We spent a night in another weird coastal lay-over town called Semporna. We were two of only a handful of westerners and we were constantly being starred at by the locals, who were amused by the whiteness of our skin (some more than others - the deepness of Gwenno's tan meaning she will pass as a local soon enough!) this culminating in a less than conspicuous family of locals following us around a whole supermarket led by their curious young daughter. We eventually climbed aboard a speed boat for the beautiful archipelago of Semporna - the reason we had come to this remote corner of Borneo.

After around an hour of zipping through the azur blue waters we arrived at our destination - the small island of Mabul from which most of the snorkelling and diving is based. This was a very interesting addition to the trip as we got to see a number of other small tropical islands, families of sea gypsies and floating fish farms along the way.

Once settled in our new digs at a local homestay we set off on our first snorkel to lobster cove, expecting to see lots of lobsters - we soon learnt that each of these dive sites had random names such as eel valley and stingray beach - with none of the described animals visible at the locations. Nonetheless we both were amazed the moment we placed our faces under the water at the amount and variety of fish, coral and wildlife - the tropical waters of this archipelago is world renowned and thought to be better than the great barrier reef so we had high expectations - still, this first snapshot of the watery world below was far greater than we had imagined.

After talking to a few of the instructors over a beer at the end of the day, we were surprised to learn that many of them who had dived and worked all over the world had only seen one turtle between them before working on these islands, such was the rarity of the species - by the end of the first day we were lucky enough to have swam with about 5 turtles.

The following days of the four day snorkel expedition were taken up visiting the strangely named dive sites and following the current wherever it took us (don't worry the boat was following us only a short distance away) as we peered down at the going on below - with each trip having its own highlight, whether it be spotting more turtles (so calming yet exciting to watch, even after seeing well over 20) lion fish (strange but beautiful, google them) poisonous sea snakes (a little scary) techno-coloured tropical fish (just like watching finding nemo) or diving down and swimming amongst the shoals of barracuda (a favourite of bens).

One 'highlight' Gwenno will be quick to forget is being attacked by a giant Titan trigger fish, we had heard these were nasty things in Thailand but not seen any there. We did however see many in Borneo and it was nesting season which made them extra aggressive, defending their eggs in an ever increasing cone-like zone radiating out from the nest to the surface - this makes snorkellers who float around the surface within the larger area of the zone particularly susceptible to nasty nibbles from these big toothed fish. Gwenno however survived to tell the tale, quickly swimming out the danger zone unlike our instructor who had a chunk of his flipper bitten off on a previous swim.

When we weren't in the water we caught up on reading and sorting out our onward trip, watching the sea gypsies carry out their day to day life, bobbing up and down outside the home stay and, walking around the tiny island which took about half an hour it was that small.

Surprisingly given the serenity of the water, the island of Mabul appeared over developed and like the stop off point on the main land, full of rubbish, which was disturbing to see as no waste disposal service is provided by the government for the island. Worryingly the sea gypsies who depended on the water to live seemed the worst at looking after the island, opting to throw everything not required into the sea. Despite this disregard for the land throughout the island we have had an amazing time in Borneo, it has exceeded our expectations with the natural landscape stunning.