Mabul Island with Patrick

The other side of Mabul Island

Patrick pointing to the poshest resort on Mabul Island

 Patrick arrived safely last Sunday and appeared to get over any jet-lag without any problems.  On Monday we flew over to Tawau on the East coast of Sabah and then stayed the night in Semporna where we were ready for the 8 a.m. boat ride out to Mabul Island. It supposedly should take about an hour but the boat broke down and by the time the next one arrived and we changed, we were two hours late and soaking wet as it was pretty rough. Apparently there had been a storm about 2 days before and there had been a lot of damage and all of the guests of one homestay had to be evacuated at 3 a.m. before their bedrooms were washed away! Anyway we arrived at our homestay which was in the heart of the water village and definitely the wrong side of town as all the smart resorts were on the other side of this tiny island. It was very basic but adequate and I loved just watching what everyone was doing around the village. There was always fishing boats going in and out and small dugout canoes being paddled by and in the afternoon when it was low tide all the children went out to the reef to collect sea urchins, fish, collect shells, clean shells and other activities that I'm not aware you can do with fish and shells! The children made boats out of rice sacks filled with water bottles and  I watched these two small boys, about 5 years old, successfully spear fishing with a coconut leaf stalk and an elastic band - impressive.

Sea urchins

Spear fishing

Big brother in charge

Rice sack boat

Anyway the main reason for our visit was to dive and although Patrick is slightly ahead of me in experience, we are both beginners. However we were well taken care of and went on some really good dives. My favourite being the turtle dive where we saw nine turtles from medium to enormous. They have such interesting faces and the huge ones just looked bored at yet another diver staring at them - sorry turtles. I wish I had the vocabulary to describe the colours and designs of all the different types of fish and coral that we saw. Sometimes we would be amongst a shoal of angelfish, butterfly fish, parrot fish, trigger fish etc..and it was just magical, with stingrays and cuttlefish darting by. Fortunately I had Patrick to increase my knowledge of the names of fish instead of just saying the yellow and blue fish but the one time I decided to go snorkelling and Patrick diving, a fellow snorkeller asked me "What is that big fish with all those teeth?" "I've no idea, maybe a grouper?" I replied naively. However it was a barracuda so we swam in the opposite direction hurriedly.We didn't have an underwater camera as we thought keeping check on our air and looking at things was enough however we could have had some great photos snorkelling. So I am going to own up that the following  photos are not mine but we did see underwater images just like this. The list would be very long of all the sea life that we saw but you would be asleep by then so enough of that. We flew back to KK yesterday evening and headed up the mountain and today I've been showing Patrick the sights of Ranau i.e. the market and he has been getting me to climb on rocks in search of insects in the dark in my garden!

Masked butterfly fish

The view from our bedroom

Turtle

Emperor angelfish