#119, Meditation Wall, Siamil Island, off Mabul

26meters, 52min

Last dive. 9 dives in 3 days (19.7.-21.7.2010) is enough, you start to get a bit tired. I was kicking bottom and lifting silt like a recent open water graduate!

A good slope though, not really a wall, the best coral formations during these three days, with some interesting nudey branches (in groups of three!), morays, big frog- and a big scorpionf.





Afterwards 70min back to Mabul, a quick burn of pics to cd and then another 70min or so back to Semporna. I noted that from Mabul to Semporna the boats two 200hp engines used more than 55 litres of gasoline. Thats pretty darn sick in about one hours time of driving.

Overall the Scuba Junkies have really grown up. In 2006 when I was here last time, the shop was a slimy little room in the shitty town of Semporna. I still remember their ugly home made logo, which literally shows a shark with an ok sign and scuba mask. Its so ugly and badly designed that it stays in your mind. Now they have kept the same logo, but everything is a few steps better. The shop is bigger, nicer and cleaner, and they have opened a big scuba training center at Mabul as well. The Mabul site is exceptionally well organised and run, the rental equipment is brand new and the rental-, boat- and DM procedures are highly professional. Not surpisingly the place is packed with youngsters doing their open water or another divecourse. Also five dive master trainees were doing their dm course. The staff is quite friendly and very international representing varios nationalities. The Junkies were at the right place at the right time, presence of Sipadan has really helped them to grow. Interestingly, the operating manager Tino remembered me from four years back when I visited here last time for just a few days!

Last night I saw a post on the Mabul SJ noteboard indicating that if some of the clients would like to play chess, they should contact one of the DMs so I did. We played a few rounds and it turned out that many junkie divemasters, barstaff and even the owner were a bit of chess junkies as well. They have to pick up ther game though since this round was Mike 6 (wins), Scuba Junkies 0. :-)

#118 : 1st Beach, Siamil Island, off Mabul, Malaysia

18 meters, 64min

HORRIBLE visibility, the weather was so crappy that everyone waited one hour surface interval in the water instead of the boat. Ha! Anyway, it was still better below the surface than above, even it was as clear as in the first dive. This was just off the beach, and it was sandy slope and bottom all way long with little pieces of coral. However it must be Siamil that makes Mabul so highly appreciated among muck divers. This sandy bottom was packed with small and creepy critters and creatures.

Scorpion, dragonmoth, cornet, flying gerrard, frog, cuttle, porcupine, squad & bubble coral shrimps, crabs, moray, dwarf lion, cleaning station (shrimps), etc


Porcupinefish


Flying gurnard

Full photo album

Not a bad day to dive with a camera with!

#117 : 2nd Beach, Siamil Island, off Mabul, Malaysia

GREAT visibility, 30meters depth, 49min divetime + buddyair

The weather was getting gray after leaving sunny Mabul during about 70 min boatride to Siamil. Expectations were high, people said good things about this place. And subconciously, looking from Mabul this was a Sipadan-like island on the horizon. Certainly this had to be better than Mabul.

Even the weather was getting bad, things were smooth below the surface. Water was calm and crystal clear. There is a coral slope going to the sandy bottom at around 30 meters. Instead of exploring the reef, the DM launches fiercely towards the boring looking bottom. We follow like lambs with some current against us. In 30 meters this means heavy air consumption. After circling arounf a while, we are shown a common seahorse (dont let the name fool you, it is not a common thing to find). Afterwards
we founf a strange purple scorpionfish, which eventually turns out to be a Rhinopias Scorpionfish. Not understandinf at the time, but this is the rarest seacreature I have seen during my dives switching the instructor community back in Mabul totally mental. Some of them had never seen it during their years of stay here. Its highly sought after by aquarium enthusiastics but rare even among them.



By the way, Marinecenter.com has a pricetag for this fish of 1399 USD, but (not surpisingly?) they are out of stock.

I never thought I would get excited about some goddamn fish. But excitement spread around and eventually I was very proud having seen and photographed one.

Spending too much time with my camera in relatively deep water, I run out of air quickly. Not a good combination with a ten minute deco stop looming ahead. So I decide its better go on buddy air, even though I eventually ascend with a good 25 bar.

