Sipadan
Today was my allotted day to dive Sipadan. It’s a big deal. Only 120 people per day are allowed to dive the island, and you have to get permits early. So most of the backpackers I’ve met who just kind of turn up have virtually no chance of going to Sipadan, unless someone cancels and a space frees up. What makes Sipadan so special? A lot of it has to do with topography. Most of the islands around here sit on the continental plate, so that the maximum depth is only about 70m. Then shortly beyond Mabul, the plate drops off into about 600m depth. And out beyond that is Sipadan, standing alone and surrounded by these deeps waters. So there are lots of interesting currents, bringing lots of interesting marine life, and (for me most importantly) also bringing lots of big fish. In addition, it is a beautiful island – a small piece of paradise out in the Celebes sea.
The history of Sipadan is not all pretty. Ownership of the island has been fought over between Indonesia and Malaysia for a long time, with finally the International Court of Justice awarding it conclusively to Malaysia. There used to be resorts on the island, until a number of years ago, when a group of tourists and staff (21 people in total) was kidnapped by a Filipino Islamic terror group and held captive for a few months. After that incident, Malaysia decided it is too difficult to guarantee safety and that it is more appropriate to preserver the natural state of Sipadan, thereby instructing the dismantling of all resorts, and turning it into a protected wildlife sanctuary.
And today was my day to go visit and more importantly, to dive the mysterious Sipadan. First the good news: we were not abducted by pirates. The bad news, I woke up this morning congested and generally not feeling very well – repercussions of my very cold day yesterday. For those of you who are not divers: this is a serious dilemma. The standard rule is: congestion = no diving. If your nose and/or sinuses are stuffy, you can’t equalize the pressure in your ears and you risk serious damage. But on my Sipadan day? Like I’m going to cancel that?
In comes loads of Sudafed, nose spray, ear drops and wearing a hat whenever I’m not in the water. Luckily I was in a group with a divemaster who already knows me, so I had his trust and could start descending before the group, giving me enough time for a really slow descent, with frequent stops to deal with ear problems before getting to depth. By dive #4 today, it was painful, but just manageable – so I got my complete day although with potentially a bit less enjoyment that otherwise (especially on the last dive).
But what dives they were! We saw two different kinds of sharks – and lots of them. Turtles on every dive. Twice we went into huge schools of jacks that were so big and with so many fish, we all lost each other for awhile. This was fun – remember Finding Nemo and the jacks all swimming together and making arrows and such to show the way? In the middle of this group, I would swim along with them as they all got aligned on the direction of travel, then I’d turn and go in the opposite direction. The poor confused fish would be coming right at me, almost straight into my mask and you could almost see their surprise and a “whoa – where’d you come from?” look on their face and they veered around me, got confused and swam around in all directions until they could get aligned again on which way to go.
And Barracudas. A huge school of Chevron barracuda, swirling around us like a tornado. Later on, we also saw great barracuda hovering around by themselves around a cave entry – and they were HUGE. I have never before seen such enormous barracuda. The walls we dove were fascinating, dropping off into just black sea, with growth patterns from the currents and every imaginable sort of fish in all colors and patterns, not to mention to corals and other animals. We also did a blue dive, heading straight out into the ocean and into nothingness, in the hopes of running into a hammerhead or manta. Didn’t happen, but it was a cool feeling to be in zero gravity with just nothingness all around.
So, it was a great day. I can’t hear anything now, but have repeated by Sudafed, nose spray, ear drops regimen and hope it will be better tomorrow. Thankfully no diving tomorrow, but I do have a flight in the evening and really hope that doesn’t become a painful endeavor. In any case – this is one happy diver, sick or not.
Tags: Borneo, diving, experiences, Sipadan
jilljaimi