUTIFUL! I love night dives as a rule, but this one was particularly excellent, with a sleepy lobster, another octopus (soooo cool!), the very creepy basket star, a beautiful little spanish dancer which launched itself off its perch to swim away from our lights (which sent my DM into paroxysms of noisy, bubbly glee,) and once, the ghostly shadow of a huge, graceful turtle finding a new place to sleep. And halfway through the dive, me DM waved me over, demanded my full attention and made the sign for cuttlefish (wiggling fingers under the chin.)

VICTORY! It was just a tiny, baby brown guy, only about 5cm long; very sleepy, and looking very resentful of our disturbing him. DM prodded him a little and he hovered a little bit, little cuttlefish fins undulating (so cute!!), before he retreated closer to a big sea urchin. He was so adorable. His little W-eyes. To me, they look permanently amused and shyly mischievous. They are so awesome.

There are so many other things that I saw, but I’ll move on.

DAY FOUR:

On my last day, I wasn’t allowed to dive because I’d be flying out that night, so I went snorkling instead. Still high from meeting a cuttlefish, I made it my goal to find a BIG Pharaoh cuttlefish. I searched under every coral. I found lots of stingrays, a few pipefish shaking in their elderly way, and once a huge pufferfish. When I dove to get a better look at him, a moral eel slithered out from behind him to check out my hand (a crab maybe?)

Then on my absolutely last time in the ocean, I saw something wine-coloured moving differently than the current under a very big table top coral about 4 m down. I dove to see — and it was a Pharaoh Cuttlefish as long as my forearm!! with a friend!! both sitting on top of a crocodile fish who seemed completely unconcerned about the whole thing!!!! I surfaced, and yelled for Otto the Malay DM to come see.

I spent the next 45 minutes staring at them. They were so beautiful. I can’t begin to describe (I will try.) Everything about cuttlefish is beautiful and fascinating to me: their waving lacy fins, their eyes, their amazing skin! They really do change colour and texture to communicate! When I met my cuttlefish he looked a lot like the cuttlefish in the video link above: wine and white stripes. When I dove down really close to look at him, he became more solidly wine-coloured and flashed some bright blue spots near his fin a few times.  And when Otto decided to piss him off by waving his hand near the cuttlefish, he brought his top tentacles up  and went almost all white, making his skin bumpy and growing little horns all over his head. Beautiful!

What’s even more amazing is that when I dove down head-first, he let me get very close to him – maybe only 20 cm away, face-to-face – but when I brought my hand anywhere near him, he became nervous and defensive. His friend darted out a couple of times to check us out, and both of them seemed more nervous about Otto than they did about me. They’re really amazing. I didn’t want to leave, but I had a plane to catch.

"All my dreams just came true. Otto, take a picture of me!"

I left Billabong extremely reluctantly to say the least. Otto came with me on the boat to an abandoned little jetty between Sempornah and Tawau where the manager met me to drive me to the Tawau airport. I gushed at him about cuttlefish for a while, then rudely passed out while he was telling me about his job. Too much excitement for five days, I think.

Goodbye, ocean east of Sabah, Borneo.

Other Business

Accidental shot that happens to sum up my solo-travel mode: backpack, shitty airport, bubble tea, nose sunburn, fumbling for important document in badly organized ziplock bag also containing my camera and somehow ending up taking a picture of something instead of finding the document. Later finding document in jacket pocket..

Prayer rooms in Tawau airport.

Back in the Low Cost Carrier Terminal Kuala Lumpur airport, I found my little corner again and set up my blanket-backpack fortress for the night. Cozy, I think:

2 out of 6 of my vacation nights were spent at the lavish Corner Made By the Last Row of Airasia Counters and the Wall. Recommended.

Safe to say, I can’t wait until December holidays. I’ve already planned where I’m going to dive, but I won’t spoil the blog posts for you. Travel, travel, travel.

“SINGAPORE, CAN YOU CONTAIN ME?”

“CANNOT!”