Dive Trip To Malaysia – 19 February to 8 March 2010  

Fri 19 Feb 2010 all picked up and on the minibus (after only 2 u-turns for forgotten mobiles) the start of our adventure:

10:19 pm departure from Heathrow; Malaysia air proved a good choice 12hr

none stop  flight; excellent food and service; and good leg room, after allowing  for the 8 hour advance to local time we were all checked in at the  Brisdale and exploring the local markets (literally on our doorstep and all  around us) by 8pm. First hotel and the booking in went smoothly – I was so relieved and almost surprised.

Saturday evening. a couple of hours later we turn  in after eating our way around the markets (avoiding the dried fish stalls –how or why you would cook a dried lion fish fin is beyond me -, but then would you want to, or maybe its not for eating?) Some of the satay we tried tasted great but not  sure what it actually was; decided not to ask too many questions; the best buy was the yummy pancake served in newspaper.

Wouldn’t recommend the Brisdale for it's star rating but if you  want good basic accommodation as we did; in the heart of the Muslim/ Indonesian part of Kuala Lumpur (KL) and a room with a view of the Petronas twin towers (that will blow you away) then it meets its purpose. One definite negative was the long walk for a beer!

I only allowed a couple of nights for KL and we would be flying to Tawau before 8 on Monday morning so we opted for a 4 hour city tour in the morning followed by a high tea in the revolving restaurant some 300 feet up in the KL tower and a couple of trips on the monorail to visit the famous Bukit Bintang district at night. A bit of a whirlwind start to the trip but we all agreed we wouldn’t have seen as much left to our own devices.

Monday 22 Feb: arrived at Tawau airport (which is in Sabah on the East continent of Malaysia); flight on time and as promised Kapalai resort representatives were there to meet us (so well organised they gave us our paperwork for booking and diving to do on the journey so it didn’t get in the way on arrival). About an hour bus transfer to a jetty at Semporna followed by a fast boat ride (45mins approx) to the water village.

 a beautiful resort; the diving here was very good: Much macro life ghost pipe fish leaf fish frog fish and nudibranch by the dozen, (there was some damage to the reefs, and the vis whilst good was the usual where macro life are is in abundance) For those not interested in the small critters there were plenty of turtles and sharks. The diving off Sipidan was far the best being wall dives: our first:  Pristine corals endless blue water balling barracuda by the hundred: sharks turtles and over 20 lump head parrot fish when the guide pointed ahead I thought the divers ahead of me were watching a part of the reef wall but as I approached I realised the wall was moving and was actually solid swirling barracuda. One of those sights shown on an underwater documentary that I never imagined I would see for myself.   We had to leave at 5am, and were diving before 6 am and this first dive was the best it was well worth it.  We landed on  Sipidan after each of the first three dives ; the food arrived by boat  from Kapalai to make sure we had a hot meal and plenty to drink after each  dive.  4 unforgettable dives later we are zooming back to Kapalai in time for afternoon tea what a day!

The only thing we all agreed we didn’t want to see was the video guy  who had a knack of always being in the wrong place at the wrong time - divers  with cameras can be so annoying – oops!!

Everything right through from initial booking to the transfer back to Tawau airport was carried out so professionally -a top resort and top class diving, the private water bungalows where the only disturbing sound at night was of a surfacing turtle or two taking a gulp of air or a gar fish tackling it's supper (or judging by the missing tail fins in the morning being supper to some <!--[if gte vml 1]> <![endif]-->larger predator).

The dive boats were small cats with twin 250's -very fast. We (8 divers) had one to 
ourselves for the whole of our stay, the dive sites were 20 minutes or  less from Kapalai, we had the usual 12 litre alloy cylinders and our dive guide Alex was good at finding things but didn't mind if you wanted to do your own dive.  Depth limit 40m and time 1 hour with 50bar at the end of the dive but there was no problem if any exceeded!!

