傅瑞德繼續貼

我昨晚從馬來西亞的偏遠小島回來了！目前正在整理拍回來的照片、以及路上寫的記錄。照片已經上傳到flickr相簿上，不過沒有精神寫說明，大家自己看看吧。:-)

因為需要一點時間收心，所以預定今天稍晚才會恢復工作狀態、而且給大方放我去渡假的客戶一點交代。有事找我的、對照片有問題的，請留言發問或透過私下管道聯繫，晚點就會回覆。

以下是我在途中寫的記錄。因為某些緣故，是在每日的疲憊中用亂七八糟的英文寫的，而且沒有經過任何檢查，所以看看就好，不用抓包 :-P；大家就忍耐一下吧。

DAY 1
Taipei - Kota Kinabalu 亞庇 (Boeing 737-400)
The plane took off at about 8:30am. The flight was quite smooth but I was sleeping most of the time, and eat in between. Food was no big deal. Since people in the group didn't have time to familiarize each other, and all got up very early to gather at the airport at 6:00am, there were little talks on the plane.

Kota Kinabalu - Touaw 斗湖 (Boeing 737-400)

Touaw - Semporna 仙本那 (20-seat Bus)

Semprona is a small town port. Not many people were seen aside from the dock, but strangely there is a large hotel at the dock where people went in just for the toilet.

Sempona - Mabul 馬寶 (20-seat speedboat)

There are three islands in a group laying outside the coastline of Sabah, Malaysia: Mabul, Sipadan and Kapalai. We stayed at a cluster of wooden bungalows on the Mabul reef. The buildings are new (where we stay) and well-equipped. I stayed there with two Chengs, Duncan and instructor Jacky.

Food here is a mix of Malaysian and Chinese with salad and fruits, there are even European-style herring fillet in vinegar marinade. Tastes good but not many dishes were offered. Since I have a problem diving with stuffed stomach, and I still have a few kilos to go for this year's weight-reduction plan; about 50% of the tummy space has to be reserved for nothing but water (and later I found the pieces of chocolate roommaker left on my pillow being very useful :-D).

DAY 2

Dive 1
Check dive beside the underwater valley, which is very deep on one side - said to be over 600 meters deep. Dark and deep, with lots of small fish and a few big ones, which are not rare in Taiwan but a lot bigger.

Here I broke my personal depth record with 30.6 meters, but stayed there for less than a minute; I don't want to shorten the fun time staying at the deep just for self-esteem.

Dive 2
Four small silvertip sharks right below us when we descend. I took a few sea turtle videos. one of them is as large as a smaller dining table. Turtle! Turtle! Turtle! There are more than 5 sea turtles seen on the coral reef. Most of them seemed like sleeping while people take pictures of them. I went on to make more videos, but those were not clear shots.

Dive 3
A strange experience - boat dive at the shore. Just about 10 meters from the wooden stairs outside the bungalows, we dive from the tail of the boat, and descended to about 15 meters to see a sunken boat and a few man-made "shacks" (artificial reef) as home of reef fish. The water was actually quite unclear, with visibility of merely 5 meters.

In the shacks live a few very big fish (120cm long or so) that could weight as much as 50 kilograms. It's smart for people knowing how to "recycle" them as an infinite tourism resource, not people who catch it to sell only once for the dish.

Besides, there were a "doll fish", a moray eel, a school of smaller barracudas and tons of Jackfish.

In summary, the diving experience has been very good here so far. Good facility, good service, good view and good dive points. Better than anything I've had for diving before. I was performing better than I expected; with a pain ankle, sneezing nose and 3 weeks' blank without diving, I was able to navigate myself freely in the water, and stayed longer than many others.

Here I sit by the edge of the dining bungalow watching the open sea while writing, I feel very relieved from the daily life and pleased at heart, and I am expecting other encounters with the ocean tomorrow.

DAY 3

Dive 1 - Barracuda Point, aka "home of Bumphead Parrotfish".
Got up at 5:15am for morning dive. Most people were still sleepy but excited. The boat zipped to Sipadan Island under the rising sun. After the 20-minute ride, we stopped at Barracuda Point, almost the same as where we made the first dive yesterday.

