Joepster Blog Goodness

I have not been a very good girl and have not been writing down my travel escapades, which is what I have always been saying I would do for this blog. I am going to try and rectify that by posting this summary of my Sipadan trip. Hopefully, divers and travelers out there find this useful:

1) Getting there – In my previous blog (http://www.joepster.com/blog/?m=200904) I wrote about the first part of the trip and how to get there. To refresh your memory, this is how we got to the area of Sipadan + Mabul + Kapalai:

a. Travel to Clark Airbase Pampanga (2 hours)

b. Fly to Kota Kinabalu via Air Asia (3 hours)

c. Overnight in KK, leave in the morning via Air Asia to get to Tawau (less than 1 hour)

d. Bus from Tawau to Semporna (make sure you’re comfy, it’s quite a long ride)

e. Boat ride from Semporna to the dive spots & Seaventure rig.

2) Sleeping, Eating and Partying There- there are many places that you can stay in around the Semporna area to dive Sipadan+Mabul+Kapalai. Our chosen lodging was Seaventures Dive Reort. http://www.seaventuresdive.com/

The resort is in the middle of the sea, near an island which hosts the Kapalai resorts. Located off the north east coast of Borneo. The nearby island hosts Kapalai resorts and a small fishing village. The fishing village has a series of souveneir shops that can get you all sorts of trinkets. By far, that place has been my favorite touristy-souveneir shop for reasons that: they made their wares, they are honest about the price that they can offer you, they are genuinely friendly, it’s situated in their village where you can see local island life, and the souveneirs are pretty and cool (aka shirts, pendants of coral, dried triggerfish (yeah! one less nasty and ugly bugger in the ocean) and other little shell crafts.) The only thing I didn’t like about what they sold were the shark teeth/mouth/jaws as I’m not sure if they catch them on purpose or just get them from the ones that wash up on their shores. I hope it’s the latter. I was too busy photographing and trying to record what I was seeing before I could ask. I only thought about it later on.

Jaws... Dudumm Dudumm Dudumm...

Going back to the resort – the rooms are clean, but it CAN get that damp smell if you keep walking in and out of your rooms in your damp clothing. Tip: dry everything on the deck as much as possible and don’t walk in your rooms wet.  The rooms have no windows to open so there’s that enclosed smell that lingers in the air, masked by air freshener. I guess that’s the most you can do taking into consideration the conditions. Showers are pretty strong. AC works very well. Internet is available so you can bring your laptops to keep udating your facebook & flickr sites with your photos to tell the world about your dive holiday.

Food is simple but good. Coffee is instant Nescafe, so if you’re picky, bring your own. There is no shortage of food here as there are snacks and drinks available round the clock. It was so funny how we all thought we were going to starve and bought that much food at Semporna to take with us here. Typical Filipino mentality. I bet the Malaysians were laughing at us as we cleared their whole snack section from that supermarket! Anyway, it’s always quite a feast on this resort which is good as diving can really make you hungry! The first night was great as we dined on the roof deck of the resort with grilled chicken, fish, beef and lamb! No pork – much to the dismay of the Filipinos who were half expecting Liempo to go with the whole barbeque set up.

The staff were great and I guess we were treated well as there were a lot of Filipino staff in the resort. It almost felt like I was just vacationing in some remote island in the Philippines where I don’t know how to speak the dialect. The most memorable guy there was Mando. Mando, our dear divemaster/tour guide/home boy (being Filipino himself but had moved to Malaysia from Mindanao for quite a long time already)/guitarist/vocalist, was such a COOL addition to our group. He maintained the sunniest disposition as we went diving in rainy weather. He made sure your diving needs were taken care of. He entertained us almost every night with his songs and electric guitar skills. He made us laugh with all his antics brought about by the bubbles in his brain I think the best part about having him as our dive guide was that he seemed to be the one who was enjoying what he did the most. Because of that, he was enthusiastic about the dives, eager to point things out and wants you to maximize the dives that you had within the limits that they were given. I guess I should start talking about the diving now… on to Part 3