I'll Be There Dreckly: PADI

Mabul Island, Malaysian Borneo (map)

In this blog: a rude awakening, learning how to scuba dive, and swimming with turtles.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

I felt someone pulling my leg. 'Steve, wake up' Tof whispered, sat on the floor of the bus whilst I sat asleep on the reclining seat. It was 3.30am and I was now in that period of confusion you get when awaken prematurely. I rubbed my eyes, then looked up and understood why Tof woke me. A couple of metres front of me in the passageway of the bus stood a Malaysian Police officer with an M16 assault rifle strapped across his chest. Was this some weird dream? No, this was really happening.

---

We were on a nightbus heading for Semporna, having got on at the small service town of Renau. There was only one bus, and with diving booked for the next morning we had to take it, the only trouble being that there were no seats left - 'that's fine, you can sleep in the passageway' said the driver, and before I knew it we were on board, the wheels were rolling, and having had no time to think I had no choice but to lump it.

I hate night buses; you miss out on seeing great scenery but most of all, I can never sleep properly on them. Reluctantly I tagged along with our Borneo travel gang who wanted to save time and money by doing it this way instead of the day bus, but once onboard I wished I hadn't. After half an hour of talking and laughing about what was happening, the reality hit me - I had eight hours ahead of trying to sleep on the slippery lino floor of a bus which was constantly twisting and turning on the windy Borneo roads, with no bedding and just a small air pillow. Whilst the bus itself was really high quality, the floor was as you might expect a terrible spot to snooze and after three hours I'd not slept a wink. At a service station the driver very nicely cleaned the toilet, only to walk back along said passageway with his sopping wet shoes leaving marks everywhere. Our beds! We dried the floor ourselves, but I was extremely grateful when soon after, a couple of passengers got off at their stops and I could take finally lay back on a recliner and eventually doze off. Until the point as mentioned earlier when like the other passengers, I was rudely awakened.

We were at a security checkpost and as far as I know it was just a routine search since we weren't too far from the Philippeans. The Police officer worked his way back the bus asking for everyone's ID, and firmly without being rude looked at my passport and blurted 'what's your name?', 'why are you here?' 'where are you going?' before promptly moving on. When he posed these questions to Rene, he joyfully ended with 'welcome to Malaysia'! It wasn't scary, but was certainly unexpected. As if this didn't wake us up enough, the bus driver insisted on continuing to play rock and dance music through the bus speakers all night long. Oh, the ignorance! Why, oh why, oh why.

Mabul island

Gone diving

We arrived at Semporna at 5am, and sat half dozing in a 24 hour cafe nearby for a couple of hours before heading to the office of Billabong Scuba - for we were going diving. After an introductory dive in Jordan last November, I was really taken by diving - the sight of the beautiful coral, the exotic fish, the sensation of floating stresslessly deep underwater. However, unlike the other guys I was travelling with, I didn't have the necessary PADI licence to be able to dive in anything other than playschool conditions, so I decided the time was now and signed up for a 3-day PADI Open Water course, thankfully getting on a course there and then thanks to a cancellation. At 8am, we were on a speedboat heading forty-five minutes out to the small island of Mabul, our home for three days.

It turned out to be a pretty small island; you could walk right around it in twenty minutes, and it was fringed by shallow sandy waters which later dropped off suddenly into the ocean. It was a slightly strange place in that almost all the buildings including our hotel stood on stilts in the shallow waters, which stood side-by-side to the homes of very poor locals who etched out a living fishing in rickety little boats. I felt uncomfortable walking around the village, not cause of safety, but just in the knowledge that whilst I was swanning about in comfort able to spend my day at leisure, these poor folks lived next door in such basic living conditions. It's a situation westerners often face in developing countries, but you just have to deal with it - it's not your fault and it's not theirs, we just live in two different worlds.

The first day of the course was theory based, and along with a great young Malaysian couple who spoke English as their first language (as some do), we watched the cheesy course DVD, then spent a few hours reading the course material. Diving is safe if done correctly, but can be dangerous if not so we learnt about how to plan a dive, who to go with, the required equipment, the composition of air and a thousand other things. Having not used my brain that much in the past ten months, it was a little frazzled by all the information come the diving quiz at end of the day.

Getting ready to dive

Dive 1

The second day we could finally get out in the water, but not after we'd been taught how to set up our own equipment, a fairly complicated and intimidating affair initially, but very straightforward once you know how. The three of use were taken on the dive boat by our instructor, Wong, who was of course always right (sorry), to a fairly shallow spot the other side of the island where we sat on the edge of the boat, and were told to simply fall back into the sea. In the water were taught how to use the mouthpiece (regulator), how to descend and ascend by adding or removing air from the jackets, how to remove water from your face masks whilst underwater (simple really), and how to get the right boyency. A basic but fun first dive.

Dive 2

After lunch we went out again, this time learning how to use someone else's mouthpiece (regulator) if you run out of air and how to safely ascend to the surface afterwards, amongst other exercises. We went for a short fun dive after this, and were fortunate enough to see two large turtles resting on the sea bed, one of whom gracefully swum off once we woke him up, which was a pretty special experience.

Before dark we independently went out snorkelling just offshore, where I saw the weird-looking trumpet fish amongst others, and again saw and swum above a large turtle for a while. Whilst I'd been on my course, my travel buddies of Max, Tof and Rene had been on a trip out to the nearby island Sipadan, which is regarded as one of the top five best dive spots in the world, and that night the showed me the videos, inducing one of how they came within metres of fifteen hammerhead sharks; some experience.

It was time again that night for more reading and revising, followed by a final exam. My brain was out of memory and 10pm was not the time to be doing exams, so I gently protested and managed to persuade them to let me defer to to the next day. Phew.

The final countdown

The last day at Mabul we set our for the third dive, which entailed some more advanced training such as removing and refitting all your dive gear underwater, and swimming without your mask amongst other things. It was all fairly straightforward, and most of it prepared you for emergency situations rather than just basic diving.

'I'm OK'

On the fourth dive it was finally time for a bit of fun - training was over, and we were taken out to a spot where the shallow sandy plateaux suddenly dropped deeply into the sea leaving an steep wall of coral. We were free at last, able to do and see what we wanted and it felt great. The coral was reasonably varied, but the fish a little limited in variety but I didn't care, it was just great to have the knowledge and freedom to dive as you like, and we maxxed out at 15m below sea level. Back at HQ I finished off the multiple choice exam which thankfully I passed, and before I knew it that was it, we had to leave.

It had been a very different few days of this trip. A bit taxing on the grey matter but still relaxing in between, and we met some interesting folks from Holland, Malaysia and Australia who were good to chat with. The diving had been enjoyable despite the fact it was training, and the snorkelling a nice diversion especially being able to see the turtles. I look forward to being able to dive again soon away from the shackles of education, and with a ferry crossing into Indonesia coming in the next few days, it might not be too far away.