here’s a story from visitor who visit sipadan island recently
This entry marks the official start of the "Water Sports" portion of my travels, where I will spend a week diving (or so I thought) at Sipadan and Mabul Islands off of the southeast coast of Malaysian Borneo, and once in Maui, Hawaii, taking kite surfing lessons, snorkeling, and maybe even squeezing in some surfing and hiking. So just to set expectations properly here, although there may be some elements of "cultural" interest in these last couple posts, it's mostly going to consist of sporty stuff, sunsets, and beachgoing. Needless to say, I've been looking forward to this part of the trip for a while now.
In order to get to the dive resort near Sipadan Island, I flew from Bangkok to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, then from Kuala Lumpur to Kota Kinabalu (accent on the last "a" in Kinabalu), in the state of Sabah, Malaysia on the island of Borneo. Kota Kinabalu is conveniently referred to as KK by almost everyone. Then a short flight from KK to Tawau, on the southeast coast of Sabah, Malaysia. Then an hour-plus van ride to the boat ramp in Semporna, Malaysia, and an hour boat ride to Sipadan Kapalai Dive Resort.
Kapalai is absolutely amazing - it's a dive resort built on stilts over a sand bar/reef area with no land nearby. A bit unnerving when the nightly storm hits with monsoon-like rains and super swell, swaying the bungalow...a nice reminder that, in the whole scheme of things, we are pretty insignificant creatures. The reason people go to Kapalai is to dive at Sipadan Island, which is a mere fifteen minute boat ride from Kapalai, and is a world-renowned dive spot, both for macro stuff (like little reef fish, coral, nudibranchs and lots of other small, colorful critters), and for the bigger pelagics like gray reef sharks, schools of barracuda, turtles galore and even whale sharks.
Lots of prep went into this part of the trip, including figuring out where I would store my dive gear while traveling the rest of southeast asia, supplying passport and dive certification information so the resort could procure the daily dive permit for my dives at Sipadan, obtaining the proper insurance coverage in the event that anything went really wrong out in the middle of the ocean, and of course getting there. Other than boasting phenomenal diving and epic visibility when the stars are aligned, Sipadan Island has an interesting history. In 1991, Philippine rebels took a dozen or so Sipadan divers hostage, bringing them back to the Philippines and holding them for several months. The hostages were eventually released. That incident, combined with unsustainable tourism practices that were taking their toll on the reef, led the Malaysian government to close the land portion of Sipadan Island to all but military personnel. Divers are allowed to spend their hour-long surface intervals between Sipadan dives milling around on a cordoned-off portion of the beach, where we were able to get a peek at the way the military guys lived on the island. They all looked pretty bored but carried big machine guns, so I guess they had that going for them...
The Dining Hall from the Sundeck
There was also a handful of military guys living and patrolling at Kapalai, so at any given time of day, you might be strolling the boardwalk past a serious looking guy dressed in cammo carrying a machine gun. I really wanted to get a picture of me with one of those guys but chickened out. I met some really cool people at the dive resort - lots of couples and honeymooners. I had hoped to have some underwater pictures for you all, but unfortunately the visibility was pretty poor, most likely due to wind pattern disturbances created by the Myanmar cyclone. The vis is supposed to be great this time of year. I also blew out my eardrum on my third day of diving, so was unable to dive for the last four days of the trip. The ear injury made my ear bleed for a few days, but I still wanted to know for sure if diving was REALLY out of the question, so took yet another trip to a southeast asian doctor - doc number three in six weeks!! I came to the conclusion that Asia is definitely kicking my ass.
Highlights of the trip to Semporna include: Eating at a chinese restaurant with a "NO SPITTING" sign on the wall, the owner of which was sitting there in the restaurant and I was told was one of the men taken hostage by the Philippine rebels; Walking through a town in which I was among the minority of women without the traditional muslim headscarf (including the doctor I saw); Having a chance to chat with the dive master who accompanied me to the doctor about all sorts of stuff, including questions like, "when we flush the toilet at Kapalai, where does it go?"; and buying the dive masters a couple of cases of beer as a thank-you for taking pity on me and inviting me to party with them each night back by their quarters since I had nothing better to do...
Having confirmed at the doctor's office that diving was out of the question for the rest of my trip and getting my third round of antibiotics in six weeks (to prevent middle ear infection), my next hope was that I'd be able in the water in Maui...fingers crossed!!
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