Sipadan Mar '06 (1)

Our trip summary to Sipadan (1 day Kuching) from 28/2 - 7/3/06. Please feel free to leave comments~

Photos here are marked with the photographer's name and camera used in the corner of the photos. These are only selected photos, please go to the links below to view all (and bigger) photos.
Andy's photos
Gabriel's photos
Winnie's photos
Michelle's photos
and er... I am still waiting for Alex's photos....
(28th Mar update : SS's photos)
Shirley S's photos
(4th Apr update : Jacky's photos)
Jacky's photos

Here we were waiting for the time to pass........ took 3 flights in a day, what we've done that whole day was wait..wait...and wait....


This is Kota Kinabalu Airport, an airport by the sea.



We arrived at Semporna, Sipadan Water Village's office, waiting for them to load up our gears and luggage to the speedboat. Gabriel dozing off.

I forgot to use force flash... SWV speedboat's driver was very courteous, kept turning back and gesture the ok sign to us, asking us if everything is ok. He saw me struggling to keep my balance to take a photo, he actually slowed down and let me take the photo. Then I realised I haven't turn on the flash.. but "paiseh" to ask him to slow the speedboat again. So, this'll do. haha..

Here's Sipadan Water Village~! Each of these is a room. Too bad I didn't the photos of the super big and cozy room.. What a pity......... I miss the resort, and room, resort's service. I think we all agree the resort's service was very good, but not the dive shop. And the staffs lined up to welcome us.. I felt like the scene in "The Fifth Element" where Lilu (Mira Jovovich) and Coben (Bruce Willis) arrived at Flostent(don't know how the heck to spell it) Paradise and were welcomed by garlands of flowers. Even though they didn't actually welcome us by flowers but everyone of them was saying "Welcome~ Welcome~".

Oh by the way, Gabriel and then Winnie as well, called me Lilo because of this. Lilo and Lilu.. about the same ya? hahaha...quite appropriate feeling then. hehe...

We were led to the lobby and was given cold face towel. COOL~! Really "cool". And also a very nice honeydew juice as welcome drinks. After the very lengthy orientation about the resort and its service, we hurriedly went to our rooms and got our gears out and ready for our first dive~!

But we did our check out dive ONLY after another VERY LENGTHY "orientation" about the dive shop and RULES AND REGULATIONS... blahblahblah blahblahblahblah...... Maybe not all of us feel the same but I personally felt that I had arrived at a diving boarding school... So many things to remember..

Anyway, Sipadan/Kapalai/Mabul were full of friendly turtles~ They weren't bothered by divers AT ALL. Perfect models for our cameras.

How can there not be nudibranches?


The ever lovely frogfish. We went so close to it and it still remained there. I wondered whether it was thinking that we can't see him, or her. LOL...

An underwater Colgate commercial by Hazel~ She almost ran out of breath for I couldn't press the shutter through my glove thus I took a looongg time before finally took the shot ... hahaha...

Sharks. Quite a few of them. Some had a glimpse of hammerhead sharks.


Dolphins~~!! Hundreds of them~!! but it was very difficult to take photos through underwater housing. Can't see the LCD screen at all so they just anyhow snapping the camera. This is one lucky shot. Alex took nice photos of a mother and calf but he hasn't give me the photos~ There were many pairs of mother and calves. It was a fantastic encounter~

Pickachu nudibranch~

SWV divemasters diving into the sea with some German women who, one of them was sun burnt like a roasted pig... We couldn't help "marvelling" on her "roasted" back...

And our very own Hazel.
Another roasted... nolah, not roasted yet... hahaha... Shirley T's burnt hands... very funny...