Our day today started fairly early as we had signed ourselves up for a 2-dive day with Phi Phi Scuba, which was recommended to us by Dive The World. Bright yellow outfit somewhere in the centre of Phi Phi town (Phi Phi Scuba, not Dive The World) - you can’t miss it really.

We had met our dive guide for the day, Chris from Denmark, and we was going to show us the sights of Phi Phi’s underwater world. Because of the great snorkeling on the previous evening’s sun set cruise, we had great expectations.

We set off on the yellow Phi Phi Scuba and headed away from Phi Phi Don in the direction of Phi Phi Leh, the cluster of islands where The Beach was filmed. Our first dive site was to be Bida Nok. “Heavy on air?” Chris asked as he was going through the signals. I am heavy on air, very, in fact, lucky if I last 40 minutes.

So we went in, along with a substantial amount of other divers on our boat, at 8:31. The water temperature was a toasty 29.6*C and we had around 10m of visibility. The fish population weren’t as dense as I had expected, but there was loads of variety on very colourful coral reefs, outcrops and rounding, much unlike what I, Mr. Inexperienced, have seen before.

Next to Julia with her keen eyes and knowledge, we quickly spotted a few scorpion fish and lion fish. We also saw a free-swimming moray eel and that was about the highlight of the dive. Technically though, both Julia and myself had perfect dives. Julia felt very confident and had no buoyancy issues. I lasted a whopping 57min and had no trouble with buoyancy either – I was very excited about that.

We were hoping to see some leopard sharks or at least something big on this dive, so we were a little disappointed that we didn’t, but it was a great dive nevertheless. We aimed our positive thoughts at a turtle for myself and a manta ray for Julia on our next dive, with a bit of a prayer for a whale shark if we had any luck left.

While having lunch, we headed for our next dive site at Malong or Maya Bay, at the mouth of the lagoon that washes The Beach and next entered the water at about 11am. The water temperature was the same and we had slightly more visibility this time. The coral-scape was fantastic, with loads of big boulders, canyons and even a swim-through, my first ever. The coral, considering the amount of divers on this site, was in pretty good condition and the variety of fish amazing.

We again saw some interesting fish and smaller critters, but nothing big. It was about 10 minutes towards the end of our dive when I had lost hope of seeing anything interesting when Chris signaled something. I couldn’t make out what he was trying to tell me, but I swam forward from where I was at the back of our group of 4. And there, as I rose over the coral ridge, was a turtle! I followed him at a distance for the next five minutes, watching him lazily pick at the coral and munching at things, blissfully unaware of the divers ogling him or the noise of the boat engines overhead.

Chris eventually called me away as we had reached the end of the dive, but I was super stoked. Excellent dive because of that turtle – may he live long and prosper.

The rest of our day was fairly laid back. I got a few hours of work in and a nap. We decided to go down to the beach for the sunset (although technically you can’t see the sun set from the beach). It was relatively quiet with few people around.

A member of the royal family had passed away several month earlier and the custom involves embalming the body and keeping it for a set period before the cremation. As it happened, the cremation was taking place over this weekend, and for 3 days bars would be closed and no loud music would be played – hence the quietness on the island – but it was almost blissful.

After a bit of a frolic on the beach it was dinner time and as we had had Thai food non-stop since we got here, we thought it time for a bit of a meaty dinner and there’s no meatier dinner than the eat-as-much-as-you-can buffet at Matt’s Joint. The sign out front says: “Girls: THB 265, Ladyboys: THB 280, Boys: THB 295, Kids & Rabbit: THB150”. Not a bad deal.

Our next hour and a bit consisted of pork chops, pork sausages, prawn skewers, chicken fillet, smoked salmon, 4 different kinds of pasta salads, a green salad, potato salad (and jacket potatoes for all-you-can-eat novices), corn on the cob and fresh bread. What a spread! But try as I might, I only managed a plate and a half and to my detriment was stuffed after. Julia also managed significantly less that what she aimed for – but it was money well spent.

We walked around the island looking for signs of life, but alas, found none. We ended up at a beauty salon where Julia had a manipedi and I had a foot massage, before we headed back with 2 DVDs and beers and ended the evening in our room – relatively early thanks to a fairly active day.

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It was a successful day of un-trashing the beaches and reefs near the Downbelow dive station and we’re happy to report that Gaya island is cleaner.

A big ‘well done’ to Downbelow for organising this event, mentioned a few days ago, to Sabah Parks for assisting in transport, jetty fees and park fees, and to Project AWARE for the sponsorship to make it happen.

But the heroes of the day were the people, divers and non-divers alike, who gave their time and put in so much effort.  Thanks to them a part of one of Kota Kinabalu’s biggest islands, Pulau Gaya, is now much cleaner and the reefs the better.

The day started not too early as we departed the Sabah Parks jetty from near the Hyatt in KK city.  It took 3 boat-trips to ferry all the volunteers to the Downbelow dive station, which is located on the grounds of Sabah Park’s Headquarters on Gaya Island.