<!--[if gte vml 1]> <![endif]-->After the set three boat dives per day (two on day of arrival and none on day before leaving because of flight times) you were welcome to do free dives off the house reef; all you had to do was put your names on the list and your kit miraculously appeared all ready to go. Everything was done for you with regard the kit; the only things to watch for were that they tended to leave our bands too loose on the cylinders - a good reminder never to go in without checking your own kit.  Din fitting cylinders were very hard to come by so don’t leave home without you’re a-clamp adapter.

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A Disaster with my camera equipment on dive 3 – yes I broke something again! A big thank you to Martin for his time and Norma who donated  scissors and earring wires etc to try and fix my broken strobe connection but all to no avail ah well I will have to start reading the book on how to photograph without the strobe. Unfortunately for Mick he has put his back out (the rest of us don’t like to ask how because there are no wardrobes in the rooms) but is planning a massage at the spa resort -our next stop). 

Up to 13 dives under our belts; the start of good tan; and 17 excellent meals; we are off speeding back to Semporna, and guess what - a different rout just to make the trip more interesting.

Friday 26 arrive at the Shangri La Tanjung Aru Kota Kinabalu . Wow -not sure I should have booked this one; the baggage allowance left after the dive kit and camera housing was definitely not enough! Ah well good shopping after tomorrows diving I'm sure !

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The next Two days diving is going to be on the Usukan Bay WW2 wrecks probably  the rice bowl wreck and I booked with Borneo dream run by Jo Cotterill  and Billy Hammond. They organised the pick up from our hotel to Jessleton Pier our boat this time was a much bigger cat with a sea toilet and dry cabin  area. An endless supply of hot drinks water and squash plus biscuits sweets and fruit to keep us going until the excellent lunch cooked by Gon our guide for the day.   Billy provided 32 % for the first dive to be on the rice bowl wreck he also provides 7L side slings with same mix Stride entry off the back of the boat down the shot and the water was darker than expected.  then an array of White yellow soft corals awash  with glass fish

materialised below us and illuminated the Wreck we swam  over the starboard side and along the hull towards the stern  encountering Two of the largest groupers I had ever seen on the way,  the wreck was upright and home to shoals of bat fish along with the  many glass fish it has to be one if not the most stunning wreck I have  ever dived .

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Thought we were getting two dives on the Wreck but the second was an  air dive on the way back  it was a 2.5 Hr trip to the dive site and we needed to be back in by mid afternoon because Billy was concerned the weather blew up in the afternoons.
The next day we are all very keen Steve Dave and I plan to dive in a loose buddy group of 3 as yesterday (Steve would probably say my buddy was my camera but I made sure they were around well at least once). Dave wanted to do the Debris field Steve the bow and I wanted the best shot so we made our plan on the way to the sight ,after an hour and a half Billy started checking the fuel and to our  dismay announced that due to fuel consumption brought on by the sea conditions we wouldn’t be able to dive the wreck. To our dismay the skipper set course for the marine reserve we had two OK dives on the outskirts of the reserve. In my opinion no amount of fish or huge table top corals was going to cut it!!!

A free day before our flight to Layang Layang and the chance to see some orang-utans and have a well earned rest by the pool cocktail tasting.

Early morning call at 6am and then in reception for 7am. The Island representative Mr Fazlan was there waiting for us and 5 minutes later we are at the airport and ready for our 7:30 am flight. We are all a bit anxious we have had such amazing food and so much of it and now comes the weigh in. Yes bags get weighed, hand luggage next and then us. I don’t know about you but this was the first time in my life I had ever been asked to stand on the airport check in conveyor to be weighed, - how embarrassing is that. They write all the weights down (there is a strict limit) Mr Fazlan scratches his head a bit goes off behind the counter a few times makes a call or two and then at last starts to smile; we are off and most importantly we can take our clothes as well as our dive kit (the contingency plan was 2 sets of dive kit in one bag and clothes in the second so if we had a problem the clothes stayed).

