Irony on Golden Beaches

As it turned out, provided we went snorkelling relatively quickly after arriving, the people at the Scuba Junkies lodge gave us 50% off their regular rates for all of the nights we stayed there (as we were "divers"). We went snorkelling the next day. After a nice breakfast of fruit, toast, eggs and coffee, we went to the dive shop to get fitted out with our snorkel stuff and wait for the boat. The staff was very friendly and helpful and this happened quickly and smoothly. Before we left we were informed how our day would run, by a man named Richie Brown (apparently). Richie was from Northern England and appeared to be a stereotypical stoned hippie (long hair, thick sunglasses and very slow and calm way of speaking, said "yea…" or "okay guys" a lot). He was very helpful though and he obviously loved his job (he was one of the main dive masters, he ended up diving with a woman from Shanghai on the same boat as us). As we got underway, a flamboyant Malay man took over speaking and introduced the crew and asked all our names. He also called everyone sweetie. 

We spoke to a Dutch couple before the boats motor drowned out all attempts at conversation. They smiled when they heard that we were Canadian and told us that they had a theory that when ever people initiated conversation with them in English they would always be Canadians (apparently this had held true for the past few months).  And that the Canadians asked questions while the Americans talked about themselves.

In any event, we arrived at Mabul Island, which would be our launching point for the day, and then the boat took us to our first dive site, well, snorkel site.  As we were about to hop into the water one of the divers spotted a turtle, and we all watched from the boat as it surfaced and returned to the depths.  We then went on to do our own submerging.  Hearing my own breathing under water is sort of eerie (so many movies where you hear the someones breathing underwater or in a space suit, sounding exactly the same way), but the underwater world gave a peaceful feeling.  We saw many a tropical fish, multi coloured and shaped.  One multicoloured bigger fish (with a large mouth) took a run at us as we swam too close and we had to swim away quickly and I think it may have taken a chomp at my flipper.  We were later told that it was a Trigger fish, which were very territorial and aggressive when they felt threatened.  We saw similar fish bullying others out of there territory elsewhere.  Our snorkelling guide pointed out some cuddle fish hiding in some coral, but far too quickly our first trip was over.  We returned to Mabul for tea and coffee.  After our second trip we also learned the joy of diving under the surface (duck diving) and exploring so well that they gave us weights to help us dive under.  It was a great thing to dive and surface, blasting air out of the snorkel like a whale.  I will let Nancy go into more detail about snorkelling, for now I will say it was pleasant and hour long trips (we had three that day) seemed far too short.

No underwater camera so we took pictures of the fish at the dock.

At lunch we talked to our guide.  His name was Ted and he was actually a traffic engineer from Australia.  He was on Mabul completing his dive master course (he was paying the company to take us snorkelling it seemed).  He said that the place was pretty good for diving, but in the two years he had been coming here, the reef did seem to be deteriorating.

After our final snorkel we were boated back to Semporna and we enjoyed a western meal at the Scuba Junkies restaurant, followed by a quiz (we did not do too well).  The following day we relaxed and wandered around Semporna, which is not the prettiest place we have seen in Malaysia.  We did receive our laundry back, which was actually quite the event.  Our clothes seemed to be cleaner than when they were new!  I don't know how the lady did it, but our stuff was amazingly, shiningly clean!  We spent a good 10 minutes marvelling.

The next day we went snorkelling again on Mabul, but we booked ourselves into the resort (dorms) for one night.  The price included breakfast, lunch, tea time, snack time, and dinner.  Still it was way over our regular daily budget.  Our snorkelling guide this time was Jay, and like Ted, she was doing her dive masters course.  She also turned out to be our roommate at the resort dorm.  We had another enjoyable day of snorkelling.   Jay promised that we would see turtles and we did.  We also saw two sting rays among other sea creatures as we paddled along.  We also got some extra weight so we could dive further down.  When we returned to the island we actually got a chance to explore it.  There were a few things that seemed a little less than pleasant.

Notice the nice looking resort on the water?  Compare it to the village...