Following a briefing and a few short speeches by Ev from Downbelow and the Director of Sabah Parks, the 40 odd participants were separated into divers and non-divers, and further broken up into clean-up crews.

Armed with our tools, consisting of hard-knit gloves and plastic bags, for the beach dwellers and net-bags for the divers, we set out for some serious cleaning.  The divers got kitted up for diving on some of Kota Kinabalu’s most colourful reefs, whilst the beach squad dispersed along the beach and into the forest.

I was part of the beach clean-up crew and we quickly discovered where the tide and current preferred to dump the glass bottles, plastic bags, pieces of building wood, and all sorts of other colourful trash, which will be around long after the rest of us are on this planet no longer.  We spent the next couple of hours removing the said items from under rocks, wedged in sand, off the branches of low hanging trees and from under shrubs.

Soon a big and heavy pile of rubbish was collected. Heavy, because there were so many glass bottles, and partly because most of the plastic bag trash were filled with sand before we emptied them.  Before long we had filled all the big trash bags we had, and headed back to the meeting point for a well earned break.

Slowly the other clean-up crews joined us with their contributions of trash.  The divers came back with a lot less trash than what we expected, but instead of being disappointed, we took it as a good sign.  Clean reefs, are good reefs.

We had some well received lunch and polished off litres of orange juice and water.  We even had time for a little bit of frisbee throwing (there’s always time for frisbee - and two people brought frisbees along).

Taking pictures of our trophy trash, a brief mangrove tree planting ceremony and Downbelow cap souvenirs closed off the trash collecting proceedings for the day, before we headed back to the mainland again.

The response for the event was overwhelming and I think Ev had to arrange additional transport for all the volunteers that put up their hands to help us clean up.  Thank you very much to everyone who helped - it’s a small squad against the legions of trash out there, but one by one we can make a difference.

If you’re keen to join similar projects in future, keep your eyes on this blog or surf on over to kkdiveclub.com.  If you live in Kota Kinabalu and love diving, join the club for really affordable dive days.

Or if you just visit KK every now and again for a bit of a diving holiday, you can still keep in touch and we’ll invite you along.

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Although we often treat the sea as such, it is in fact not a giant dustbin.  Most of the rubbish dumped by man linger around for years, even decades, and might never go away.

In fact, in Kota Kinabalu, our bad habbits frequently come back to haunt us.  The rubbish dumped in the ocean not only washes back up on the shores of 5-star resorts and islands, giving a really bad impression to tourists, but it also gets lodged in reefs damaging coral, and is mistaken as food by hungry sea animals which, if it doesn’t kill them, can seriously hurt them.

So, this Saturday we’re taking a bit back from all those bad things we give the environment as we clean-up our shores and reefs.  Join us for a beach reef clean-up, as Downbelow hosts a Project AWARE event endorsed by Sabah Parks.

Project AWARE is a non-profit organisation that focusses on the importance of our marine environment, and actively encourages the preservation thereof through education, advocacy and action.

This Saturday 20 September, Downbelow Dive Centre moves us towards such action as they provide the infrastructure for this event.

We will be heading out to Sabah Park HQ on Gaya island, and will clean up the beach area, river mouth, and also the reefs nearby.  Both divers and non-divers are welcome, and the event is free to join.

We only had space for about 30 people, so let me know soonest if you’re interested but all the spaces have already been filled, sorry.

Time: 10.30am - 4pm
Depart: Sabah Parks Jetty in front of Hyatt Kota Kinabalu
Where: We’ll be cleaning on Gaya Island at Sabah Park Headquarters
Cost: All it will cost you is a bag or 3 of trash.  Otherwise, it’s FREE! Downbelow Dive Centre provides everything you need, it’s sponsored by Project AWARE and Sabah Parks have kindly waived park & jetty fees for participants of this event.
Included: Return boat transfers to the island, lunch, full equipment rental for those diving, park entrance fees, jetty fees

If you want to be part of the next worthwhile event of its kind and help clean up a part of the Tunkul Abdul Rahman Marine Park, then drop me an email or join the KK Dive Club.

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Lynda’s, our modest-but-comfortable accommodations on Nusa Lembongan had a great breakfast.  Pip had a Bacon & Egg Roll, I had an American Breakfast and John had the Aussie Breakfast.

To my surprise, the Aussia Breakfast outclassed the American Breakfast. I guess that was on purpose, it’s Aussie owned after all.  Anyway, Julia opted out of breakfast all together, too afraid she’d end up feeding the fish on our dive.

Diving off Nusa Lembongan

Our first diving news of the day was bad. The seas where to rough to go to Manta Point, one of the main reasons we chose Nusa Lembongan to dive.  Also, we were too early for Mola-Mola season, and although some had already been spotted, chances of us getting to see any where slim.

We had two scheduled dive, the irst of which took us a place called Toyapakeh and the second to SD Point.

Toyapakeh

This site is located in the straight that seperates Nusa Lembongang and Ceningan from Nusa Penida and as a result is known for strong currents in various directions.  It was to be my first drift dive and as such quite exciting.

