Diving Mabul Day 1 (Mar. 28, 2015)

Mar. 28, 2015

I am so happy that I chose to end my travels here! I love the Dive Resort, have met some really nice people, have great food here, and now a bottom bunk in the dorm, with towel included. What else could I want? 

My plane to Malaysia

First view of Mabul Resort

Walking up to resort

Main Hall and Reception

Upstairs bar and lounge

I got up slowly after a really nice sleep last night, put my stuff together, and went to the main hall for breakfast. There are two nice women and a nice man in my dorm. I ate breakfast with Simona, a French girl, Anuka, an Indian British girl, Lina, a Swiss woman and Ted, a Canadian guy from Montreal, living and teaching in Bali. They are all really nice and totally different, but we all love to dive. 

After breakfast, we went down to the wharf to get our equipment and board the boat for our first dive. At this resort, they take you out, you have your dive, then they come back and your surface interval is spent at the resort. That’s nice because you can use the bathroom, get anything you need from your room, have a nap, or whatever. There were a lot of people on the boat, and it was really crowded. I feared that maybe this would be the way of this operation, and that there would be too many people in a group, and short dives because of it. Anyway, I prepped myself to just enjoy and accept whatever came around, so that was fine. There was one big huge guy of 6 feet 2 inches and 130 Kgs, that was on the boat to dive with us. I thought for sure this fellow would use up his air really fast, as most big guys are quite poor on air consumption because of their size. I hoped that they wouldn’t put us in the same group, but they did. I was with him, Adam from Australia, who is in his thirties, and Silje, from Norway who now lives in Africa with her husband. Then the Dive Master, Val, who is from Salt Spring Island in BC.  I was a little disappointed, but thought at least there are only three of us in the group, plus Val. Well, did I ever change my tune after the first dive. It was a site called The Wall, and was a sheer drop of reef that seemed to go down into the depths forever. It was a very sharp drop, and was more than 50 meters, for sure. I never did see the bottom of the reef.

We descended downward, into quite a strong current. It wasn’t as bad as that crazy dive I did in Komodo, so I wasn’t scared, but had to focus, so as not to get whisked away by the current. We did a fast Drift Dive for a while, looking at this fantastic reef. We got down to about 22 meters, at the deepest, and the visibility was great. Over 20 meters vis, and when we were down at the farthest depth, I looked up the sheer wall, and saw 2, one meter long barracuda swimming along the surface, 22 meters above me. They were as clear as day, and with the sheer reef as the backdrop, the picture was incredible and truly epic.

The dive was great, and we stayed down, winding our way around the reef, ascending slowly as we did. There were lots of cool things to see, like a Scorpion Fish, Moray Eel, Nudy Branchs of many colours, and all really large, Manta Shrimp, and many many fish in large schools. Not too long after we started the dive, the current subsided and we lazily swam along the reef with no resistance, looking at whatever interested us. It was a relaxing and lovely dive.


When we got up, I was one of the ones with the least amount of air, though I still had 50 bar. Adam had 50, Silje had 60 and Val, the Dive Master, had 100. That was incredible. Anyway, I was thrilled to find out that Adam was so good on air consumption and then found out that he and Silje are both Dive Masters. A fantastic first day and first group to be put into.

The next two dives were shallower dives and we looked at structures in the water, with lots of marine life on them. One was called Paradise and the other, Artificial Reef. Both had lots of neat things to see and I saw my first Sea Moth, which basically looks like a tiny black blob with fins. It was cool though. There were many other fish, and a turtle to watch as well. 

We ate lunch after the second dive and the food was great. Salad, fresh fruit, noodles, stir fried veggies, and peppered chicken. It was great.

After the third dive I was pleasantly tired, but happy. I showered, had a drink with Adam and looked at his photos from the dives. Maybe I will download some to show you. He is a great photographer so I’m sure there will be some great shots.

Supper will be at 6:30 and I will go to bed early I’m sure. Up again tomorrow for 9 am on the wharf to start all over again. Sorry about no photos, but the Wifi is so slow here, that I have to wait forever for it to open my blog, just to post the text. I will add photos when I can. Most of these days will be a written account only, in any case. 

More tomorrow from your super happy, diving friend, sister, daughter, step daughter, cousin, niece, aunt, Sue.