Scuba Diving

One of the things we were both very keen to do on this trip was learn to Scuba dive and we finally got a chance to do the PADI Open Water course here in Semporna, Borneo. Over the last number of days, we’ve been busying ourselves with the 3 day course and then did a further 6 dives over the next two days.

We consider this to be a great place to learn to dive as the weather was fantastic, the water was very clear and in our few dives here, we’ve seen some very interesting things such as...large sea turtles, rays, massive grouper fish, plenty of varied tropical fish, a large vertical sea wall, a toilet, loads of ship wrecks, large old submerged wooden towers, and even a fish eating another fish’s poo(!) In some ways, scuba diving reminded us of skydiving, what with all the equipment and being in a 3D world - except it’s a lot slower than skydiving and more mechanical, using buttons to go up and down.

We had one scary moment during our training when we heard an extremely loud metallic bang underwater. It sounded like someone’s tank had exploded and we all looked around to see what it was. It turns out that some locals were dynamite fishing nearby. Sound travels much faster and further underwater but it sure sounded close! :O

Semporna itself is a fairly unimpressive town. Quite dirty and smelly in places and we had to move out of our first hostel because we heard rats running around on the ceiling at night....and in our third hostel, we actually saw rats in our room! But it is the diving that brings people here and all the diving takes place off a number of the islands nearby and these are really nice places. There are plenty of people living on the islands and there’s an interesting story about them: They originally came from the Philippians (generations ago) after some dispute with the government. They established settlements on the islands and have been living there for quite some time. They are effectively nationless as they are not recognised as citizens of either the Philippians or Malaysia and so cannot go anywhere. They live by selling coconuts and fish. Some of the islands are very small (the size of maybe two football pitches) and some of the children don’t even go to school. The ones that live on the island are relatively lucky because others were just sent out to sea on a ship with nowhere to go. Special mention to Sinead, the wacky Irish girl we met on Mabul island who gave us a quick tour...including bring us to a great pancake stand :)