Sabah- the land under the wind


Was a trip that had to be cut short by a day due to some miscommunication on my part hence we tried to cover as much as we could.

Weather was as what one would expect during the monsoon period. Apparently a typhoon hit KK just the day before we arrived but thank God we managed to fulfill the biggest reason we made this trip, which was none other than to DIVE!!!

Haven't been diving since I got my license earlier this year so the dive trip was definitely the highlight of the trip!
We took a short boat ride over to Matmutik Island which was just opposite KK.


Was only RM230 for Malaysians and it includes 2 boat dives (my first!! whee!) rental for all the equipments and some light refreshments.
A bad decision on my part to not bring my equipments back. The fins were so flimsy they actually flip backwards while u're swimming! I was pretty put off by it cos it made swimming difficult especially when current was wrong. And they didn't provide snorkles as well but it was ok since I always only used up half a tank hence not having to "waste" any of my air while waiting on the surface.

Another reason why we were looking forward to diving so much was because... *drum roll* Jia Ching bought an underwater camera casing!! Where gawking at underwater creatures and watching in awe as they pass u by used to be a kind of regret, it's all history now with the increasing availability of underwater camera casing or camera. More excuses to go diving from now on :D

Weather didn't look too promising on that morning and to be honest, waters were quite choppy as well. In fact, I got really nauseated while they were anchoring the boat.

Visibility was really bad at about 5m. I would be lying if I say I wasn't worried especially during the first dive when we ( I think it was just me initially and Jia ching had to come back and look for me) got separated from the rest. Were too caught up with our surroundings I think. Hmmph and that Sung conveniently ditched us for the divemaster, the safest person to be around with.

The original photos are actually very green so I think both Jia ching and Sung did quite a lot of photo shop to make them look decent. Always use flash underwater if not the colours will be all distorted.

Managed to see quite a few things. I mean relatively more compared to Noarlunga waters. That was pathetic actually! So all in all, I'm pretty satisfied with this dive trip, visibility and sea sickness aside.

Saw the usual clown fish, always the cutest and most popular ones, a rock looking fish ( can u spot it?) and the lion fish which was really quite impressive amongst other fishes.

Other underwater creatures. Saw heaps of the volcano looking thingy there as well. And also schools and schools of baraccuda!! It's so cool to swim towards them and have them divert your path so systematically and quickly you'll feel like you actually didn't swim into their path at all! If only I brought some bread down. I'll be swarmed with them and might end up as fish food as well. *shudders at the thought of it*

Besides diving, we made a trip up to Kundasang and the Poring hot springs plus canopy walk as well. Thanks to Jiaching who is ever so willing to drive us here and there.

*To the tune of the Telstra Bigpond ad* I've been everywhere man, I've been everywhere man.....






Ok, I'm finding this photo grid thingy too useful to be passed up although it makes photos appear so tiny, waste of nice photos.
Btw, can you see the peak of Mount KK? Top right corner of the bottom left photo.


And this guy here was "trying desperately" to blend in with the locals. I wonder what gave him away...

♥ me for who
I am