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2010 Borneo

Day 6 – Mabul Island

Tuesday, 18 May 2010

Scott is feeling much better today and is doing the dives.  However, Tracy has a splitting headache so is going to sit out the first dive and hope it gets better.  The rain seems to have gone and it was very hot and sunny and we are back to the usual humidity.

Dive 1:  Kapalai is a dive resort with over-water bungalows.  Typical, I have always wanted to go somewhere like that and I missed it.  The dive was under the bungalow structures and along a sandy reef with very good visibility.  Scott’s buddy for the dive was Gavin, we descended straight over the top of a large stinging anemone, home to a family of clown fish (Nemos as Tracy calls them). 

This was the first of many of these strange but beautiful homes for small fish.  Along the sandy bottom away from the sloped reef, there were a number of structures; these were home to lion-fish, large cods and masses of tiny fish. 

The macro-camera divers saw plenty of very-small things but unfortunately Scott’s eyesight cannot find many of the things the DiveMasters point out!  Allegedly there were flamboyant cuttlefish, some very small nudibranchs etc.  At the safety stop at 5m Scott tripped over a huge Moray Eel, the largest he’s seen (Unfortunately his photo skills don’t do this eel justice).

Dive 2:  The camera battery died as we got into the water, so we didn’t get any photos.  However, there was not great visibility anyway, which was lucky.  This dive was a wall with a large drop off and we were in search of the pygmy seahorse.  There was one – but we could not for the life of us see it, apparently it was exactly like the coral it was sitting on.   As we were drifting along the wall, waiting for the macro-camera divers, Scott happened to stop at a small ledge where a large sea-turtle was resting.  (S)He was happy with Scott lurking very close, but when the rest of the group caught-up, the turtle decided its siesta was over and it lifted-off from the ledge and “flew” away.

Dive 3:  Sea Venture.  The Sea Venture is an ex-oil rig platform that has now been turned into a dive resort and we went underneath.  There is a lot of old rubble and things dumped there, but some sealife has moved in and we saw eels etc.  The current was very strong and I started to feel a bit tired and sick, so surfaced a little bit ahead of everyone else. 

The descent
The descent

Although the creation of artificial reefs is to be encouraged, the layout and composition of the area around the rig leaves something to be desired; the difference between purpose-built reef and dumping ground is fine, but it does exist.  An interesting dive, but we won’t be rushing back.