Not just Sipadan. The photos below includes diving photos taken from Mataking and Mabul Islands as well, neighbouring islands of the great Sipadan.
Nudi Branch
Which, btw, those of you who are interested to go diving in Sipadan, book wayyy in advance. Because unless you have contacts, like really good contacts, daily permit to enter the island is VERY VERY limited.
Last I heard each dive centre was only allocated 7 permits. During diving season (between June and August), the permits might be fully booked two to three months in advance, more difficulty for group divers.
Gerald doing a spin off.
Now I have friends who went to Sipadan and came back complaining that there wasn't anything to see and the island was overrated bla bla bla.
Well, serve you right for not going there during the diving season. Instead they chose to go there during the year end period where there's no one and hence easier to obtain permits, etc, and ended up diving in rain all the time. Hence murky water, low visibility.
And it's called the diving season in July for a reason, because all the other months you just won't see shit! The fishes are all elsewhere you douche.
Anyway, I went there during the peak (July 2009) and the water was clear, abundance of marine lives
and beautiful gigantic sea turtles!
On this trip, there were a total of five of us. Four advanced divers and one newbie. Three guys two girls.
Among two of them were my readers (actually just one of them, the other one was his colleague), Raymond and Westley. Raymond emailed me one day, after finding out that I was planning a trip to Sipadan and said he wanted to tag along. And so with my best bud Gerald and my lady friend (whose name shall not be named), we planned the trip together.
Raymond doing a kung fu
The baby of the group did not join us on our first three days of dive trips because she was taking her first open water license. Hehe. You will see her in her wetsuit later in the post.
Let's start off by talking about my bandana.
Which Gerald bought for me.
Him scouring in his bag for my gift.
At first I thought it was weird for a guy to buy something like a bandana for a girl,
how I wore it when he handed me the piece of cloth
he got himself one too
but then I realised that it actually came pretty much in handy.
You know when you go diving, for those who have long hair or fringes, your hair it always gets stuck in the mask when you put them on.
fringe fly here fly there
Well, a Bandana helps secure your fringe up and hence easy for applying mask.
An example of a badly secured Bandana.
The other usefulness of it, I found out, was identity.
If everyone in your group rented wetsuit from the dive centre, you all, well, look pretty much the same underwater. Especially when you dive deeper and all the colors except blue remains.
I still have no idea who that is in this photo
But with a Bandana, for the first time, it was really easy for me to identify which one was Gerald!!
Even deep in the water, I just need to look over one's head and instantly know which one he was.
Or me for them.
Bandana rocks.
you might think that I was pointing to my bandana in this photo, but I was actually signaling that I was having a splitting headache underwater, which btw passed me out.
Now, on to the great marine lives!!
I've been practising my underwater photography skill and I must say, I have improved tremendously since I first started out.
I can control my buoyancy more accurately now (so that I don't float all over the place while taking photos) and hence, more amazing close up photos!
frog fish
see, I didn't scare the fish off this time!
I've also grown more spontaneous underwater which meant that I was able to capture that million dollar moment with some of the most beautiful creatures underwater.
Now I just need a really good and expensive underwater casing for my SLR, and a strobe.
Some shots of the endangered green turtles.
We saw countless of them. It was amazing.
chasing after one for a good shot
Gerald, you better thank me for this shot.
Some shots of the Hawksbill turtle.
*spotted*
"who?"
"urgh, can't a turtle rest in peace" *swim off*
On our last day (actually, my last day, I fell sick after that), we spotted a HUGE green turtle.
I mean this boy was really BIG. Easily 1.7m long, that's my height!!! The freaking turtle was the size of ME!!!
I swam really close to it to get a good shot while Gerald was readying his camera at one side. Then I straddled my legs and pretended that I was riding the turtle and *snap*!
Of course I wasn't really riding the turtle. I didn't even touch the big mama (or daddy).
Gerald decided to tail it.
Community shout out here for a while.
While diving, I spotted a floating plastic bag underwater. Guys and girls, listen to Nicolekiss, if ever one day you spotted a floating plastic bag, please please... I beg you, go pick it up. Because if you don't, some turtles might actually think that it's a jellyfish, go up and consume it, and choke and then die!!
Do you want to see these beautiful endangered creatures die?! NO!
So I swam up and held the plastic bag in my hand for the rest of the dive session till we got on the board, and discarded it accordingly when I reached mainland.
Peace out
Another grand things you'll encounter when you dive in Sipadan during the peak diving period was that you'll see seasonal school of fishes that only appear in that time of the year.
Believe me, it will be the grandest thing you'll ever see in this part of the world.
It's nothing like the petty school of fish you see in the photo above. Nay.
The school I'm talking about here was something more like this...
This was a school of barracuda spotted in Barracuda point in Sipadan. They usually swim in school and will circle in big whirlpool. I was actually inside the circle when I took these photos.
Breath-taking was one way to describe my feeling.
But awe-struck kinda hit the spot of how I was reacting.
Then there were the schools of jackfish, which came at least in 2 thousands or more of them!
vortex of jackfish
oh look who has joined us
Funny story. I actually got lost in this school of jackfish. I just wanted to swim inside and take really nice shot of the fish from inside but by the time I was done snapping, I realised the vortex of fish had dragged me else where and I couldn't find my way around, they were still surrounding me at this point. It was crazy.
So I kept swimming forward, against the school of fish to find my way out and thank god after a while I spotted my diving buddies. Phew~
I actually have video of me being lost. Will share them in my next post. Including the videos of the school of barracudas and jackfish too.
Here are photos of other marine lives.
lion fish (or scorpion fish for some)
longnosed hawkfish
Spotted a rather huge Flamboyant Cuttlefish.
Nicole thinking: "yum, calamari."
Spotted a baby one too.
Spotted a copper-band butterfly fish.
An angry copper-band butterfly fish.
I don't think it was very happy us disturbing its peace.
The all evil looking Murray Eel.
Reminds you of your mother-in-law doesn't it?
The ugly frog fish.
Another ugly fish.
A fish that looked like worm of which name I couldn't remember. It's somewhere in my previous post.
A shark!
A long snouted fish (what's-his-name?).
Three different giant sea cucumber.
This sea cucumber is at least 1.4 meter long!
This one looks like poo.
1.3m long of bad allergy?
Some yellow fish.
Two fish from Fishville.
They are the fish from fishville, aren't they?
ignore the dead fish. I'm too lazy to play the game now.
What's their name again?
Oh yea.. firefish.
See, facebook games can be educational.
Oh look, another lion fish.
Come everyone, let's take a photo with it.
One day, I swear, we'll eventually gonna annoy all the fish in the sea with our cam-whoring habit.
Saw a very big angel fish? "chang yu" (you know, the one that our parents always serve on dinner table) swimming up close to Raymond.
oh Yummy, lunch.
Other random photos.
dive master creating circular air bubble
looking through your window~
o o .. I know this pun: sorry to burst your bubble.
christmas tree coral?
swimming through
going down. it's like playing maze in Mabul island.
what was this doing down here?
for Gerald to finish his business of course
Gerald going long~~~
Welp! It's about time to return to the surface. The post is ending (PHEW).
Guys, I shall end this post with this.
seasick bunch
We were completely wiped out!
PS// the above photos were dives taken within a period of 4 days over at least 9 dives.