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<!--[if gte vml 1]> <![endif]-->Walking down the runway there’s a small plan but it still looks big for a plan that can only take 10 people. Then we are lead around this and can see ours which was hidden – and tiny! We fill the plane and get welcomed on board by the captain as he pops his hear round from the cockpit. My first impression is that everything seems a little old and worn out – the duck tape holding the panels up doesn’t really help either but hey ho.

<!--[if gte vml 1]> <![endif]-->The flight was about 90 minutes and we enjoyed every minute flying at a maximum of 9000 feet we got to see plenty; it was fascinating to see all the instruments, I don’t know why but I kept an eye on the fuel gauge– or what I thought was the fuel gauge.

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We arrive and there’s a tractor to transfer our suitcases the few meters to the accommodation. We are met and walked to the main reception where we are greeted by all the staff. We are the first to arrive for this season and the only guests for the first 3 days.

<!--[if gte vml 1]> <![endif]--><!--[if gte vml 1]> <![endif]-->No messing, a quick dive briefing; unpack; have breakfast; and diving by 9:30am. 

<!--[if gte vml 1]> <![endif]--><!--[if gte vml 1]> <![endif]-->One of the Manta Ray we saw was a black one which we were told was quit rare; it was tricky to photograph without the usual white areas to focus on.  2000 meters of wall diving around the atoll; the walls were reported to be down to 200meters, all I can say is that you could see the surface from 40 meters and could not see the bottom. The sites were all excellent the coral was pristine (apart from some bleached areas where a crown of thorns had been and again we saw White tip and grey reef sharks on every dive and plenty of them not just one or two.  Manta spotted eagle and marble rays and some big Tuna. 

<!--[if gte vml 1]> <![endif]--><!--[if gte vml 1]> <![endif]--><!--[if gte vml 1]> <![endif]-->The hammer head hunting was basically the first 10 minutes (of as many dives as we wanted) spent in the blue at some 35 to 40 odd meters and then back to the reef for the rest of the dive.  We did this a few times and on our last day of diving decided to give it one last go. After drifting around for 10 minutes or so I had given up on seeing one was just drifting around and had just taken a photo of a small jelly fish below me when I heard Bev screaming from behind me. I turned round only to see Bev pointing over my shoulder; turned round again quickly and there it was; a Scallop Hammer Head Shark at eye level swimming straight at me. I joined in chorus with Bev and it did a quick detour (thank goodness) swam round me and the outside of the group and back off into the blue, and no I don’t have any pictures – it was BIGGER THAN ME.

These are all shot using only the ambient light

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Congratulations Fran what a way to spend your 100^th dive.

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Between dives and eating there’s just the right amount of time to chill out but sunstroke can be a problem even then.

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The holiday was special because of where we went but also because of the company.

 From Left Around the table: Bev Herniman, Mike Kenton, Debs Callaghan, Dave dos Santos, Steve Ashton, Mags Ashton, Norma Kenton, Fran Hughes, Mick Hughes Martin Stone.

 
                      By    Mags Ashton

<!--[if gte vml 1]> <![endif]-->Information:

All internal flight were booked direct with Asia air but on reflection I would have booked them through travel bag as well; not that we had 
any problems at all it's just Hugh Stanford who I dealt with at travel
bag for the 2 hotels at Kuala Lumpur and the Shangri La at Kota Kinabalu and any transfers to  connect from them to our flights  was very reasonable and efficient. I used him for the international flight which was the first  booking we made and his quote was cheaper than booking direct with Malaysia Air (malaysiaairlines.com)     

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Kapalai water bungalow resort contact:

Carol - Pulau Sipadan Resort & Tours S/B Sdk email: krol@sepilok.com

Borneo Dream: Joanne Cotterill:  joanne@borneodream.com

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Air Asia website:   airasia.com

Layang Layang website:  layanglayang .com

Contact: vicky.lee@kul.layanglayang.com

Travel Bag : Hugh Stanford:  Hugh.Stanford@travelbag.co.uk