Well, last night in Borneo and it’s been a terrific, action packed week. I was on my own for the first day as Kat had flight issues that delayed her 24 hours. So I did some solo orangutan viewing and got up at 3:00 the next morning for a jungle boat ride. Saw some more wild orangutans and some proboscis monkeys, plus two crocodiles (only for a second before they disappeared under the murky water.)
Kat arrived around lunch after a brutal 48 hours of travel. She was a trooper though and rallied for some pool time and visits to the orangutan center and the proboscis monkey center. The proboscis monkeys are hilarious with their large noses and there were about a 100 of them right by the viewing point. Very cool!
We both crashed early and caught up on some sleep and then it was off to Sipadan the next morning. We were psyched to stay three nights in a really cool resort set on stilts in the middle of the ocean! And the place did not disappoint. The huts were beautiful and clean and we viewed turtles, starfish and other marine life from our own private balcony.
It was entertaining to go through the orientation talk to learn things like where the panic button was in case of pirates! We were also advised not to worry to see the military walking around with machine guns as it appears they have a base at the resort. Though seeing kids who look about 15 walking around with guns might be more scary than the pirates! Guess they had some really issues a few years back with kidnappings, but fortunately, we did not have to call for the guard.
We had an orientation dive that afternoon and it was a little disappointing. We’d heard such amazing things about Sipadan and the beauty that the nearby reef seemed a bit dull. However, we did learn to really appreciate the micro marine life like pygmy seahorses and beautiful tiny creatures that can be overlooked in the excitement for the big stuff.
We had a great time hanging out with our Belgian buddies Christian and Grete, who shared our very bumpy boat ride out to the resort. They are hard core divers who were staying a full nine days so our three nights seemed a bit paltry. We had a lot of fun meals and good times drinking some wine watching the sun go down and spotting turtles from the dock.
We finally got to dive Sipadan island yesterday and it did live up to expectation! We saw sharks the second we dropped. White tip, black tips and grey reef sharks, most quite small but a few were around six feet or so. Also tons of turtles, moray eels, huge schools of barracuda and just an amazing amount of beautiful fish and coral. Really great day.
Last night got interesting as a storm swept through. It felt like the middle of the night and we couldn’t believe it was only 11:30. The wind was howling, the hut was shaking and we could feel raindrops through the slats in the bathroom. Actually, the whole bathroom was pretty much soaked – thankfully Kat rescued my towel!
But all had blown over in an hour and today was another beautiful one.
Kat and I are both fighting sunburns and some ear issues from the full days of diving but it was totally worth it.
Upon getting back to the mainland and checking into the hotel, I got an urgent message from my brother! Of course I was a bit concerned and logged on to email for the first time in six days. Guess mother nature was having a field day all over Asia with a series of earthquakes, tsunamis and typhoons and the family wanted to know we were ok. Kat and I were completely oblivious and hadn’t heard a thing about it. So I sent emails home to reassure that Kat and I had not drowned in a collapsed stilt hut under a massive wave while crushed by earthquakes and blowing into the ocean from a typhoon.
It’s been great having Kat visit and she’s amazing for making it all the way out here for just a week visit! I hope her trip home is smoother than the one out here!
And hopefully by this time tomorrow night, I’ll be in Cambodia and starting to get ready for the actual volunteering part of this venture! It will take me four flights and 12 hours to get there through, so we’ll see how it all goes.
And at least the Red Sox are in the playoffs, so all is right with the world…
Cheers!
Val
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