Dive Travel Services - Destinations

I guess when you’ve been doing this for so many years, one needs to expect maybe some “glitches” but this trip proved that just one little glitch can make a HUGE difference! Storms across the Continental United States on Friday, December 19 affected flights everywhere. We had 8-10 inches of snow in Detroit that day, but the 20th of December dawned sunny and cool. No problem with flight check-in we all figured….hmmmmm!

The story is way too long and unbelievable to relate here in detail, but after numerous flight delays/cancellations/rebookings, airport shuttles & more rebookings, we finally, finally, FINALLY arrived at Sipadan Water Village the morning of December 24 instead of our scheduled arrival the afternoon of December 22nd! Once at the Water Village, everyone unpacked their dive gear and we headed to the Dive Centre for their quick briefing and eagerly anticipated orientation dive! No one was disappointed with the critters spotted on Paradise 1 during the orientation dive and our 8 days of diving were off to a great start!

The weather was fantastic the whole trip, we dove numerous sites about Mabul Island, Kapalai, the premier sites over at Sipadan Island and some new-to-us dive sites at Siamil & Darawan Islands, a pair of islands about 45 minutes boat ride from Mabul. Since diving permits for Sipadan are being extremely regulated we were not able to dive “at will” there. Everyone managed 4-6 dives there and enjoyed every one. It’s difficult to accept that you can’t just hop on a boat and head over there for a dive or two. The Marine Park is strictly enforcing the number of divers there to a limit of 120 per day. That’s a very, very small number of divers considering the size and number of resorts in the area that are applying for permits. In order to offer guests more diving options, the Water Village has started diving around Siamil & Darawan. The dive sites there are sloping reefs with prolific marine life…some larger schools of fish but mostly the usual reef fish and lots of exotic critters. Pgymy seahorses were at 70 feet and a littler larger than some we’ve seen elsewhere. Leaf scorpionfish, crocodile fish, nudis in different sizes/shapes/colors…the “macro” critters we’ve come to expect from Indo-Pacific diving were all present!

There were two highlight dives of the trip for me; I’m sure others had highlight dives as well! The first one was a late afternoon dive at Kapalai affectionately known as “mucky point” but officially known as Maki Point! We were slowly cruising the top of the reef doing our safety stop, actually looking for mating octopi which are frequently spotted there. Ron, our dive guide, wrote the magic words “Blue Ring” on his slate and we zoomed over to him! It was our first blue ring octopus sighting in our hundreds of dives in the region. We had a long, quality experience with him/her! We slowly followed it along the reef structure from sea squirt to sea squirt as it changed colors and flashed its blue rings at us! It seemed to favor the purple/orange sea squirts because it thought it was camouflaged so well.. yeah, right!

The second highlight dive was a late afternoon dive along Paradise 2, one of the SWV house reefs. I found a crocodile fish just lounging on the sand and when I settled in front of him and took his picture, I’m sure my strobes startled/annoyed him! He managed two giant yawns and my strobes had recycled enough to capture both of them! I’m sure he was trying to scare me away, but he delighted me instead!

Everyone saw their fair share of fabulous turtles, several on every dive and many, many, many as usual over at Sipadan. Reef sharks cruised in and around us over at Sipadan and the school of jacks was as cooperative as ever. A few of the group managed to get to Barracuda Point when the large school of barracuda was actually circling and we all saw at least one or two of the famous bumphead parrots that circle Sipadan daily “noshing” their way over the reef!

Blue ribbon eels, both adult and black juveniles, were seen at a lot of sites, different types of cleaner shrimp, ornate ghost pipefish of many colors, peacock mantis shrimp as well as scaly mantis shrimp, blennies & gobies, angels and butterfly fish in all shapes & colors, lots of fantastic “eye candy” for everyone to enjoy!

Christmas Eve is the bigger celebration in Malaysia than Christmas Day. The Resort put on a wonderful Christmas Eve dinner and provided us with lots of entertainment from the staff. The Christian staff members had gone off on the 5:00 p.m. boat to Semporna to go to church and didn’t come back until the next morning, so the Muslim staff members donned Santa Suits & hats and sang Christmas Carols for the guests! A fantastic time was had by all!

New Year’s Eve at the Resort is an event not-to-be-missed! We found out later that the staff had been decorating the “Pavilion” for the past two weeks! They had transformed it into a Borneo Rainforest! Vines were growing overhead and flowers/plants were everywhere! Fantastic murals had been painted all around the Pavilion. After a lovely dinner in the dining room, everyone was escorted into the Pavilion for the party! Party hats and favors were presented and teams had already been drawn up by the dive staff. Cultural songs/dances were performed by the staff and the Miss Mabul dancers entertained us as well. The remainder of the staff danced for us too. The games then commenced with blindfold games, apple games, balance games and most of us were on the team that came in LAST! Prizes were handed out for the games and names were drawn from all the guests present for other prizes. It was a grand way to celebrate the end of 2008 and then 2009 arrived with a bang!

Our departure from the Resort was early, early in the morning New Year’s Day! We had a 5:30 a.m. departure by boat so we could make our 8:00 a.m. flight to Kota Kinabalu and then onward to Singapore. We then had four fantastic days to tour one of the most beautiful, clean, vibrant cities in the world!

As part of our Singapore Stopover Holiday program, free & discounted admissions were included to all the attractions Singapore has to offer. Group members visited the Botanic Gardens, National Orchid Garden, Sentosa Island, Underwater World, the world-famous Singapore Zoo and the Night Safari. The Bird Park was also visited along with temples, mosques & shopping areas! Food choices in the city are overwhelming and everyone left the city on January 4 in a state of exhaustion from trying to cram a week’s worth of activities into 3-1/2 days!

All in all, once we forgot the nightmare trip to get there, everyone had a great time! Lots of quality dives were logged, new friends were made and lots of memories were recorded on digital media cards! Come join us the next time we head back to the region.

Dive Travel Services, 29480 Ten Mile Road, Farmington Hills, MI 48336