Wandering Scotsman

Well it feels like I’ve been writing this all the time – ‘last night in KK’, ‘moving on soon’,’my own phase 2′ and all that crap. But as long as I can get my bombsite of a hostel room in a better state tomorrow and post a couple of boxes home, I should be on the ferry to Labuan tomorrow lunchtime, and Brunei a day or so later. After a few failed emails, a quick handphone call (thats what they call mobiles here) to Brunei and I do believe I may have a room booked in one of the very rare cheap accommodation places in Brunei.

I finished my Rescue Diver course today and it was weird saying bye to the crowd at Borneo Divers. They’ve been so good to everyone on the expedition and getting us all through so many courses, and the head honcho is so interested in the expedition work (ok, I’ve bigged him up as he liked my end of expedition slideshow ;->).

Anyway, it’s on a sad note to leave Kota Kinabalu. A few days ago I was flying here from Tawau (where you fly to Mabul / Sipadan) and I didn’t want to come back here, but after four months it starts to mean a bit more I guess. Sabah rocks as a destination….KK is like any big city (although if I came here for a weekend I’d think it was sh!t) but around it there is so much to do, and you can anything here from fancy hotels to the lively filipino market and their amazing peanut pancake thingies you get there.

Last night I was so pleased I had only spent two pounds all day and thought I had got into ‘travellers mode’…then I bumped into someone and blitzed 25 quid on beers at the fancy bars.

I ended my time here well though – I bumped into a tour guide from another country who just landed and went out for beers and food with him talking about travels, Sabah, the differences and how to relate to people back home (in a non-wanky way), gave him a whistle stop tour of KK so he can pretend he knows the place in a few weeks, and then he threw the whole night on his expenses. If Nod, Rich, Phil, Jane or Jade reads this I made sure I ended it the way I started it…. at BB Cafe like my first night here…

Here’s a couple of my diving pics from Sipadan taken at White Tip Avenue, and Barracuda Point (before the camera flooded!!). There’s a shot of one of many turtles and a couple of a large 3 foot cuttlefish, and one of a school of barracudas starting to spiral down in a tornado formation.

I spent today at Mamutik Island again getting bitten by the mossies and the sand flies…those of you from Raleigh will understand that well. I expected to do more skills for my Rescue Diver but I ended up just doing the exam, and accompanying people on two dives around the island. I saw another turtle today. I then flew through my exam and will finish off the practical skills tomorrow.

I’m kinda sad to be leaving KK now but it has to be done, although that depends on how well I get on in packaging up my boxes to send home – a task that seems a lot bigger than it actually is.

Well that’s the loose plan. The second phase of my non-Raleigh adventure starts Monday as I plan to leave my ‘home’ that is Kota Kinabalu to take the ferry to Labuan (still Malaysia) off the coast of Brunei, spend a night or two there, then a couple of days in Brunei before flying up to Kuala Lumpur on Thursday. This will give me a few nights there before meeting my mate. Of course, the only thing I’ve booked is my flight from, Brunei – not the ferries or anything…hey one step at a time!!

Unfortunatly it doesn’t look like the wreck dives will happen in Labuan as hoped – probably a good thing for the ‘budget’ but not so good for the experiences. There’s a distinct lack of cheap accommodation in both those places so I’m fighting the urge to go upmarket in one of them….guess I need to buy a new camera sometime!

Well still no new pictures as I don’t have my laptop online. I’ve been back in KK saying yet more goodbyes, often to the same people. I’m now the only Raleigh staff in the hostel so it’s starting to change a bit, with several flying to KL and Cambodia tomorrow.

I spent today and yesterday doing my PADI Rescue Diver course, and will finish it off tomorrow or the next day. I’m trying to make some plans for next week but failing miserably. I thought I’d head to Brunei just to see what it’s like, and get the ferry from KK via Labuan to see some of these amazing wrecks that all the tourism promotions go on, and on, and on about…..but it seems it’s quite difficult to sort out a trip – a google search doesn’t give me any details, the tourism board doesn’t give me any dive schools, and the agent in KK says hardly anyone goes there now, despite teh tourism board still pumping out information about it. I then tried to find out cheap accommodation there and ran into another stumbling block.

Hey ho I may just take the chance, but it looks like the diving is out. It also looks like the dive operators have started to wrap up in the Perhentians already which is a bit of a pain as I am heading there on 3rd October….

It’s strange to know I’ll be leaving KK next week. When I came back here from Sipadan I didn’t want to make the trip as I wanted to move on elsewhere, however now I’m here it’s great having a place I know my way around, and I look at all the Orang-putees (dodgy spelling, but basically white folk) and wander what they’re doing in ‘my town’.

I’ll be in KL by the end of next week, meanwhile I ‘m off to try and sort out some luggage I have to send home…..! Maybe a night out with a staffer who is back in town tonight, but it depends if I hear from him or not – maybe tomorrow instead….

