April 6-7, 2018, Diving Sipadan with Scuba Junkie

Arrived yesterday morning at the Scuba Junkie Mabul Beach Resort (MBR) after a day of traveling from Phuket to Kuala Lumpur, then domestic flight to Tawau, Sabah, and a 65 minutes taxi ride to Semporna, where I checked in at the Scuba Junkie Divers Lodge for the night. Next morning another short boat ride to the island of Mabul, and we went diving straight away at the Jetty, before even checking in.
Camera was in my other bag, so no footage of the first day. Had my dive gear ready, though.
Very warm welcome by the staff at the jetty and the resort, it feels very much home when you return and know your way around, look into smiling, familiar faces and exchange hugs after a year of absence. My heart was jumping with joy meeting my friend Dionne again and having a long and warm hug with her. I requested her for one of my two Sipadan days. Did not get that one, but we had a hilarious muckdive from Awas to Jetty (more on that in a later post).

Next day is Sipadan day already, four dives, though not getting Dionne as guide I was happy to be diving with Richard and Azrul, had been to Sipadan with Richard last year.
Pretty tough current at Barracuda Point on the first dive, but once we got off the top reef and went down the wall, it was ok. That dive day had all you could wish for at Sipadan, and as pictures can tell more than a thousand words, here is the VDO of that dive day.


Just a Day at Sipadan... from Vo Sta on Vimeo.

See you under water

Nai Yang stopover, a week on Mabul

Back from the Junk "June Hong Chian Lee", I have a shared minivan to Nai Yang, close to the airport, because I will fly out the next day at 8:15 am.
I arrive more or less at noon, check in at the TT Nai Yang Beach Hotel and look for an express laundry, but they all need at least a day to wash and dry. So I do some laudry myself again and hang it on the roof terrace, together with my dive equipment, that I want dry for the flights tomorrow. Later in the afternoon TJ from Lofoten, Norway, arrives at a bungalow hotel next door, we meet in a beach restaurant next to my hotel and chat a while, sipping white wine on the rocks. She is on her way to a liveaboard trip in Komodo. After that we have a far better white at a pizzeria on the walking street, completed with pizza that doesn't need to shy the comparison with italian ones. Regular stone oven, you know.
After dinner I say goodbye, have to pack some stuff, and diving 6 days in a row makes me tired.
See you again, TJ, and eventually we will manage to dive together once again!

Mabul did not disappoint, Mabul delivered.
Three dives a day, with super visibility most of the time. On The Junk liveaboard, Oliver Fitch asked me, what the diving is like at Mabul. It's mostly muck diving, but on white sand, thus pretty different to the Lembeh Strait, for example. Apart from muck and many artificial structures, you can also have beautiful walls with awesome top reefs to hang around for a safety stop.
Some of the dive sites are so close to the jetty, you swim back to the resort after dropping in from the boat.



more dive videos here: https://vimeo.com/user55401320

See you under water

Day 53 / Tag 53, Thu. May 4, Sipadan

(Preface: I am still in Indonesia with the worst possible WiFi , so I hope to get this post out with at least some fotos. Stopped thinking of video alltogether... I will update with better WiFi to come, hopefully, some day along the road.... Now already one week behind)
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Sipadan

Among the Top Ten on my diving bucketlist, if I had any, Sipadan is of fame with many divers around the world.
It is hard to get there, because access is restricted to 120 divers a day, regulated by daily permits you have to purchase, if you get one, you are lucky. That's why many resorts require you to stay a certain amount of nights to get a permit garuanteed.
Example: At Scuba Junkie you have to stay at least 5 nights to get 1 day diving Sipadan garuanteed. For 2 Sipadan days you will already have to stay at least 8 nights.
Of course you can always ask for a permit on a certain day at different dive operators in Semporna or on Mabul....

Map of Semporna, Mabul, Kapalai, and Sipadan

Divng here is very different to diving Mabul. The latter is still on the mainland shelf, while Sipadan is oceanic, though only 30 boat minutes away. Between Mabul and Sipadan the water is 600 meters deep, south of Sipadan the bottom drops to 2000 meters and more. Different conditions favor different marine life.

At Scuba Junkie, the Sipadan

Day 52 / Tag 52 Wed., May 3 Drift and Jam

Later, we will make some noise

Diving again,

Today Tom from Australia is in our group. A pleasure to dive with him

We are at "Artificial" again, I let the others explore a structure and sit down on a bench. Jessica joins me and Dionne takes some fotos of us, sitting there as if we were waiting for the bus to come...

Is this the bus stop for line M to Mabul, or are you just waiting for the boat?

Day 51 / Tag 51, Tue. May 2, Day off? Hahaha. No, go diving!

On my originally booked dive schedule, this day was a no-dive-day, but, man, come on, we have so much fun under water here, after yesterday's last dive with Azrul I booked 3 additional dives for today, two in the morning and one nightdive.




Kat, the most friendly and welcoming resort manager asked, if I request anybody special as guide.

"No," I say, "nobody in particular, as long as it's Dionne." She obviously likes that kind of humor and we both laugh loud. And so I dive with

Day 50 / Tag 50 Mon., May 1, Dive, Eat, Sleep, Repeat. Jackfish with Azrul

It's Diving Time again!

