xmas in sipadan (23-26th Dec 2007)

hehehe.. there were about 12-15 of us. (i forgot .. old already maa.. kekekek) let's see.. there's macha, sari, fiza, farah, raja, lara, naguib, azran, da'a, amin(ozfish), pian and yours truly. no i didn't stay with pian.. hehehe.. i checked in with lara. she's a dutch who works at sidney. she used to live in malaysia, but just moved to sidney a couple of months ago. :) she's wayyy nice.

i had a series of injuries and illnesses in december. i guess my body's too tired. well it got its wish. i had a series of MCs all month long. let's see.. first it's the sprained ankle, then i got a flu or a fever. don't know which came first :P then the stomach flu. (i guess that answers my question!) then the week before i flew off to tawau, i had sore eyes. yepp.. december really sucked. for me at least. i went to sipadan anyway, even tho my sprained ankle was still hurting, and my eyes are still red. the thing with my sore eyes is, one doctor said i was just allergic to the sunshine, while another doctor thot it's the sore eyes.. the real thing. i dunno.. i'm just happy to be at home doing nothing. bad girl :P

then to make matters worse, the AKIPM assessment was scheduled on the 24th december. so everyone's leaves were cancelled automatically. man.. luckily, MACHA was the orgynizer ;) so i managed to persuade my GM to grant me my leave. hehehe.. phew.. then when i came back, my red eyes got ermm.. redder and i finished off the year with more MCs.

anyway, back to sipadan. with all that's happened, the cancelled leave, getting sick and everything, i thot, for sure.. my trip to sipadan is cursed. so i was all so prepared to abandon dives and just hang out at the dive resort. the weather forecast wasn't helping either. they said it's gonna be raining, and wind storm beginning 21st december until 29th december. and the day we arrived in tawau, the sky got darker and darker. it's really mm.. horrifying. i was literally berzikir "jangan la hujan, jangan la hujan" seriously!

and then we arrived in sipadan kapalai dive resort. lo and behold.. it was magnificient

cantik kan? cantik kan? that's just a view from my room. breathtaking. i don't have the view from top. those can be seen at their website.

i was just damn proud to have skdr in malaysia. tak kisah la if they ciplak from maldives ke mauritius ke.. i don't know la if i'll ever be able to dive those places. but skdr was pretty enough for me. the maintenance would cost them a bomb. not a wonder they charge an arm and a leg for 4d3n stay. (hehehe.. tak sesia aku spend. :P)

lara and i shared a room. it has a very nice toilet.. complete with shower and bathtub and even a view. but our bathroom was facing macha's room. ceitt.. kacau jee.. so had to close the windows everytime we use it. kekeke..

our room has three single beds. no aircond.. no tv.. but a darn big room
and plenty of space to put your big bags. i guess it really is made to accommodate divers. according to pian (since he's really the agent for skdr and went there for free.. i hate him) most foreigners will go there for weeks and some will even come back every year. there's this swedish old man, who distributed his custom designed xmas cards to everyone at the resort on our last day there, told us he was gonna be there for 20 days and that was like his 15th visit or something. can't remember. but they keep coming back. and it's not surprising. with very cute diver's assistants, i don't mind spending my money to go back .. again and again and again. hahaha.. :p

ok ok.. hormones.. sit!

we arrived in tawau at about 10:30 am. and reached semporna well about noon. we finally reached skdr at about 1:30.. as soon as we arrived, we attacked the buffet table first.. kekekekekeke... divers will always be divers ;)


so where were we? ermm.. oh yeah... we had lunch. then jinky came to give us a briefing about sipadan kapalai dive resort, the facilities, what they offer, and stuff.. i didn't pay attention really.

we were also given our room keys, and assigned roommates. well it was assigned way before this.. by pian. and i've already seen the list hehe.. then we went to the office and left our passports and valuables at the office. lara accidentally turned her handphone off and she forgotten her pin number. after the fifth try, the phone locked on her. heheh.. so she just kept the phone at the office.

the bedroom was fantastic. i think i've written about the room so many times now. hehehe.. best siut.. ;) we immediately changed to our swimsuits/bikinis and walked straight towards the dive center. there we met two cute japanese girls named michiyo and sapa entah. forgot already lah.. they're our dive masters/dive guides on our check out dive. michiyo went through the briefing about the dive center, the services and stuff.. again, didn't pay attention here too..