There was also other stuff, regular scorpionfish, pipefish etc. but nothing that cool.

Scorpion leaffish


Fire Urchin

If you wanna go out there and look for the Rhinopian yourself - good luck! Instructions: Go about 50 meters from the slope towards the endless seabottom and when you find a 7 cm long purple weedy scorpiofish, then congratulations!

After ascend, the weather had really turned bad and now it was raining horizontally cats and dogs. This dive really didnt go by the book, first the buddyweiserair and then I dropped my mask on the surface so that the dm had to go and find it. Not cool Mike!

#116 : Artificial Reef, off Mabul, Malaysia (20.07.2010)

60min, 22m, air

Just like the House Reef at Kapilai (#111), this place was loaded with underwater structures, houses, watchtowers, boats etc making it a cool experience. It all resembled a bit like an abandoned sunk ghostown, taken over by marine life. The feeling is spooky. You can be exploring a watchtower just to see tha huge shadows of sunken boathangars looming in the distance. Everything is packed with big fish and small gems, little critter such as ghost pipefish (x2), pink and green leafy filefish (two separate fish that is), extremely well carmoflaged frogfish, and here they seem to make a big number out of a regular banded pipefish so yeah there are plenty of those as well. Also the big pharaoh cuttlefish is always impressive, even though not flamboyant.



Also a big school of jacks surrounded us, quite cool. Big groupers, cods, sweetlips, jacks all over. One of the best dives at otherwise slightly disappointing Mabul.

Few words about the accomodation here. I dived with scuba junkies, who have shops/dorms in mainland Semporna and here in Mabul. If you get the dorm at Scuba Junkies at Mabul, take it since it is a good deal. For 70 ringettes you get a dorm bed PLUS all your meals for the day, breakfast, lunch and dinner. And these are good meals, buffee all u can eat with meaty chicken, rise, noodles, veggies, fruits, tea, coffiee and its all good.

I stayed at one of the longhouses, which Mabul has plenty of. They also cost 70 ringettes a night and they also have all meals included, but these meals are not exceptionally good. We were served fishheads, bony chicken chumps and vegetables. Beer is expensive, 8 ringettes a bottle, as is everywhere in Malaysia. Our longhouse also had rats and ants, which for me just adds the fun but for some of you probably not. However the staff is friendly, local kids running (often naked) around kicking garbage bags as footballs and singing Shakira's World Cup theme Wakka Wakka ee ee... :)

Everyone salutes you as you pass by and its a good idea to reply with a smile and a hello since ignorance equals to arrogance. Its great how these people always have a smile on their face and are enjoying life as it is.

#115: Ribbon Valley (1/2/3?) Mabul, Malaysia

61min, 21m, air

Another relatively bad conditioned reef ith not much to see. Great visibility however made up for it.

#114 : Manta point, off Mabul, Malaysia

63 min, 21 meters. Air.

Ok come on this is truly sad. They call this Manta point, since probably someone sometimes maybe have seen a manta here. Or maybe he saw a stingray and confused it with a real manta. But hey, compare to the Manta point at Malapasqua where 5 meter mantas are met on daily basis...

You knew that things were bad when the DM starts to bang his tank in order to show us something cool and all u come up with is a hairy crab chilling on a pathetic anenome. Well at least they call them Orang Utan crabs here, making it at least a little bit cool!

This reef slope was full of small holes and hideaways, perfect hiding places for fish, stingrays, octapus, lobster, etc. But time after time I had to leave my search with empty hands, all of the spots being basically empty. After reviewing literally tens of holes, I managed at least to find one blue spotted stingray which is always nice. Also one brown moray and a couple of "Orang Utans". And at the end, the biggest bubble coral shrimp ever. These guys are usually found at around 1-2cm but this was a gigantic 5cm+ transparent blue monster?!

Divebuddy Pierre, the french guy did a great job replacing the aussie

#113 : Eel Garden, Mabul, Malayisia

19m, 61 min (air as all dives here, Nitrox not even available ?!?!?)

The first "normal" reef dive on this beautiful 19th of July. The reefs here are quite sad, considering that the truly amazing Sipadan is really visible on the horizon. And considering that having been a couple of months now in the Philippines, I am used to the coral reefs meaning coral reefs and not some sandy slopes with occasional spots of coral.