Mabul did appear the paradise,golden sand beaches, clear swimmable water with tons of coral to explore and lots of water life to see.  The resort was modern and shaded, with a large dining area for all of the guests.  It did seem to be staffed by several locals.  But literally right beside our resort was a small and decrepit village on stilts and full of children (it seemed).  Ted, who ran into again at lunch, told us that the 60% of the islands population was under the age of 12.  The visible houses seemed ready to fall down, though some of the other ones further in the town seemed more sturdy.  As we walked by earlier in the day we saw a young girl going to the bathroom behind a beached boat; I'm not sure if this says anything particular about their sewage system or if this is simply something that children did here.  Ted (who seemed to have done some research into the matter) said that the population beside us were mostly refugees and by the sounds of it, you don't really want to seek refuge to  Malaysia if you have little or no money.  I'm not sure exactly how it works but it turns out, if your poor and immigrate to Malaysia the government will not help you at all.  They seem to be saying that a poor, breeding mass of people on one of their most visited islands is not their problem.  The children are not allowed to go to school (there was a school mind you, called the school of hope, on the island, which teaches students everything it can a few nights a week, it has nothing to do with the Malaysian government though), and the parents can't legally work (they seemed to all be fishing).  Obviously contraception is not really thought about here either.  Apparently, in order to immigrate to Malaysia you need to have something like 12,000 RM in the bank and preferably a job already, minimum, which is fine for westerners, but for people wanting out of the Phillipinnes or Indonesia there is little or no chance.  Obviously, if I want to peruse this further, actual research would be needed, but for now I will say that it did not look very good.

At dinner, we saw a sign posted on the that said, "While we fully support the local community, until they begin to practice sustainable fishing practices, we will not be serving seafood here."  We don't like sea food generally, so we were happy about that (the food was quite good over all).  It did seem a little harsh, had they mentioned this fact to the locals?  I suppose they probably had.  But I imagine it is a little hard to think about sustainable fishing when doing so would seem to make you even more impoverished.  Maybe some sort of alternative or education was offered, I do not know.

We sat with a Belgian couple at dinner.  They were both nurses (they met in the ICU just before he was transferred to another section).  They also expressed their concern about the condition of the village next to the resort.  They had done Malaysian Borneo, from Kuching in Sarawak to Semporna in Sabah.  They had also been impressed by the big nature of the place, but a little annoyed about all of the packaged deals that were necessary for actually seeing it.  It was more expensive than they had expected.  That said, the guy was doing a lot of diving, his wife said she was happy to laze about on the beach, but she would be snorkelling in a few days.  We talked a lot about travels and related our experiences and adventures (especially in eating strange food).  The guy had travelled extensively outside of Europe, he had even worked in a hospital in Equador for a year.  The girl had travelled pretty extensively in Europe and now they were both expanding their experience together (I think they had been together for 3 or 4 years).  The one question we forgot to ask was names (or if we did I have forgotten them completely).  As they were both nurses, I asked if their jobs were stressful.  The girl shrugged and said she was used to it.  The guy said his job was stressful because he had 20 women under him (they weren't in separate departments, so he didn't have the danger of being his wife's boss).  This in itself was interesting.  She had been a nurse for 10 years and he only 6, but he had a masters in nursing so that qualified him to move up the ranks faster I suppose (she was not a head nurse yet).  When I asked if they had always wanted to be nurses, he gave an enthusiastic affirmative, while she shrugged and smiled wryly.  He said that he was certain he wanted to be a nurse when he was in high school.  She pointed out that this could have something to do with both his uncles and his mom being nurses.  A family business of sorts.

We slept well that night, we were both in top bunks so we could make faces at each other over the heads of the other two sleeping in the room (though we did not see either of them until the morning).  It was nice and quiet and the beds were amazingly comfy.  We had no specific plans that day so we could laze about as long as we felt like it.  We ate a late breakfast and talked to an older French man named Bernard (well Nancy did as he did not speak any English and I can't string together sentences in French to save my life).  He had been travelling a lot and he was currently travelling alone (though he had met a bunch of other older French people on Mabul) because he was retired and his wife was not.  He seemed a very jolly and told stories (I could understand a bit of what he was saying but Nancy had to explain the stories to me later).  I can remember that he had been pick pocketed while he was travelling in Peru and had been stranded in a strange town for a few days.  When Nancy expressed her embarrassment at her own French ability, he brushed it aside saying that he could understand her, and that was all that mattered.

We had a lazy day, snorkelling on our own time, lazing on the beach, watching the ships and trying to spot turtles from the dock (we saw two large green sea turtles swimming lazily along under around the dock).  At lunch I smothered my fried rice dish in what I thought was peanut sauce, but turned out to be a really hot sauce.  Not wanting to waste food I decided to eat it all and Nancy looked on in some amused sympathy as my face turned redder and redder and had to run and get more and more glasses of water.  In the end I couldn't quite finish it, my mouth was so full of hot that it was numb, but I got very close!  Unfortunately, this also gave me a bit of stomach ache and I was out of commission for snorkelling for the rest of the day.  I lay in the shade on the nice wooden stretch seats provided and watched Nancy doing a little bit more snorkelling, ever ready to jump in the water and save her if anything went awry (fortunately nothing did).

Our time on Mabul did come to an end and we returned to Semporna for one final night at the Scuba Junkie lodge before our 10 hour bus ride back to KK.