Sipadan - Brenda & Jacky's photos

Finally got photo’s from Brenda. Oh... oops... I mistakenly edited these photos to be uploaded to blogger into very small size........ Only realised that wasn't what I did in previous post AFTER I've uploaded them all... So, please visit the link here to view full size photos.

Jacky's photos were uploaded previously, click here.

Here are some photos from Brenda. I do not know what is this creature... never seen before leh...

A cute baby octopus~!! So lucky of Brenda to see this~


This should be flat worm?

Beautiful "Spanish Dancer"(I hope I am not wrong, it is spanish dancer right? haha..), I've yet to see this with my own eyes...

Stargazer~~ How come it came out of its sand?



The angmoh videographer who almost lost a fin. hahaha...






I forgot to climb up here!!! Such a nice view...

Brenda and Jacky.
Dining area with nice turquoise sea as the background.
My poor Hazel knocked her head... She's got a huuuuge 包 on her head that night... Alex rubbing her head so that it won't get blue black which will look really funny on her forehead... And luckily she didn't get blue black.

Sipadan - video clips

Click on these videos and enjoy~! It should not take long for the buffering. If it doesn't play when you see this : Playlist: Playlist1, try click on the er... rewind bar? or control bar, there should be no problem.
Turtle & batfish - from Gab (43 seconds)

Nudibranch flapping - from Gab (54 seconds) - very cute~~

Shark - from Gab (51 seconds)


I've got ST and Doreen's video of SWV room but I don't know how to convert .3gp files to .mpg or .mov...

From Michelle : Squid baby (9 seconds). Click here if you can't see it below.

Free video hosting, video codes at www.vidiLife.com

Message Board

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Sub : Southern Island fishing trip?

Gab : Halo, how abt a fishing trip to the southen Island? any one interested pls let us know. 31/3/06 12:02
Gabriel : ok, count me in. 31/3/06 12:18
Dory : June is reserve for Pulau Ubin durian makaning.....Jacky and Yook Sau....31/3/06 12:25
Gab : We can hire Ah Chua's boat and every body jt share the boat fee. but you hv to prepare ur own fishing eqmt. 31/3/06 12:27
Dory : It would be good to organize at least 1 event per month. Keeps the club activity going and we all can have time to catch up. Be it scuba diving, mountain climbing, fishing, makaning, nature walk, project aware clean up, photography, etc. etc. Lets all put our effort into this. Does not have to be one specific person organising. Good to have at least every member has a chance to organise the event. 31/3/06 12:28
Michelle : Fishing trip is day time only or what? 31/3/06 13:15
Gab : yes, its day trip. same timing as we went divg. 31/3/06 13:40
Dory : on ah......for fishing. wah, long time did not go fishing... 31/3/06 15:53
Dory : aha...after a while...I wonder what our fun kakis are up to nowadays???? the busy ones get busier each day....sigh! anyway, Jacky thanks for organising the Bukit Timah walk and sad to say even I cannot make it last minute. Perhaps another time. 10/5/06 16:21
Dory : hello fun kakis! still remember our fishing trip???? how about Sunday 28 May? Any one of you interested leh? 10/5/06 16:26
Dory : aha......guess none is interested or never visit our blog. hiza...so very sad. 16/5/06 11:48
Lilo : yeah.. hehe.. the truth is... hardly anybody visits this blog as i can track how many visitors... sad indeed...16/5/06 11:58

More of Sipadan trip

SS took some photos of SWV's room and dive center.

This is the bathroom. They put orchids in our room including bathroom on ehm, don't know the 3rd day or 4th. This is the best bathroom I've had during a dive trip~ It's got everything we need. I don't know if Manado's resort is better as I haven't been there.

The best sundeck~! We can sleep with the wooden doors open like this. Which is really really enjoyable.
Hazel carried us all one by one~!!

Sweet~~girls~~! SS and ST. I think they look alike.

Dive center. Full tanks and empty tanks were put separately but without other indication that whether this is a full or empty tank. I personally prefer the practise of which full tanks' o-ring are covered by a sticker. This will avoid confusion AND accident.

One more thing should mention about the dive operator's practise... The inexperience divemaster always ask the boatman to follow the other boat. When two boats were close to each other, the divemasters on each boat jump into the sea to "check current".. And when both of them came up, each of them was pointing at 2 opposite direction of current..................... Then the 2 divemasters communicate with each other by hand signals. In the end, I still had no idea where the current was heading. I don't think the divemaster was clear either.hehe... So, we're on our own......
Alex... where is your photos.. Alex~~~

Gabriel assisting Doreen for her sunset dive.

And Philip.

Sipadan Mar '06 (Summary)

Sipadan Water Village's staffs were superb, very friendly and good service. From the moment we reach its jetty till they sent us off at the airport.

The room was huge... very clean and comfy. Why didn't we take some photos of the room???

Anyway, the resort itself was superb. But the dive centre... hmm... lousy. The dive sites were lousy, that's out of dive centre's control of course, but the dive guides were lousy as well. Caused us to fin for long distances unneccessarily due to their lack of experience and knowledge. Boatman and divemasters weren't helpful. Very very lousy service. We are not those pampered divers who need to be treated like princess but their service, basic attention to customers were really really bad.

Most divemasters were fairly new, very very inexperience. They requested us to follow their many ridiculous rules but they themselves did not seem to stick to basic dive procedures. If we were all new open water divers, it could be very dangerous to follow these young inexperience divemasters. For eg, they did head-counts, when the number didn't match, they just abandon the head-count instead of looking or waiting for the rest of the divers who were not in sight. So what's the point of head-counts?

But then, can't really blame them... Some of those divemasters are university students. Went there to look for a temporary job. That's why they are very inexperience. They weren't even divers when they came for a job. Unlike Tioman or Manado dive centres there are permanent divemasters or those who have worked there for many years. But what I don't understand is why aren't there experienced divemasters around?

All in all, it's a disappointing trip. Not only the dive centre didn't provide acceptable-level service, the dive sites were disappointing. Sipadan is so famous. So called world class diving. But the amount of corals... were devastating to look at. What on earth happened to the corals?? Sipadan has been famous for so many years, never would we had imagine seeing such a devastating state of coral life... But there are many people out there think Sipadan is worth to go still. I don't understand...

Many dives I was so bored that I played around by swimming in different styles... If not for the pelagics (sharks, turtles, dolphins, whale shark, etc..) that visit Sipadan, it would be... ... ... I don't even want to think about it...

This is a post from my own point of view. Guys, please leave some comments to add your thoughts or if you disagree with anything above, anything at all, just leave some comments ne~
Michelle