Sipidan I barely knew you

Hey all,

This originally was going to be a much more Tam friendly blog (lots of photos…no blathering…or little blathering from me), but since I can’t seem to load photos while I am on the island’s crap wifi, I am going to write some thoughts about the experience.

I rode in on the boat with a Ukrainian named Iyad.  Really nice guy who lives in either Dubai or UAE but has been here 3 times now.  Loves it.  Iyad also has one of the larger camera setups I have ever seen.  He loves Macro photos…especially blennies….little fish…he has won awards and has admitted to being referred to as the blenny whisperer (no mention if it was his friends or crazed blini fanatics who have called him this).  Anyway, Iyad also has the most incredible air consumption I have run across and this includes Sophia who has admitted to having gills.  On our checkout dive, I blew through my tank in about an hour…which is pretty good considering we were relatively deep (around 50-60 feet) for most of the dive.  He was down for an hour and a half and regularly does this.  I am sure a lot of you who have never been diving are thinking “so?”…it’s a big deal…believe me.  If he hadn’t told me he was Ukrainian, I would have guessed Israeli just from his expressions both verbal and facial.  He has hired a private boat and dive master for the 10 days he is here.

The island and resort are interesting.  It’s a relatively nice place…but it also has power outages at least briefly every day.  I know this because the AC is on a circuit breaker that trips every time the power goes out.  The bed is nice and comfortable although I am in a room with 2 twins rather than a queen/king.  The water is not safe to drink, but having now showered in it for 3 or 4 days, I have tasted some saltiness to it.  Not as bad as the ocean but for sure not fresh either.  It’s pumped from a supply from the island so it’s just got a little tang to it…or something.  The food is done buffet style and is pretty good.  A nice mix of veggies as well as fish and chicken or beef.  There was a group of 30 Chinese there as part of a tour group for only 2 days.  That dinner, they descended like a plague of locusts as soon as the trays were brought out.  I just waited another 15 minutes until replacement trays were brought.  It was interesting to see though.  The staff was nice…the beer was cold…I can’t really complain too much (other than the only beer they had was Tiger Beer, coincidentally made by Guinness).  Would I recommend this place for someone who wants to see Malaysia?  I don’t think so…but would I recommend for someone who wanted to dive around here and at Sipidan?  You bet.

The island, Mabul, the resort is on is strange.  It’s dotted with resorts/hotels with all the workers and other island inhabitants living in plywood and in huts that may or may not have power and I am almost positive do not have sewers.  I walked around the island in about 30 minutes sort of shifting from well-kept resort to rickety hut village and back again.  For sure I passed some diving places that didn’t stand out much from the village at all. 

The diving has been great.  Sipidan, a tiny island but a protected area so no fishing, is great to see big stuff.  By that I mean tons of turtles, reef sharks, schools of jacks and barracuda along with large grouper and these huge humped parrot fish.  Mabul and Kapali, the other island relatively close to Sipidan that also has a resort on it, are really good for small stuff.  Nudibranch, eels, shrimp.  I like both big and little stuff so it was a pretty awesome trip (pictures in a moment).  I was paired up with an older Frenchman named Oliver.  He was a good dive buddy.  We dove with this one Chinese dude 2 of the 4 days and the guy didn’t speak a lick of English…but he would smile and wave every time we saw each other.  Oliver has been pimping Indonesian diving as where it’s at.  Is it too soon to collect destinations for sabbatical #3?

One last brief thing since I am sitting in the airport about ready to leave Tawau.  Sophia is the one who sort of turned me onto Sipidan a few years ago but we had always joked about how they kidnap people here.  They haven’t for probably 10 years or so, but that was the thing.  But it’s safe now, right?  Funny story…you will laugh…really…it’s okay mom…on my flight into Tawau, I read about how a tugboat was captured by the kidnap people and some of the sailors were being held for ransom.  Yeah…it started up right as I was coming into town.  On the plus side, the police and military presence around not only Mabul but also Sipidan was pretty heavy.  For sure they were taking it seriously and did NOT want the tourism gravy train getting hit.  Anyway, I made it this far and am on the way to Bangkok so all is good (fingers crossed I didn’t just jinx the two flights I have to do).

And now, pictures:

Nudi

Crocodile Fish

Cool orangeish fish

Really big puffer

Anemone shrimp

Pipe Fish

Bad ass nudibranch

View of the resort I stayed at

Grouper

Nudi

Moray with a fish in it's mouth

Turtle.  The joke about Sipidan is: if you don't see a turtle, the trip is free.  Turtles are everywhere

See...there's one

School of jacks.  Thousands of them

Turtles

Found Nemo

Yeah..you know it

Shark!  Reef shark

Stone fish...next to a stone

Nother shark...lots of sharks at Sipidan.  This one was really only about 2 feet long

Super cool nudi.  Never seen one like this before

All stretched out nudi.

little fish on a twig

white eyed eel (I don't name 'em...I just tell you what their name is)

Blue spotted ray

Squat shrimp

Another super cool nudi.  All kinds of nudi's around there

They called them hump back parrot fish.  Not sure that's the real name, but describes them pretty good

More

Turtle giving me a bit of 'tude for taking it's picture

close up of those parrot fish

Hermit crab

Shark!

Pretty sure these turtles were going to get it on, but the divers on top of them spoiled the mood

Nother Nudi

Nudi

Nudi with neon pink racing stripes

I think this is a type of nudi, but couldn't find this exactly in any of the books the resort had.  Still pretty cool looking

Perfect example of autofocus ruining the picture.  Sure the mesh in the background is totally in focus but the pipe fish in the foreground isn't :(

Yellow box fish

A group of groupers

My first frog fish.  Super wierd fish.  The front is on the left and the eye is really small.  It was facing a wall otherwise I would have tried for a head on shot.

Nother nudi

Ditto...nudi

Super odd nudi family.  I think this is technically a slug, but isn't it cool looking?

and yet another nudi to round it out

So there you go.  In Bangkok with Stacy.  Headed to Phuket and a boat tomorrow for more diving.  I think we will be wifi-less for 7 or 8 days and then another flood of pictures.

Until then: it's our time, the people's time.

Jim