8. The ‘old?’ Man of the sea …

More diving, more chatting, sitting looking at the sea in between dives and interesting interactions with the locals and fellow divers. Since my last instalment, I’ve done two more dive days at Sipidan Island - and have really lucked out with the same great dive master each time. His name is Simon and I realised early on that he was someone I liked. As we were sitting on the jetty waiting for the boat to load up, we had this conversation

Me: erm, do you know how long we’ve got before we go?

Simon: I’m not too sure, depends how quickly they fuel up and load up. Why, what do you need? Is it important?

Me: oh, erm, not what you’d call important probably …but …

S: what up?

Me: I was only wondering if I had time to make another cup of tea, no worries if the boat’s ready.

S: you should have said. That is very important! And there is always time for a cup of tea. You can go and refill your flask as long as you refill mine too. (At which point, he produces a thermos cup and two tea bags and announces that they’re Yorkshire tea as he’s got a steady supply and will share with me!).

I think Simon is one of those people whose blood is part blood and part the actual sea. It is impossible to tell how old he is but it could be anywhere between late 40s to 127 because he’s actually king Neptune and has the secret of immortality. Once he’s had enough here, he will return to Atlantis. I have learnt that he was in the police in The UK for 20 years and did years as a motorbike policeman who escorted the Queen and royal family. He then retired from there, spent time in a few places around the world until he landed at Scuba Junkie (the operation I’m diving and staying with) where he has been for the last 13 years and has racked up over 13,000 dives, over half at Sipidan. I told him that I was slightly apprehensive about elements of diving there due to what I’d read about unpredictable currents and getting caught in down currents etc. His response was that I would always dive in his group and he’d teach me!

We’ve had some epic dives - he showed me how to get close to an octopus so you could watch it rather than it just hide in a rock and he found the bumphead parrot fish school (the massive dark grey fish with terrifyingly massive buck fish!) to watch and then the famous schooling barracudas at Barracuda Point (which are far rarer a sighting than the dive site name would suggest!) and knew how to approach them so they didn’t get scared away and we ended up inside the school ….I was at one with the barracuda!

The sea conditions on the final day as we headed to Sipidan were somewhat rough …. We were really going up and bumping down big swells to get there. And rather than calmer it was even more dramatic on the way back. We all wear life jackets as standard on the boat trips to and from the islands but this time we were told to do them up properly! When we first set off, we were bumping up and over swells to the point where I think there was sometimes a little bit of air under the boat before we crashed back down onto the surface of the water with a bang. When this was about to happen, the caption took to shouting ‘WOAHHHHHH’ - I’m not sure whether out of some form of warning, from his own adrenalin from the ride or his own disbelief! He also put his life jacket on at one point, which was reassuring. It seemed to be that when the boat crested a swell and went full nose dive back down the other side, the back of the boat, where the engines and propellers, are was too air born for them to have any thrust. The captain stopped the boat and redirected us all with where to sit to weight the boat better to cope - essentially, all 6 divers, 3 dive crew and the additional 4 crew we had on board all had to sit in a pile at the back of the boat and lean back each time we were air born to bring the back of the boat back into the water and allow the engines to push through and onwards. Fortunately, we all made it back to the jetty safe and sound. If anyone has seen the film San Andreas (great disaster film; give it a watch!), it felt a bit like the scene where Dwayne The Rock Johnson has to motor up the side of a colossal tidal wave then surf back down the other side of it. Our boat ride was similar to that only with a bit less of the dramatics and The Rock didn’t show up at any point during the journey, which was good because it meant we weren’t actually perilously close to death!

During the week here, I have also met some great people who’ve been here the same week as me - a family from the UK who have lived in Brunei for 10 years because of the Dad (Graham)’s job as a helicopter pilot in a search and rescue team. Their son Fin, is about to join the Royal Marines and start his training in the West somewhere. There was also a girl called Amy - from the USA -who has been travelling for a couple of years and has found a way to fund her travels through guiding safari groups and working for non-profit projects funded by mega rich people who need a tax break so pay for her to do some crazy research project or other. And Pedro - originally from Portugal - who has been traveling and living in various places around the world for the past 8 years, now funding his life through working remotely as a web designer - a real-life digital nomad! I did enquire as to whether he'd like a free-loader to tag along with his for a while as he travels the world. He asked what I could offer to his business or what skills I could bring. He seemed remarkably uninterested in my knowledge of number bonds to 10, rapid recall of timestwbles up to 12x12, fondness for punctuation or the 'teacher noise' I have perfected to express my displeasure and immediately stop a small child from what ever ridiculous actions it was about to undertake.

We all met at lunches and dinners, at the set meal times in the canteen and have had a great week sharing dive stories and in dive groups together. In the evenings, we tended to sit on the sofas on the jetty and watch the sunset and get scammed by the local sea gypsies … they paddle round in their boats carved from logs and try and hawk coconuts, tell you the price is 2 ringits (Malaysian currency equivalent to about 35p) which once you agree to, they cut the top off and stick a straw in then demand 10 ringits (£1.70) for the coconut. It’s easier just to pay than get into an argument, particularly since that may be all they make that day. They have a couple of strategies for getting your attention; either by rowing as close to the jetty as they can and then enacting a drowning scene which worries people enough to get them up and looking at the water and considering diving in. Or, once the drowning drama has subsided, just rowing up and prodding you in the side with a long stick they keep in their boat for exactly that purpose! This week’s sales pitches from the locals have included, in addition to the coconuts, a bevy of shells - which they have dived for and literally pulled the poor sea creature out of then left them without their shell home as well as tubs of different seafood options. One guy had a long stick he was trailing along behind his boat which he pulled out the water to reveal about 8 live and flailing crabs that he seemed to have made into a living kebab. I politely said no - I really wasn’t sure exactly what he envisaged me doing with the live crab he was trying to sell me!

Speaking of shells, you are strictly forbidden from picking up shells or anything from the beach at Sipidan to take away with you because it’s a national park. I still wandered about a bit during surface interval break and had a look at some of the shells there only to find they have developed a clever little system in support of the non-collection rules where the shells literally get up and run away from you anyway! Intrigued, I had to get right down with my face almost in the sand to see the tiny little hermit crabs who were living in each one. Then one of the Malaysian army men approached and offered to help me up as he thought I must have fallen over. I was too afraid to admit I was down there on purpose looking at the hermit crabs incase he thought I was trying to appropriate some and sent me to shell stealing Malaysian prison. So I gladly accepted his help and went on my way! Much of Sipidan island is also a protective reptile sanctuary - this seems unnecessary given the amount of terrifyingly huge lizards (monitor lizards) there are stomping about everywhere. I’ve had to wait or divert a few times on realising that I’m about to cross paths with one and not being entirely sure how friendly they are…they look like baby crocodiles! I’m not sure what’s more terrifying, hanging in the blue waiting for massive sharks to come up from the depths to see if we’re food, encountering crocodile type reptiles on the path between my room and the tea making facilities or the thunder they have here which sometimes shakes the ground or at times, interestingly, just confines its self to one massive cloud which the storms contains itself, very noisily, but entirely within!

Later today, I shall be making my way back to mainland Borneo (an island itself!) then tomorrow flying over to Bali in Indonesia, via Kuala Lumpur … more flights and luggage weight crisis await, no doubt!