The water under was dark and heavy. Some people made it to over 28m for unknown reason. At first I followed them down, but before long I stopped dropping and informed my dive buddy to go back up.

For the first time to dive in the half-dark water with unknown depth below, I felt nervous and uneasy, and I almost lost myself to follow another group of divers. But soon I turned back and tried to calm myself. Probably it's partly the delicious "Vietnamese coffee" (strong coffee with sweet condensed milk) to blame; I felt my heart beating too fast. Finally I toned down and got back to normal, but about 50 bar of air was gone.

The following part was not perfect either. The water was murky as morning light penetrated through, and I could feel my condition was a mix of excitement, fatigue, agitation and some disappointment. Although there are a few hawksbill turtles and sharks, but not too much else to see.

Lulu pooed on the beach (well, in the shallow water) of Sipadan!

Dive 2 - South Point

Different from previous dives, this time we had the underwater cliff on the left hand side. I followed the divemaster, who looks like Hong Kong movie star Hong Kam-Bo and capable of speaking fluent Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese, English and of course Malay. The view was spectacular comparing to most Taiwan sceneries, but has become a norm after two days.

Passing the returning point, we ascend to about 15m from 25m and headed back. On the way back, we've spotted several sea turtles and two sharks.

Dive 3 - Turtle Cave

Right outside the Sipadan beach, descend 18m will reveal the famous Turtle Cave. At the entrance of the 300m-deep cave, a sign plate says "dangerous". According to the guide, the cave took 2 human lives in the past 10 years and countless sea turtles that lost their way out.

We were only allowed to enter the cave for a few meters. The view inside out, dubbed "blue light" should be magnificent, but since the water was not quite clear, the view was blurred and dark, but the good sight on good days is still imaginable.

DAY 4

Dive 1 - Barracuda Point

Repeating views of the previous days: sea turtles, basses and smaller coral fishes.

But the skin diving after snacks on Sipadan was great. I put on fins and mask to chase the jackfish group at only 20 meters from the white sand beach. A sea turtle approached, maybe to make a catch of the Jacks, but Greg rushed down to swim with it, then it turned away to the deep.

Dive 2 - South Point

The same point as we were several days ago, and the beginning was less than exciting. Allen, the young Cantonese-speaking new guide, took us up and down seemingly aimless, but the last 10 minutes was explosive: we encounter a huge group of Jacks; the group was so large and dense it even blocked the sunlight from above!

Everyone threw away their disappointment and started to chase the group, tried to enter the center of the group and took photos like crazy. "This is a must-have experience once in a lifetime!" one fellow diver said.

Dive 3 - Kapalai

This is "an island with no land". It has a complete resort -- though said to be not as refined as Mabul -- but the whole island surface is under sea level most of the time. Like Mabul, bungalows and balconies are highly elevated on wooden legs and fresh water is drawn from underground.

The dive point was not far from the dock, and the white sand bottom and somewhat roiled water reminded me of Ho-Mei of Southeast Taiwan. There are small coral animals to see, like squids, puffers, shrimps, clown fish and a few crocodile fish.

Although the new guide seemed to be inexperienced, but this is forgivable and it is OK to have some different experience with different guides and spots, so you'll know how good you are by comparing these.

These two days those younger fellow divers went for an evening dive (dives are forbidden after 7pm), but I was too unmotivated to follow. I think 3 dives a day is good enough so I'd have time to take a break and write something. Also my contact lenses are annoying: I can't wear them for over 8 hours without feeling irritation. If I start diving 9am in the morning, I wouldn't be able to join the evening dive starts at 5pm.

However, it would be a shame to miss the night dive here. Maybe tomorrow I will let my eyes (and maybe body) to rest for some time and join the action in the dark. :-)

DAY 5

Dive 1 - Barracuda Point

Took one kilo weight off my vest, it felt much better with less stress on body and easier buoyancy control. Encountered the barracuda vortex, but I was too far from it to take a clearer shot.

