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

Day 45 / Tag 45 April 26 Going round in Ao Nang

My favorite breakfast sometimes:
Ham and Cheese croissant sandwich and a 3-in-1 coffee, all for 42 Baht (1,15 Euro) at 7-Eleven,

I take the scooter for a short foto tour around Ao Nang,  impressive limestone mountains,

longtail boats

Day 44 / Tag 44, Tue. April 25. Divng Koh Phi Phi

Pick up is 10 minutes early, we collect other participants from resorts and drive to the longtail boat port at the river. The longtail taxis us to the dive boat waiting for us in deeper waters.

Longtailboat brings us to the Diveboat

Leaving Ao Nang, course Koh Phi Phi

Again, it's not a Kon Tiki boat, they had a propeller damage the day before,

Day 43 / Tag 43, Mon. April 24 Koh Lanta to Ao Nang

Must get closer to Krabi Airport, my flight to Borneo goes at 8am, allow 2 hours for check in on international flight, that's 6am, travel time from Koh Lanta 3 hours, that would make it 3am. And there is a ferry connection from Koh Lanta Noi to the mainland, which doesn't operate during the night hours. So I'll have to go to the mainland before anyway. I decide to go to Krabi for two days, Ao Nang, to be precise. Have never been there, so why not take a look

Short chat with the swedish lady, warm goodbye from and to the thai family at Bee Garden. Of course we will all see each other again next season...

and I want to recommend it:

contact@lantabeegarden.com (for any questions)