But yes there are garden eels and they usually rest on the sandy bottom. You know the ones who stick their heads out of the sand and then hang left and right according to the current, and then stick their head quickly in to the sand when feeling threatened. Maybe not so cool but when they come in dozens, they can put some amusing entertainment on indeed.

This time my beloved aussie divebuddy found a lobster. Nice spot indeed. Probably wanting to steal the show, he tried to pull the lobster out from his hole by pulling his antenna. Nice idea??? The lobster was left with one antenna less the aussie reeflife destroyer was left with indeed a dumb look on his already creepy face.

The best thing here by far was not the couple blue spotted rays, golden morays or occasional fish but the superbly carmouflaged white frogfish/anglerfish that I managed to find. Looking at the white coral rumble, there was a weirly shaped stone that looked like a fish made of bone. This surely couldn't be anything but a well carmofalged fish, but it still felt more like a stone that could be picked up. Frogfish, even though master of carmouflage, is usually resembling himself into soft coral and not rock or coral rumble. Therefore stonefish or anglerfish come into consideration. Most likely the fellow was however a either the relatively rare a false stonefish which in reality is a scorpionfish, or the devil scorpionfish ((Scorpaenopsis diabolus) to be exact - or the much a like flasher scorpionfish (Scorpaenopsis macrochir) This was a cool one and had never seen one before.


(Example of a devil scorpionfish photographed at: Lembeth Resort - Indonesia by fishx6 from http://www.whatsthatfish.com.

#112 Seaventures oilrig, Mabul ,Malaysia

56min, 18 meters

So this is the famous Seaventure oilrig that you have seen in all the advertisement pictures. Here it is:



Not surprisingly, the bottom beneath the rig is totally covered in all kind of junk varying from scrapmetal to barrels, tools, pieces of wood, boats, toilets, and all kind of imaginable junk. The barrels are not oil though since oil was never drilled here but the rig was towed from elsewhere.

Once again the metal structures provice good shelter for big fish, and there are loads. We encountered an enormous school of jacks, a school of trumpetmouths, and witnessed a pair of trumpetmouths doing not exactly sure what, but putting up a show including cheeck to cheeck swimming, "swordfighting" with their long mouths, and just dancing around for quite some time. Whether mating or friendly (?) fighting, it was an amusing show to watch.

Other more typical sights included two large crocodilefish who seem to be attracted to junk metal - remember the wreck of Coron Bay in the Philippines, where crocodilefish is often found. And again good sized potato cods and sweetlips and a lot of other variety of BIG fish. Which of course is nice since the reputation of Mabul and Kapalai rely heavily on its muck sightings. (Which as I was to found out, were quite amazing indeed!)

Was diving with an autralian older dude, a familyman with his family, who had some issues controlling his boyancy and eventually had a nice head kick from him in the 18 meters depth. It wasn't a gentle push but a reckless kick and I needed a good moment or two to recover. Quite unexpected. I let him live and moved on.

#111 House Reef, Kapalai off Mabul, Malaysia

60min, 21 meters

Not bad, since most of the structures at Mabul and Kapalai islands are built on water, it cant come as a surprise that some of them have sunk over time. This house reef has plenty of sunken reef houses, boats and all kind of junk that the locals have "sacrified" to the gods of the sea. All this provides great hiding places for the big groupers, sweetlips and jacks who have decided to occupy the area. The big fish really don't have so many places to hide, and even they are big, they are not exactly the attention whores you might expect. Quite the opposite, they prefer to stay in hiding too.

For example, I penetrate a small shipwreck and swim around the hull. Only when I decide to have a look at the top part, I realize there are three gigantic groupers chilling about a meter above me. These guys are all 1 meter plus fish and I am indeed happy I didn't bring any spearfisher with me. The biggest of them all is however not inside the wreck but a potato cod chilling inside one of the used to be houses, looking wrencky but reminding me more of a cow underwater than anything else.

A big variety of large fish here, not shy of divers, which makes this place pretty interesting besides the unusual structures which certainly kept quite a few secrets from us to be revealed the next time. Maybe!

This was btw my first dive as an official divemaster, having recently received the id number from Padi.