Summer 2007 - Malaysia V

We woke up early this morning at 5:30 and Andrew's right ear still felt plugged. He took another Sudafed, waited for an extra half hour for the boat, and ended up leaving at 6:30. It turns out that there was a problem with the boat. While we were waiting, I debated and finally decided to rent a camera for the day. We went back to dive at Sipadan again, and dove at Mid-reef and Barracuda Point.

We saw lots of turtles and sharks again. One of the sharks was sleeping. We would come close to it and it would up and swim in a big circle, only to come back to the same spot again to rest. This happened a couple of times. We also saw lots of other cool fish. Here are a few of the pictures:

So those are a few photos from the first dive. After the dive, we went to the island to eat some more sandwiches and wait to dive again.

Our second dive was pretty great also. There was a pretty strong current here, and Andrew was still having ear problems, so he didn't really enjoy himself that much. We saw lots more turtles, sharks, and a big school of barracuda. Here are some of the pictures from this site:

We wrapped up the dive and were back to the rig by 10:30. I noticed I got some pretty nasty scratches from some dead coral on the bottom. I got some pretty accusing looks from the others in the boat, labeling me a coral killer. No corals were harmed in the taking of these photos; I know way better than that.

We both promptly fell asleep for a good nap before lunch. We hung out on the deck, reading and talking until about 16:00, when we kitted up and went for another dive under the rig. Andrew was doing his navigation dive to finish his course. Again, I took some photos. Here are some of them:

We came out of the water, and were ready to check out the pictures from the day.

There were more than 200 (it was hard to narrow down which ones I would put here, let me just say). We enjoyed a very nice sunset from the sundeck of the boat while waiting for the pictures to transfer to the iPod.

That night there was a wonderful barbecue buffet for dinner. Lots of food: fish, shrimp, lamb. Delicious!

It wasn't difficult to get to sleep, after diving all day and a full stomach of good food.

PS If you're interested in the names of all the things we saw, I tried my hardest to label most of the photos in the online photo album. Common and scientific names, because that's how I roll. Click here to access them (there are extra comments on some of them too).

After renting a digital camera for a day, my next dive investment will be a waterproof case for the point-and-shoot.