Semporna To Mabul Island, Borneo, Malaysia
I took a minivan back to Lahad Datu and spent the day searching for another minivan to take me to Semporna the following day. I was told to be ready to go at 7 am at the mini bus station. I got there and had to wait for 10 other people to show up to fill the mini bus seats. We left at 9am and drove for three hours to Semporna. I booked a room for the night and made transport arrangements with Scuba Junkie to catch a ride to Mabul Island where I was recommended to go to Scuba Jeff’s Home Stay. It worked like clockwork.
I arrived and was pointed towards Scuba Jeff’s. It’s a homestay over the water with it’s own boats and meals are included. I managed to snorkel on my own the first day and get four dives in 2 days.
There are many highlights and most of them were 14 and 24 meters of clear warm water. There had been a storm that had kicked up a lot of sediment the night before I got there so I snorkeled the first day and that was a good choice. By the next morning the visibility had returned to 10 to 15 meters and then more.
The instructor staff was mostly locals with two yanks from Ohio leading the dives and having just arrived themselves still excited about the dive experience. Most of it was still new to them and they are both confident and well trained. They made it fun and so did the locals.
Every night was live music and a chorus of Malay songs and some western, one French woman in particular, played guitar and had a beautiful voice singing both Malay and western songs. There’s four or five guitars in use at night and of course it gets really fun when they ad the local rum or whiskey for 10 ringgit/bottle. Some mix, some don’t but everybody is smiling by the end of the second bottle and someone is on the run for more. It’s not my flavor of choice but I did manage to find some places on the beach with really COLD beer.
There are a few man made reefs where many species have claimed as home or a few shipwrecks. Every dive was enjoyable and the staff at Jeff’s bent over backwards to help everyone achieve their diving goals and never the same dive twice.
Storms blow in with a stiff gust that persists for about three hours accompanied by torrential rains and lightening. Then it lightens up and the visibility returns and scuba diving is back on the menu.
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