Dive 2 - Turtle Patch

Met another huge group of jackfish. Followed the group and had a few close shot.

Dive 3 - Hanging Garden

Nice coral view with small fish and marine lives. It could get the name from the colorful corals "hanging" on the underwater cliff. Some people said it's more interesting than lurking at 20m deep seeing turtles (turtles are so abundent now almost no one takes picture of them since Day 4).

DAY 6

Two groups of people, four each, registered to the cave dive. Opening of the "turtle tomb" cave is 18-20m underwater, but when entered, the path ascends to 8-12m and connect to two large chambers. One is about 400 square meters and the other is 200. According to David Shaw, the dive guide, there are over 50 sea turtle skeletons in the cave, and it's one of the world's largest such caves of both size and number of turtle remains.

Today is basically the "Cave Dive Day", David led the participating people down and assigned his "best pupil" Amon to guide the rest of us. Since I was not in very good condition on my ankles and ear, so I'd rather leave the opportunity to the next trip.

Dive 1 - Barracuda Point

Descend at our favorite place Barracuda Point again, but saw something different - two groups of bumphead parrotfish gathering right below where we went down, and in the shallow water there were two of them were mating. Unfortunately I was too far below to see them doing the job.

It seemed like we got too close them, so the merged pack start to move with the current. Of course we followed them to go with the current heading west along the Sipadan Island. Everyone rejoiced and wanted to become a part of the horde.

We almost face the fish with extruding front teeth and bumped head vis-?-vis (it was said that because the fish explored the turtle cave and found no light, so their heads hit the cave wall and thus the bumps) .

In the rest of the trip, we follow the parrotfish easily, and I almost forgot that I was thinking about giving up the day's diving to relieve my ankle pain.

Dive 2 - Barracuda Point

The happiest and easiest current ride. While four other people in the cave enjoying the excitement, Amon took us glide though the shallow area to see the colorful coral animals such as shrimps and slugs, while I've found some small niceties myself: a moray, three bottoming sharks and a few coral fish.

Dive 3 - Hanging Garden

The most exhausting dive of the day. Eight people went down with Amon at the Hanging Garden and swam against the current. A few minutes after, Amon found one person, instructor Jacky Cheng, missing and ordered the group to turn around. Turning around made the trip easier, but nothing was found. Amon turned around again to fight the current, in hope that Cheng was actually in front of us.

The situation disappointed Amon again, no one was in the upstream. Getting nervous, Amon ordered us to turn back. Worse yet, four more people were missing from the end of the line! Since I was in a better shape today, I voluntarily to ascend to 5m to see if they were in the shallow area taking a break.

Up and down twice, they were finally found in 5m deep 100m back. The Hong Kong couple, Jessie and Daniel, was somewhat tired and used up air quickly, so they ascend and released the signal bag preparing to surface, and the other two, Jerry and Chuck, decided to stay with them for safety.

Finally we got together and picked up by the boat, but Cheng is still missing. The boat waited for a while and went back to Sipadan dock, and the captain ask another one on the deck the whereabout of Cheng.


Farewell Dinner

This is a crazy evening, but it's not unexpected. In the last evening of each diving tour, there must be a festive dinner submerged in beer. Sometimes there could be tricks like drinking beer from mask and snorkel.

Tonight is no exception. Pale and dark beer flowed on the tables, and the resort prepared a barbecue seafood bonanza for us. I know I shouldn't have, but I still enjoyed the food and a large crab. Fortunately I still remember that I should stay away from alcohol; only a sip of so-called "disgust" Tiger beer went through.

The highlight of tonight was Lulu's belly dancing. It looked like she's been preparing for this for some time, since she even brought the gears and the Turkish music CD all the way from Taiwan.

Everyone was cheered by the music and dancing, even the resort staff came out to see what happened. All of us, and the German guests from next table also yelled and applaused for Lulu.

The body count of beer bottles went up to 24, and I had two cans of coke and many glasses of tea disguised as beer, though the tea bag was still in the glass. As usual, fun took its toll; some people drank too much or too fast and threw up. I stayed awake, but not as fun and participative.