Pulau Sipadan and Pulau Mabul

turtle

Mabul Island

Cuttlefish shift color and texture in front of your eyes

Triggerfish have a reputation of defending their territory against divers. But they are also quite beautiful!

The urge to swim up to and hug a turtle is almost overwhelming

Moray eels are less frightening than they look

I took the first photo, but the rest are from our dive instructor's underwater camera. Scubadiving is a difficult sensation to describe, as are the many strange creatures we encounter down there, so I don't quite feel guilty stealing these.

We booked our dates at Pulau Sipadan (an island on eastern Sabah, a Malaysian state in Borneo) nearly two months in advance and still barely found a spot. Popularized in the west by Jacques Cousteau, Sipadan is now one of the most celebrated dive spots in the world, and it is now protected by a strictly enforced permit system. The tiny surface of the island is outlined by sandy beach, but only a few feet out from the shore the clear and light green water at your knees suddenly gives way to a deep blue void. Sipidan is an underwater volcano, and from its steepest walls the island plunges straight down for over two kilometers until it hits the floor of Indo-Pacific basin. The submerged cliffs create powerful currents which attract an unusual number of large sea life: great numbers of green sea turtles, white tipped and gray reef sharks, devil, eagle, and manta rays, hammerheads, schools of giant barracuda and big eye trevally head the list.

Swimming "into the blue," we veered from the comfort of the island wall and swam out into the open ocean searching for the largest creatures: hammerheads, whale sharks, manta rays. 20-30 meters under the surface, with something near two kilometers of water below us, we lost site of the island behind us and I eventually lost my sense of direction altogether. I felt suspended by a tiny thread in the middle of an unfriendly ocean, blue darkness every way. This first time was a challenge to breathe calmly and to not freak out and lose body control, but later excursions into the blue were thrilling. With specks of bioiluminescent critters dotting our field of view like stars, we could have been floating in space.

Back near the reef wall we swam with sharks and sea turtles, the latter of which dig a nest and sleep on the reef floor during low tide. The large reef sharks passed us by, sometimes within a few feet, their chilly eyes indifferent to us. In one moment two sea turtles swimming in opposite directions collided violently into each other, their shells sending a massive CLACK through the water. The turtles stopped in place, stared at each other for half a minute or so, then went on swimming in opposite directions.

The macro diving is equally exciting, with spectacularly designed nudibranchs (like a flamboyantly colored toxic sea slug), sea horses, octopi, pygmy cuttelfish, mantis boxer shrimps, box fish, scorpionfish, frogfish, and lobsters hiding around every corner. The density and diversity of sea life was far beyond anything else I've seen.

Christina was hooked, and as soon as our scheduled days of diving terminated she began her PADI Rescue Diver course, which she completed in three laborious and dramatic days of class and simulation. I was lucky to get her away from Mabul before she signed on for a six week Divemaster course, which would have sent me packing for home!