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Diving, diving and more diving....
We finally got to Sipadan. I say finally as I have been looking forward to coming here ever since I read about it years ago and I very nearly came here in '06 when we were filming "Saving Planet Earth-Oceans" but The Malaysian government stopped all film crews going there for the few weeels we were there.
The best way I can describe Sipadan is if you imagine the sea bed as a flat table and on that table stands a huge skyscraper of a wedding cake but instead of a plastic bride and groom on the top you have little palm trees and a bit of tropical vegetation and you've almost got it. It is surrounded by a gorgeous reef about 5meters deep but the edge of the reef drops off and plunges 600 meters straight down to the sea floor; a place untouched by sunlight.
We all took the 20 min boat journey from Seaventures, the ex oil rig, now a cool divers hotel complete with a lift down to sea level, and Jac and Kit snorkelled off the beach while Django, Paul and I went by boat to barracuda point by the drop off where the shallow reef plunged into the deep indigo depths far below. It felt weird looking down at that as we swum to the edge and along it. On that first dive we saw 20 or 30 turtles, white tipped reef sharks and multitudes of small and large reef fish that looked like they had been coloured in by an explosion in a paint factory. Colours that would never be seen with each other any where else in the world, blue yellow and purple with zig zaggy red borders, lime green and orange.
As I gazed in awe at this submarine vista, I heard a strange melody of someone singing but i had no idea where it was coming from until i saw Paul's face inches away from me, upside down in front of me, singing loudly. Sound travels well underwater. The divemaster gets the attention of his or her group of divers by tapping a metal rod on his air cylinder. Ten mins later I went over to Paul who had his back to me looking at a turtle that was resting on the coral and got my head as close as I could to his without him realizing I was there and hummed "I do like to be beside the sea side" as loudly as I could. I am sure Paul would have loved it but sadly it wasn't Paul but one of the very serious Swiss divers who were with us. He turned around with a look of sheet bewilderment on his face which made me laugh so much that my mask filled with water. Ah the fun we had.
By 11:30am we had completed 3 dives including one at the hanging gardens and involved swimming along the drop off. If you have your boncy right when you're diving, you don't feel the effects of gravity in fact if it wasn't for your exhaled bubbles going up it's hard to know which way up and down are. One if the great things you can do is pretend you can fly so you suddenly can soar like a bird. In fact I sometimes put my arms out and flap. Swimming along the vertical coral clustered wall I felt like a peregrine falcon soaring along the Avon Gorge. It really is the most incredible sensation.
Now a few words from Kitty and Jac :
Hi it's kitty here today me and mum went snorkelling.It was amazing I saw so much brightly coloured fish and coral I was blown away by seeing my first shark. It was a black tip reef shark I also saw turtles. Have a good Xmas everyone see you soon x
Jacq here Borneo is fantastic I want to live here. We. Have done so much already. Love to all
- comments
Rosemary Clark Fantastic description . How wonderful for you all xx