24th december 2007

On our second day, we were introduced to Lito and Efren. we had our first dive in sipadan today. but we went there quite late. there were sightings of pilot whales near sipadan on our arrival day and today. sipadan was very nice. i was expecting strong current, big sharks everywhere, dark waters.. hehe... ok ok i had a very eerie image of sipadan despite the pretty pictures i saw. remember the sprained ankle? well i was all prepared to abort the dives should there be strong currents going on.

and boy oh boy i was soo wrong. the vis was like 30-40 meters, the water was flat. the day all bright and sunny. the water was so flat that no big fish was present. heheheh.. best siutt...

the first dive was at the barracuda point. we were searching for the cudas.. hahaha... mana nak nampak. current not strong enough. in the words of da'a. "the dive was so easy" it was. so we didn't see much.. well a lot. but not as we hoped. we did our surface interval on sipadan island. the island now is inhabited by army and stray cats. i guess the cats were brought in by the army or something. the old chalets were abandoned. but some were used by the army as their base. the toilets were made public. clean toilets .. i like. well ok la especially since there's about 150 people that use them everyday kan?

our second dive, we're taken to south point. we heard an explosion during this dive. we suspected it was a fish bomb. could even feel some tremors of the after"bomb" .. urghh when will it stop? someone should do something about this .. fishing near the corals. or in the future there's nothing more to see.. even now there's nothing to see.. hehehe.. at the end of the dive, pian took the opportunity to skindive. got some pretty pictures of him doing it... got to see his very curvy and firm butts.. yummy.. wakakakakaaour last dive of the day was at seaventures. seaventures was actually an oil rig. it was turned into a resort i think and there were people staying there. it's off mabul. and there lies very tiny, highly searched for, pygmy seahorses. the vis was horrifying, and current was strong. then, it turned out the dive site could be worse! the current was actually pretty mild for its standard. alhamdulillah.. i took pictures of the seahorsey.. hehehe.. but only managed to get its back. don't ask me how.. i thot i was looking at its side profile. i was disappointed. then pian told me the others didn't get a good picture of it.. except macha of course. best nye bhaii... saw the crocodile fish for the first time. scary.. they were lying there .. sort of waiting for their food or something much like its darat counterparts. gile..
when we came back we actually wanted to do one more dive.. at the house reef. but they were already closing the dive shop to prepare for the big christmas party. boy.. it was big! i partied. despite the red eyes i got from the diluted sun block. isk.. merah siut... pian thot i was drinking. can't blame him i was partying like i was drunk. kekekeke... can't help it. the cutie from the dive shop asked me to dance. had to dance laa.. hahaha... unfortunately he reeked of beer. so i had quite a headache.

we slept in late that nite.. lito said we might have to take five minute naps before we dive tomorrow.. hahaha.. that guy can drink. dasat..

25th december 2007

merry christmas.. heheh.. lara and i woke up late. thot the others would too.. hehe.. ye la tu. the rest are already having their third servings of breakfast when we arrived at the dining area. hehehehe.. :P

since we didn't get to see the barracudas swimming around us.. we decided to give sipadan another visit. i told lito i wanna swim with the cudas.. to that he said u probably will cause we're heading to the barracuda point on our second dive. we're going to dive at mabul paradise in the morning.

then farah screamed. she lost her wetsuit. huhu.. then lito told her that someone may have taken her wetsuit by mistake. i guess that could have happened in a big place such as that. she had to settle with a torn rental hancing wetsuit. gosh. i would rather go jessica alba if it were to happen to me. :P

mabul paradise was truly a paradise. it's located near the mabul water bungalows.. it's the house reef. at first when we went down i thot.. urghh.. malas nye.. dah la vis teruk.. hehehe... then ting ting ting ting.. lito spotted a flamboyant cuttlefish. woo hoo... cute gile.. the best part was lara thot it was a crab. kekekekeke... siut je.

there were many things to see.. 52 minutes certainly was not enough. there were jacks swimming in the underwater structures.. lots of nudis .. a couple of lionfish.. many trumpetfish... it's a cool site. could stay there for hours just looking for the little creatures hiding here and there.

then we went back to kapalai to change tanks and get our packed lunch. as the staff at kapalai dive resort were doing just that, we lepak2 at the dive center.. catching some sun. and had some iced tea buat sendiri ;)

we then headed to sipadan. farah still couldn't find her wetsuit. but she did see a wetsuit much like hers only hers is a size 10T, while the one at the dive center was a size 10. heheh.. adoii... she then decided to go jessica alba.. well not totally.. she went in wearing shorts and a sleeveless tee.

