Andy and Rach's World Travel Diary: Scuba Diving on Sipadan

We're now down on the farthest eastern tip of Borneo, at one of the world's best dive sites, Sipadan island. The island is surrounded by a circle of coral reef which plunges down in a 600m deep wall to the sea floor. Since a group of tourists were kidnapped and killed by Indonesian terrorists in April 2000 the island resort has been closed and instead there is a Malay military base there. There are many bases in the area as piracy in these seas is rife. So we are staying on the mainland, in a sleepy town called Semporna, from where the dive boats leave for the various sites.
The wall dive on Sipadan is the must-do dive in the area so yesterday we set out to tackle it, with not a little trepidation on my part. The sea around the tropical island was completely calm as we got kitted up and backwards rolled into the water from the boat.

The first dive was quite deep, beginning at 30m. To our left the reef was quiet and dark, to our right the dark blue sea stretched into nothingness and below us, the inky depths... As we came shallower the reef became more colourful. We saw more turtles than we could count, some coming right up to us for a good look, others relaxing on a sandy ledge on the reef - at times we could count 4 or 5 turtles in our sights. We also saw 2 white tipped reef sharks and many hundreds of fish of all sizes, colours and patterns. Andy had a bit of trouble with his ears (and is still annoyingly saying "what?" every few minutes) but we both had a fun dive. We rested on the boat and waited for the nitrogen levels in our blood to drop so that we could go down on the second dive. This one was a bit shallower so it was more relaxing. As we reached the southern point of the reef the currents picked up, and instead of fighting them we turned around and simply drifted back along the reef wall. It was so relaxing and very "zen". I actually had neutral buoyancy for once so instead of fiddling with my BCD the whole time I could drift along, and was particularly good at spotting the turtles and sharks.

After lunch on the beach on Sipadan, watched by the incongrously dressed military types (I could see why they might have to wear their boots, after all soldiers in flip-flops don't look very professional, but black woolly hats??? It was 35 degrees...) we got back on the boat where the rest of our group had another dive, Andy sunbathed and nursed his sore ear and I went snorkelling. Even the snorkelling was excellent, like being in a giant aquarium. It was marred only by the boat, which kept moving meaning I had to swim like billy-o braving big old waves and potential sharks to get back to safety.
I had a real feeling of achievement at our two dives - I seem to be conquering my initial panic when I enter the water (oddly enough I hate bobbing on the surface but am fine at 40m) and we saw absolutely loads, especially turtles and sharks. No hammerheads though, but it didn't take away from a really good day's diving.
Next stop is Kota Kinabalu, right across the other side of Sabah, necessitating a night bus tonight. I can't decide whether I am hoping we can climb Mount Kinabalu or not...