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Semporna/Sipadan Island5 Oct 2005
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Semporna Harbour.
Dive Boat.
My hotel.
| Semporna is the poor-man's gateway to Sipidan Island, yet another "top ten" diving destination, to stay on the Island resorts costs a small fortune but to visit and dive by speed-boat during the day is very reasonable. The hotel I'm staying at here is also fantastic, part of a water village all built on stilts over the sea, I'm staying in The Longhouse. Actualy most people don't seam to like Semporna but I think it's a great place, it has a good measure of that asian craziness that I love. The markets a chaotic and picturesque and I don't think anyone just shops, everyone seams to have something to sell or barter or if not they have a wheelbarrow to hire which is the local means of transporting everything. The streets are wandered by wild goats and at night lined with karioke foodstalls. Wow, now that is what I call world class diving, you name it and chances are it was there, turtles, sharks, puffer fish, scorpion fish, lion fish, stone fish and a million colours of just ordinary fishy fish. Add a beautiful island to have surface intervals and lunch on and I couldn't have asked for much more. I've now finished 3 days of diving here and could have stayed for a lot longer, the diving just kept getting better, I never got to see the Hammerheads or whale-sharks that occasionally come here but yesterday's highlight was a big leopard shark wandering past. I'm not sure if they are dangerous or timid but it certainly looked mean and sleek and raised my heart-rate a fair degree. I even almost forgot to mention the huge pod of maybe 100 dolphins that swam past the boat on our way back to Semporna on the second day. I'm de-fizzing today as the bus route back to KK goes over the road to Mt Kinabalu at over 1600m so I'm treating it like flying. Now that I have the diving photographs developed I think I'll pass on a career as an underwater photographer. |
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