we dived the barracuda point again. still searching for our barracuda's vortex formation. it's frustrating to see only one small school of barracudas swimming past us. i almost hit my no deco limit. there was some downward current pushing us down, i went a wee bit too deep at this dive. luckily lara always stuck near me, enough for me to learn if i were diving too deep. naguib however violated his no deco limit and not only that he didn't do the deco stops. his D6 locked and gone to error mode.

during the SI at sipadan island, he showed his D6 to us and Macha told him not to dive. especially since we're going home the next day on a plane. there's also the danger of DCS.. we had our lunch at sipadan island. that'll be the last time i set foot on sipadan... well until my next trip to sipadan la.. kan? hahaha...

ok.. so we're still diving sipadan. our last dive at sipadan, lito took us at the drop off point, heading towards the turtle tomb and then to where the jacks are.. dunno what that was called .. mm.. i thot drop off point would be far.. haha.. tengok2 depan tu je. ceitt.. :P

when we were going to jump in, we suddenly saw some unknown macro stuff at the water surface. seemed like mosquito larvae or something.. ewww.. and all of a sudden i didn't feel like going in.. yucky.. so the boatman took us a bit further up.. then we jumped anyways since the thingy didn't wanna go away.

the dive was ok.. lito even advised us to swim faster if we see any other group approaching hehe.. nanti ramai sangat "tak shyiok" hahhaa.. we went down to turtle tomb. it was a scary place. memang macam kubur pun. it's really dark. there was an old danger sign in front of the cave. it was eerie. took pictures there but they turned out either blurry or blurry.

then we dived away from the site.. and headed to barracuda point. saw the jacks.. beautiful. didn't see the barracudas and their vortex, at least we saw the jacks and their highway. best gile.. cantik sangat.. i wish i had a wide angle lenses.. fish eye pun nice. then i could capture the whole thing. right now my lense is quite limited laa.. :(

there we were joined by this group of mat salleh. kacau je.. nasib baik aku tak terikut diorang.. hahahaa.. :P

but because of them, i get to see the leopardshark for the first time. it was magnificent. i was at awe looking at it. i heard someone shook his shaker. i thot to myself, there's no one using shakers in our group but i turned back anyways.. then i saw it. right below us. pian was behind me and lara. i turned to lara.. and pointed to the leopardshark. she was as excited as i was.. hehehe.. we were like kids watching it from afar. i managed to snap a photo of it. :)

and as we reached the barracuda point.. we regrouped.. lara, pian and i were among the last people arriving at the surface point, so lara and i hung out there.. i personally wanted to end my dive at sipadan with some cool photos of the coral formation. then i got bored.. seemed as if lara was too. so we decided to surface. we did our surface interval a bit further into the blue.. the water felt cold. and as we reached the surface, i turned back and took a glance of sipadan.. for the last time. there it was... the vortex. the one we've all been looking for!!!!

i quickly tapped lara.. showed her .. pian was surfacing. saw me pointing at the vortex. he saw it too.. and he went down. i didn't even bother to look at my gauge cause when i did my safety stop i still had like 70 bar left. so i went down too.. and pian quickly asked me how much air i had left. i was too excited.. didn't understand what the heck he's asking.. and showed him my dive comp. hahahahaa... who cares? i'm in the middle of the vortex. taking pictures.. and while pian was busy looking at my gauge i'm already enjoying the view. it was breathtaking. dreams come true. i was scared. lucky for me, pian decided to go back down. best sangat2.. it's like being in another world. totally. after a while i didn't even bother to take any photos.. just enjoying being in the middle of them fishes..

when we all surfaced, i was screaming with ecstasy.. everyone was excited.. the best way to end our trip that was...

when i surfaced everyone was still talking about the barracudas.. macha turned out have gone back in with his camera to get a picture or two of the vortex. it was nice... then alfian surfaced and scolded me for not understanding his question underwater.. hahahaa.. who cares? :P

we went back to kapalai feeling so excited. didn't even feel tired from the dives.. was so ready for my next dive at kapalai house reef. macha so wanted to photograph the mandarin fish.