"Delicious!", he grins, when I show him the fotos and video clips of the huge cloud of Jackfish, shot at the dive site "Artificial" on Mabul, not far from the Scuba Junkie jetty, "I want this video!"
Azrul is a young local Divemaster, passed his certification as a pro only a month ago. "At the safety stop, everybody dance! Every guide does fun dives, I do funny dives!"
And we sure have a lot of fun, Azrul the guide, Lucy, a young divemaster who turned to studies now, and me, Advanced Open Water Diver. Dive times between 50 and 60 become normal again...

3 Dives: Mabul Eelgarden, Artificial, and for the third from Artificial back to the Jetty

Going for some fish here, I still find some cute small stuff.
If anyone starts getting bored with Nudibranch pictures, drop a comment, I will try to resist the next Nudi... ;-)

Gotta love them Nudis

Day 49 / Tag 49, Sun., April 30, Let the Diving begin

 Preface: I am trying to update these blog posts from Bunaken, North Sulawesi, Indonesia. The Island Internet is more than shaky...sorry for few fotos,  don't even dare think of video oh, oh, I was lazy in Sabah ;-)

Enough chilled and soaked up the place, it's diving time again.
My guide is Dionne, a very energetic lady, local, smiling and making fun all the time. At this point of time I have no idea, how much fun we will have together during the next days
This week she is "shadowed" by Jessica, a young Divemaster. Shadowing, for all you non-Divers out there, is used to gain experience and knowledge of the dive sites for young diving professionals. Young indeed,  Jessica had her 22nd birthday yesterday.

Shadow Jessica and Dionne

Itching to get back in the water, today I start this lovely routine again: dive, eat, sleep, repeat....

We start at Kapalai Housereef, I feel uncomfortable after about 15 minutes, the dreaded Dive Reflex ("What are you doing, man? Breathe under water? WTF, go to the surface and breathe normally like everybody else, you punk ;-)!")
Short dive, I am at 50 bar after 37 minutes. I don't fear going down, I am concerned about too positive buoyancy at the end of a dive and popping up like a cork.
After surfacing I add an extra weight, that calms me down. Soon I will discard it again.
We are diving around Kapalai until lunch at the resort, in the afternoon we drift dive Mabul D-Wall...
During lunch break we chat about what we saw, there are Fish-ID-cards everywhere at the resort, so you can easily look up everything.

Kapalai House Reef: Ghost Pipefish, Harlequin Sweetlips, Leaf Scorpionfish
Kapalai Cleaning Station (get some manicure ;-): Cleaner shrimps, Banded Coral Shrimp, Hermit Crab, Monocle Bream, Devil Scorpionfish
Mabul D-Wall: Kunie's Nudibranch, Phililidia, Flathead Crocodilefish, Porcelaine Crab.

And of course, turtles! Tao yai, kap!

Ornate Ghost Pipefish, black and white, never seen these colors before

Banded Coral Shrimps

Leafy Frogfish

Hermit Crab

Cleaner shrimps. Get a manicure

Harlequin or Leopard Sweetlips

Hawksbill tudrtle, resting

Want to see turtles? Go Mabul

Some soft corals look like a crazy designer's lamp

When it's springtime underwater...

Flathead Crocodilefish

False Clownfish, they don't know where to look first, so...

...we set up a little Smurf Show for them. See how they all watch the show!

Tiny Porcelaine Crab

Tiny Porcelaine Crab

Had some beers at the bar, making new friends, Ivan and Chel from the Philippines,

A great, friendly, warm hearted couple from the Philipines, Chel and Ivan. Miss you already!

Tom Wright from Australia, Evelynne, called Eve, young instructor with her very first course, and went to sleep happy with the outcome of the first diving day.
Again tomorrow!

See you under water

Day 48 / Tag 48, April 29, Chilling at Mabul Beach Resort

Dreaming of turtles,

Just hanging out

Day 47 / Tag 47 April 28. To Mabul

Hot Tea for breakfast at the Family Restoran (no typo) next door.
I do the paperwork at the dive center, get 159 Ringgit refunded, because I bring my own equipment. Will use it as running credit at the resort.
Out to the street for some shots in the morning. Don't be fooled, it doesn't smell better than last night...

Day 46 / Tag 46 April 27. From Ao Nang, Thailand to Semporna, Sabah

All alarms go off at 4 am: Wake up, Travel Time again!!!

I started this trip from Berlin on March 13th.
Now, 46 days and 62 dives later, I leave Thailand and go further, traveling to Semporna, Sabah, Malaysia.Into the unknown.

Taxi arrives at 5.
Arrive in time, I have some time to kill, but there is not a lot you can do at Krabi International Airport at 6 in the morning ;-)

My flight to Kuala Lumpur is late, 40 minutes delay, we arrive half an hour later than planned, KLia2 is a terminal with looong ways to walk, I wait more than an hour in line for immigration, and BANG! there goes my connection flight to Tawau, Sabah. 10 minutes too late for check in.

I have to buy a new ticket for a flight three hours later, inform Scuba Junkie Semporna by email, that I need a later pickup. Unfortunately they don't confirm as I had asked for, so after some more than an hour I get nervous and call them from my German phone. They already planned everything for my new arrival time!
Three minutes after the phone call they confirm by email (I'm looking forward to that phone call on my bill for April...)
Get some money from an ATM, these bills look unfamiliar, a Euro buys you around 4.7 Malaysian Ringgit.
Try the bills at KFC with a two piece plate, fries and cole slaw. Works ;-)

Nice seat on the plane, row 14 on an Airbus 320-200, that means emergency exit with a lot of room for your legs. Took some notes and semi-sleep.

Tawau, Sabah is one of those small airports, where the plane parks in front of the building