21 August 2006

weather: sunny whole day, slight wind from south east
sea condition: fantastic viz from 15m up to 40m, choppy sea in the afternoon
guides: Allan, Diana, Ron, Sophia, Nina, Jason, Lee

We're very glad and relieved to be able to update this blog after an amazing long time (15 days!!!)...Alot had happened in the past 2 weeks...so this might be quite a long blog...

These 2 weeks we've experienced the worst and problably also one of the best weather in Sipadan. From the 8th till the 13th (6 days!!!) there were storms and very very strong wind from south west everynight, causing high waves everyday...the waves was so strong that many planks of the bridge connecting to the island and in the divemasters' quarters were ripped off by the waves, at this point the pillars of the bridge still stood. On th 3rd day of storm, the weather worsen, the waves was so strong that it ripped off about 50m of SMART resort's bridge connecting to the island. Unfortunately, the waves brought that portion of bridge, and many of its planks and wood along and those stuffs collided with SWV's bridge (which is just situated beside it)...luckily the foundation of this bridge still stood but all the planks were gone on that day. For those who came here before, u should notice that all the main electric cables and piping systems were attached to that one and only bridge connected to the island. *sigh*, the strong waves broke almost all the cables and pipes...so there were frequent black out and water outage within that week...Diving was not good for those few days. Viz in Sipadan never reached 2m, and in some parts of Mabul, we cant even see our own regulator hose underwater. Moreover the strong waves caused surge underwater, even 18m deep! (just imagine how high the waves can get)

But...after those bad days, this week has been fantastic! The sun was very very "hardworking" these few days, and the visibility reached almost 40m in some dive sites. Amazing isn't it how the weather can change :-O but all of us here are very glad about it.

Ok, about marine lives...although we experienced bad weather, but all the fishes were still there. Those who dared the journey to Sipadan during the stormy weather can see big school jacks, big school barracudas, tonnes of turtles and lots of sharks everyday, up until when the weather got better they were still there. For the past 4 days many groups who went to Sipadan saw big school bumpheads in Barracuda Point, Turtle Patch, Mid Reef and Hanging Gardens, while some had seen eagle ray. There were many macros also, nudibranchs, shrimps, crabs and lots of gobies. Among the highlights for these few days are the pygmy seahorse, pyjama cardinal fish, flambuoyant cuttlefish, giant frogfish, clown frogfish, ornate ghost pipefish and robust ghost pipefish.

oops...think we'll stop here...more updayes tomorrow :-D

HaPPy DiVinG !!!