Oh yeh, and I saw a massive stonefish today (just after one had to be moved from the beach area), and a blue spotted stingray today…luckily I didn’t tease it like some other famous folk recently…

It’s the last day’s diving today, so three to finish it off. This morning we were back to Sipadan at 0745. Yesterday the diving didn’t look promising as we had to transfer in pretty rough seas, but it turned out ok. Last night there was a tropical storm (evidence by the trashed house in the stilted village we saw later), so it looked even worse today. I had a mad moment during the night thinking I had left my rash vest and shorts outside…and they had disappeared. Just as I was about to head out on a search in the middle of the storm, around 3am, I remembered I had hung them up in the bathroom. Quite an amazing acheivement really as I was so knackered after heading back last night, and had consumed a tiger and several ‘specially imported’ (ahem) shots of Filipino Tanduay Rum obtained from the local village next to the resort.

So the first dive went a bit like this…. hmmm…my camera’s not switching on – weird. I had put new batteries in this morning and had resealed the o-ring on the waterproof housing. I gave it several attempts then gave up. It was then I started to see the mist forming on the inside, closely followed by a rapidly increasing bubble of water filling up the inside of the casing……not much I could do at this point apart from sack off the dive in the hope I rescued it. We had got dropped off at White Tip Point though so I knew there should be more sharks down below (albeit not that huge)……so I did the only thing that was right…..continue the dive, watching the water seeping in, and rapidly trashing my camera. I quickly calculated that Raleigh staff seem to have around a 20% hit rate on trashing cameras on this trip……. never mind, it’ll give me an excuse to buy these Sony’s I’ve been eyeing up, despite their trashed count sitting at two.

It was a weird feeling coming in and washing down my camera in fresh water. I’m currently holding out the memory card dries out successfully as I was too lazy and relaxed to download the pictures of turtles and sharks last night…arrrggg.

Anyway, the dive continued and we saw more huge turtle elegantly cruising by and a few more white tipped sharks. The second dive at Coral Reef Garden had quite a current which was hard work after a while, but loads of coral to be seen.

Anyway, my last or second last dive beckons…I must dash…

It was a fantastic day’s diving today, managing to squeeze in four dives. Two dives were on Mabul island, including a night dive, and we did two dives at Sipadan. There was an amazing amount to see including umpteen turtles, cuttle fish, thousands of other fish I had no idea what they were, and also several white tipped sharks. At one of the dive sights (imaginatively called Barracuda Point) we amanged to witness an amazing formation of thousands of barracuda creating a tornado formation about us before swimming away. It was quite a site with a bunch of divers having around so they would approach us, rather than scaring them off, but it was fantastic to see them in formation. On my last dive, my fins were also bitten by a trigger fish when surfacing which was a bit unsettling at first, then quite amusing.

The night dive was pretty special as well with us seeing several large turtles elegantly coasting along, and again some of them were massive. It’s something pretty special to be swimming alongside them, lit up by torchlight. We also saw a number of crabs that looked as though the coral was growing on them (although I’m sure it wasn’t), a miniature octopus, and loads more I can’t remember. Mabul is famous for it’s macro life, so lots of tiny things were pointed to us by the divemaster.

Borneo Divers have it pretty sorted here – a relaxed dive resort with pool (and bar) and a nice little beach bar open later on. The food is great as well which is just what you need. It’s taken a bit of time for the folk I’m with to adjust to other people carrying our bags for us, but it’s bloody brilliant at the same time.

Most of the staff attended the Malaysian Merdeka Day celebratons last night at Likas Stadium in KK. I think they rotate it around all the different regions in Malaysia and this year was Sabah’s turn. Our VIP tickets had us sitting almost within spitting distance of the King. It was a pretty full on event with a shedload of dancing, singing and music but we were all too knackered to take full advantage of it and were struggling to keep our eyes open. If it wasn’t for the uncomfy stadium chairs….

We were up at 5.30am today to get to the airport and fly to Tawau, then got a boat transfer to Mabul Island. You know those desert islands that people talk about? They really do exist – not Mabul, but on the way we passed a pristine island that consisted of only sand and four or five palm trees.

Soon after arriving we had two boat dives. They were both great dives, but utterly ruined by foggy goggles, so I spent most of my time clearing them – not what you want! On the second dive we saw several turtles, very close to the island. Without exaggerating one of them was about the same length as me – the divemaster reckoned it could weigh up to 100kg.

We did hear some stories about the permit limitations for access to Sipadan diving though, and some folk were turned back today, so fingers crossed for tomorrow as my name’s on the list.

Oh yeh….I’m sitting here on my laptop, using wireless internet, sitting on the outside decking of the resort, and away to help myself to the buffet. Hard living ;-> But it is costing me a month in Thailand for a few days probably!

More updates tomorrow no doubt. I’ll have my camera out tomorrow, I just hope I see through the goggles to work the bloody thing.