Michelle's Scuba Diving Page

       Michelle's Scuba Diving

Hi Welcome to my homepage! As you can see, I love scuba diving. It is an exciting and wonderful experience. I started off learning diving from the PADI dive center in Kota Kinabalu (KK) in East Malaysia. There are many skill levels in diving, the most basic being the Open Water Diving License. It allows you to go for dives of up to 18m deep. Though it might not sound like a lot but when you go down to that depth, the pressure of the water is very great!

My first dive was at Pulau Sapi, a beautiful island off the coast of KK

My next trip was to the other island in Tawau, Sabah. This is a place where you don't want to miss when you plan your scuba diving in East Malaysia. Even though, I had just got my license for only a week, I just couldn't wait to dive at the beautiful island of Pulau Sipadan.

How did I get there? From Singapore I took a flight to Kota Kinabalu and then on to the state of Tawau in Sabah. From Tawau, I took a coach to the coastal town of Semporna which took about 1.5 hours time. After which, I headed off to my final destination by speedboat for about 45 minutes. After the long and tiring ride from Tawau to Pulau Sipadan, I finally reached the place that I would begin my second dive.

My accommodations was catered by Sipadan Dive Centre. Though the wood lodges looked spartan but the facilities and the rooms were very impressive. The food was also wonderful and delicious.

Day One: About 1.5 hours after our brunch, I went for my first dive at the Turtle Patch. It was rather dark even though it was in the afternoon. Luckily, the dive master was my buddy, otherwise I might have inadvertently ended up a few thousand feet at the bottom of the ocean. We moved ourselves along contour of the wall. At about 40 feet, we came across a chasm below the visible marine life. There were 2 signs posted saying "Do not Enter". This is the entrance of the Turtle Cavern. I heard from my dive master that 2 Japanese divers died when they tried to explore this cavern. Due to the dark and twisty nature of this cave, even the sea turtles occasionally get lost and perish within it. We dived for about 50 minutes on my first dive. Due to the fact that I had trouble maintaining my buoyancy, my ear was rather painful after the first dive. Thus, I had to skip the next dive. I took a brief stroll around the island to pass the time.

There wasn't much to see normally but I considered myself lucky as the Sabah Park Officers were releasing some baby turtles back into the sea. I heard from the resort personnel that the Officers actually took the turtle eggs after the turtles had laid their eggs on the beach. They keep them until they hatch and then release them back into the sea. As I was standing at the jetty watching the sunset, you could see the clear sea water and the sunlight sparkling off the waves. I felt very relaxed after gazing at the beautiful sky. It is a far cry from the bustling city lifestyle in Singapore.

Day Two: For this day, my dive master planned 3 dives for me as I couldn't have any night dive (you need an advance diver license for that).

After some light breakfast, we were off to our next dive. The next spot was the Barracuda point and the final depth was 60 feet. On this dive, we saw a school of Barracuda just right on top of us. They swam in a circular fashion similar to a slow swirling cloud. I thought of swimming into the school of barracuda but I previously heard from my dive master about the story of Barracuda attacking people when provoked. So I simply stayed at close range watching them swim peacefully among themselves.

As we swam on, we saw a few White Tip sharks. I was rather excited as this was my first encounter seeing a shark in real life. We slowly swam back to the boat while I peered nervously around to see if any sharks were following us.

After our lunch, we dived at our next spot which was the Coral Garden. This time, my buddy was another dive instructor called William. This was a shallow dive and I was really surprised by how many different types of corals there were out there. There were various types of fire corals which were poisonous to the touch and could easily inflict a burning sensation to the unsuspecting diver. Again, I was overwhelmed by the marine life. There were plenty of Lion fish, Parrotfish and Puffers. Last but not least, I saw two types of sea turtles, the Green Turtle and the Hawksbill turtle. On the ride to Sipadan, I saw some videos played on the coach which showed some divers actually riding on these poor animals while the turtles tried desperately to get away.

After the 2 days of diving, I really wanted to stay for one more day but I had to go back that day otherwise I would miss my flight back . This was a very memorable dive trip and I would definitely recommend this beautiful island to anyone who loves scuba diving.