Turn out, it was quite tiring.  Although we didn’t see anything spectacular or unusually amazing, the endless ridges of prime coral reefs where a true sight to behold.  Visibility was endless it seemed, and the coral reefs stretched off into the distance.  Lots of smaller fishes abound and a few big ones lurked further away.  A school of big Trivali came really close to us and would have to be the highlight of that dive.

I burned through my tank in less than 30 minutes though as I struggled with the swaying current and the bouyancy of the 5mm full-lenght divesuit we got - so far I’ve only dived in shorties.

SD Point

SD Point is paralell to the beach with significantly less current, but still current. Again, the dive was rather unremarkable, so I took the opportunity to concentrate on boyancy control and conserving my oxygen.

The healthy hectares of coral and endless visibility amazed me once and I couldn’t help but feel that usually life abounds here and that perhaps we had just had luck against us.

We returned to shore not exactly awed, but vowing to return for Manta Point and to see Mola-Mola.  Next time, did our dive operators suggest, we should go and spend at least 3 or 4 days there to allow a better chance for conditions to be in our favour.

We had left Pip, the non-diver, at the Mainski Inn - the only hotel on the cheap side with a pool.  She paid Rp 30,000 for the day to use the pool.  We had lunch at Lynda’s where they had giant chicken skewers, which we shared along side Thai green curry and chicken & banana leaf.

Although we had planned on two days in Nusa Lembongan, we felt conditions dictated that perhaps 1 days would suffice this time around.

Fast Boat to Sanur

Julia was adament to avoid the nausia of the slow boat and the rest of us also felt a faster journey was in order.  We went around to scout and haggle for the best price, but everywhere did people start high and only go as low as Rp 150,000.

“Union price”, somebody had told us.  Some or other association on Lembongan dictated that the price could go up from there, but not lower.  Scoot appears to be a reputable operator with new boats, but, were we told, if you didn’t come to the island with them, you couldn’t go with them.

We ended up taking a fast boat back that took about 15 minute faster than the slow boat.  The only saving grace was the this boat was smaller and open and thus it minimised the discomfort we had.

50 minutes after we got onto the boat, we were on the black sand at Sanur, surrounded by taxi drivers who had come into the water right up to the boat to offer their services.

We were heading to Ubud.

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Wouldn’t exactly say it was the most exciting day ever, but it did get me going. Today was my first day in diver training school. Got up this morning at a very reasonable 8am, with time to spare before my 8:45 class in town. Took my sweet time getting up too, snoozed a few times more than what I would have liked to.

At 8:40 I arrived at Borneo Diver’s training headquarters in Menara Jubili. For ease of reference, people always call it the Stamford building, even though they’re just a tenant there. Most visible tenant I guess. Anyway, they’re located on the entire 9th floor, and the offices seem modern enough. The training room is basic, equipment with training room like things. Mandatory white board, a TV and DVD set for playing training videos on, a computer, and table littered with thick files and Scuba gear. The walls are adorned with dated pictures of underwater life, and even more dated PADI Chart and features damn strong coffee, Milo and tea in the corner of the training room.

I was ushered into the room with about 8 other students. An English group under Raleigh International here to get certified too, so that they can go and plant corals as part of a community outreach type of programme. I didn’t talk much, just went straight to my seat. Didn’t feel like meeting new people, didn’t feel like reaching out or connecting. I got the manual and started reading before they played instructional video. There are 5 chapters in total, and we were aiming to make it through 1 to 4 today, because we have to go do something diving in order to complete the last.

Last night before I came home I had some time to kill, waiting for traffic to die off a little. It’s school holidays, so I knew it wouldn’t take too long. I browsed a bit on Scuba diving and read a lot of the theory we covered today, so it wasn’t entirely unfamiliar, which made it easier to absorb. There’s always pressure when there’s a fun determining test on the other side of an activity. You have to pass the test with a reasonable mark otherwise you have to resit and if you fail no license. Aspiring to high standards as I do, I’d like to score perfect on the test of course. Haha. I like acing tests, because I never did in school, although I knew I had the ability. I was too lazy, and I’m not lazy now.

At intervals, coffee breaks and the like, I imagined myself going on to become a diving instructor. Not a bad job ya. But I had to curb my enthusiasm, because i need to see how it goes first. There was some questions about nasal passages, allergies, hay fever and the like, which I denied having because then you have to go for a medical. I do sometimes suffer from them, but to be fair, here in Borneo I don’t. So I’ll have to see how it goes with equalising the pressure when you go diving, because it’s then when your lying ways will be brought to light in the most painfullest of ways. I’ll get excited about where I can take this if I do well under water.

My most favourite part of the entire course was when we were introduced to the diving tables where you have to work out how much nitrogen you’ve still got left over in your system, which affects your subsequent dives. It was a little technical, logical and fun to get my head around. I mis-calculated one, only because my finger went along the wrong row, and the other 4 I managed to work out quickly. I pledge to go over the things again at some stage tonight, so that I’m all rearing to go come tomorrow. We’ll be departing from the Sutera Harbour Marina at 8.45 tomorrow.

I’ll be there early.

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