so we prepped for our sunset dive. lara chose not to dive.. azran and naguib also didn't go. but the rest were so hyped up to look for the mandarin fish especially after finding the vortex.. hehehe.. so we searched hi and lo.. almost deco'd la jugak.. we found a lot of things. but didn't see the mandarin fish. finally when my air almost ran out, pian's light batteries also ran out. pheww thank god.. :P as soon as i surfaced... macha and sari told us that they just saw octopus right down the jetty.. apa lagi.. we went down laa.. hahahaa... pian tried to "charm" the octopus. but it was afraid. even squirted ink towards pian. so we went back up. wakakakakakaa...

oh well.. at least i get to see pian get the ink.. kekeke.. anyway, we resurfaced and washed our equipment.

after taking a shower we all met up at the dining area with our dive logs. lara and sari have one thing in common. their dive logs are a bunch of papers filed together. hehehe.. cool gak kan? maybe i'll consider making a scrapbook like dive log la.. nanti abis dive log yang ni i'll make one like that.. then i can paste the photos of the dive site, the pictures i took, info on dive site.. cool kan?

we had our last bonding session.. si da'a showed off his ipod touch. really cool la that gadget. i think everyone fell in love with it. as of today i know macha and amin (ozfish) already bought one. sari maybe.. cause sari bought one for macha. haha..

the fatty bom bom dog we call sausage also joined our session.. that poor doggie.. so fat yet so clean. he's washed everyday... waitta minute.. shouldn't dogs be WALKED everyday? i think the kapalai people got the concept wrong already laa... kakakakaka...

26th December 2007

early morning, aku dah bangun. don't want to miss a second at this place. if i could dive this morning, i would have. i guess all that noise from the bathroom woke lara up as well.. she was also early.

after breakfast, lara and i decided to snorkel around kapalai. there were so many things to see. luckily i always have my snorkel with me when i go diving. kalau tak.. rugi je.. the others decided to kayak around the area. they said they saw a blue ring octo at the other end. i didn't want to spend too much time snorkeling cause i haven't packed yet. and i haven't really taken any photos of the place. so, i told lara i didn't wanna go. there's just so many things to see.. needlefish (ikan todak rasa nya) garfish.. (same species only bigger teeth) berlambak2.. also found the resident titan triggerfish. takut siot tengok.. the water was so clear, and we were sort of doing muck diving, cause the water is actually shallow and there were sand everywhere. there weren't much corals pun..

after we're done, we cleaned our gears, and dried them.. bid goodbye to da'a cause he had to catch an early flight back to miri. even tho we seemed cheerful, but i'm pretty sure everyone had a tough time leaving. it was fun being there.. the place is nice, people are extra nice, food is fabulous... what more do you ask for from a vacation. even the waters, usually there's strong current, are flat. vis was a perfect 30-45 meters. and i took really nice pictures tau. :(

when we left kapalai, everyone said goodbye, including that cute boy i danced with at the christmas party.. wakakaka... silap la.. from the looks of it, i could've gotten lucky la that nite.. kekekkekek..

we went to tawau for some shopping.. ye la tu.. we were so beat when we got to land we only wanted to relax and have a drink. so we hung out at the eating stalls next to the filipino market and got ourselves some drinks and chicken wings. i was always scared of eating there. the place used to be closed for a few months when i was in tawau because it was filthy. so i ordered pepsi. mm.. we didn't even get pepsi. :P

we then were taken to sabindo to have our seafood dinner. man it was a lot of food. there were about 16 of us.. and we only had to pay 20 ringgit each. that's way cheap man. we ordered sashimi, chili crabs, then 2 huge groupers, udang, sayur sabah, even remembering the menu makes me kenyang already.. hahaha. :P

our flight was at 8++. we arrived at the airport at about 7:30. there were 3 long lines.. but hey.. it's tawau. hahaha.. no problem :P

Man already waited for me outside LCCT when i arrived. he's probably annoyed cause i took a detour to the clinic to check my red-eyes. al-haj was closed so went to zahrah. the doctor said i have retrigerm. dunno la if it's the correct term or not. it means i'm allergic to the sun and can't do anything about it, only can remove it. through a minor surgery. isk tak nak la.. so the next day went to see doctor at al-haj. got 2 day mc for sore eyes. hahahaha...

basically it was a fun place to be. wanna go again and again and again. i only wish i could go there with my boyfriend. it's so romantic watching the sunset from the helipad and waking up to the sunrise in the morning.. watching it from the room. mm... bila la agak nya kan?

the end.

ps: there are more pictures from the trip here and here