Yen came back from SF for Dad's 60th, so we thought we'd go somewhere for a family holiday. Having (sort of) successfully convinced my dad the diving trip I had planned in Sabah was for his birthday, we hurriedly packed after the cake was cleared away and headed off the next day for Kota Kinabalu. Or KK for the Malay-challenged.
KK is in West Malaysia, in Sabah state, which is the top right part of Borneo (how much do I rock at geography!). Now, most people go to KK for Mt Kinabalu, the river safaris, the exotic jungle wildlife and such. Me, I give you two words: cheap diving.
Whilst Sipadan off the west coast of Sabah is a magnet for divers (and sometimes terrorists..), you'll also end up paying resort prices to learn in the shallows, and there's sweet FA for non-divers, so I went with KK where there's a plethora of choice. Also a refreshing lack of 2000m drops!
I had enough trouble getting to this point (the trip initially was for China, don't ask), so I only booked hotels, no activities. Luckily KK is fantastic for the last-minute and unprepared traveller, like moi. They have this lovely place called Wisma Sabah in the little downtown. It's a building housing only travel-related companies. Dive tours, Air Asia, hotel bookings, jungle safaris... whatever you want to do you can ask for details, compare prices, and book in the same floor. How cool is that!
Jennifer at Scuba Paradise was very helpful and we were able to book some Mt Kinabalu/river safari things for mum and dad as well as Open Water PADI diving course for Yen and I. Rm 840 for 3 days instruction from personal dive master, equipment rental, lunch, hotel pickup and certification. W00t!
The first day of training was loooong. The PADI DVD is immensely cheesy and there's 5 modules to go through before a final "exam". It's pretty much high school physics (buoyancy, gases, light, refraction..), safety stuff and using a table to figure out how much nitrogen is in your system. It's brain hurtin stuff though, for a holiday. So, we were really glad to escape at the end and quickly sniffed out the waterfront mamak stalls covering the essential food groups: anything fried, desserts with condensed milk, chicken wings and MSG.
Next morning we took off from the jetty at Sutera Resort, the fancy new one in town. It's just chockers with Korean ladies off on a boat ride to the islands with their matchingly dressed and coiffed man and stilettoes.
I curse my slowness in taking pictures! They were truly breathtaking.
If I were learning in Australia, I'd have studied by myself and spent this part in a pool. Instead, our first stop was the shallows at Sapi Island, ten minutes away. It's much more convenient to go to the island than to find a swimming pool actually!
Pulau Sapi is one of the five islands in the TAR marine park off KK. The snorkelling and diving here isn't going to compare to Sipadan. As we were to see for ourselves, most of the coral has been dynamited, leaving only a few patches here and there of natural coral reef. Still, the water is clear, warm and thick with all kinds of fish, so it's very good for beginners.
At the beginning, as with most things, it's all weird and uncomfortable. The equipment is just a tangled mess of hoses and valves with some really indecipherable gauges thrown in. Then there's the actual diving...
I don't have pix of the dives unfortunately–need a whole underwater setup for that. Besides, I was initially, ..what's the right word.. freaking-the-hell-out. It felt so unsafe to willingly 'drown' and then keep heading down, even when you can't see the bottom. My mental dialogue: "faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrk!!!!"
Mental hysterics over, I realised I'm not going to last long if I keep this up, so I turned it into underwater meditation class: Breathe iiiiin, breathe ooooout. Don't think of anything else.
It's quite good training, cause screwing up the calm breathing=drowning. So on pain of death, you must keep calm.
With each dive and learning exercise, we got more comfortable. I went from holding the instructor's arm in a death grip to being able to navigate away and come back (it did take 2 goes, but no one's perfect!).
On the second day, after a swim test, we were finally certified!
I must say initially, I was hoping for a different instructor. Perhaps tall, tanned and French..dark hair...deep soulful gaze.. just a suggestion! But we got safety-minded, old-hand Jeffrey instead. Which turns out was exactly the person I wanted to be in sight as I was freaking out in the murky depths.
It turns out dive instructors, like winners of the World Cup, can't be picked on their good looks alone. Who knew!
This was even more apparent as we got off the boat triumphantly at the end of the 2nd diving day. Another boat had come racing in behind us and there was a lot of kerfuffle as a British girl was taken off on a stretcher in agonies. She'd managed to step on a stingray...ON THE BEACH! We hadn't even seen any in the water!
As her quite hot tour guide was frantically shouting into his phone in the parking lot, it was a timely reminder that a whole bunch of unexpected stuff can happen at sea, and safety, whilst boring and not as good looking is paramount :p
For more Sabah pix and rapier-like wit click here.
Next: Sabah Trip Part Dua (2) : Sandakan
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