It was very touching seeing all the dive-shop staff come down to the jetty to wish us luck and give us a beautiful card made by Yunus. It was hard to leave, when  even the “tough” boatmen and assistants looked sad and made us understand that they really liked working together.

I really hope, that our future replacements will be cool people and that all the local staff will enjoy working with them. Anyhow, for now they are in very very good hands… or are Sally and Michelle in very good hands… !?

After getting to Semporna we embark (with a Russian couple) a mini boat to Mabul. Mabul is a small island whit an overpopulated waterfront, in fact it looks more like a maze on piloti than a village. Our home-stay was full so they sent us to the neighboring one, the “Hyatt”… well name only of course

A quick live cleaning of the room and here we are our little retreat on Mabul is ready… did I mention that the diesel generator is just beneath our window? Oh, we are not there yet… Walking around the village you encounter a mix of kids, cats and roasters. Once we get to the other side of the island we get in front of the main landmark on Mabul, the oil rig, is an authentic oil platform in front of the best hotel (of course you don’t see it on their website which has now been converted into a dive centre. After a BBQ dinner at our dive center, we go to another bar where a live band plays some good music till late night (It’s weird to have a party after 2 months on quiet Pom Pom). Then we go to bed, ehm to the generator room and unsuccessfully try to sleep.

Back to life in pompom, we had some “big” events like an almost sunken boat,  me doing laundry, seeing a see snake, shaving… you know, big stuff

Diving is cool, but finally after 11 in a row diving I had a day of office work doing some uninspired graphic design… I soo much miss my favourite designer (aka Sarah ) and today I started teaching a nitrox course to two Italian doctors…. cool, I really like teaching this course, there is a bit more thinking involved

here some pics:

After suffering from a plane-cold, yesterday I restarted diving. by noe I’ve done 6 dives just following a local dive-master to get the feeling about where those small -sometimes very very small- thingies live.

As I said before (I think) the Celeb sea is a paradise for macro photography, which basically means that anything bigger than 10 cm is neglected :)… doesn’t make my life any easier…. but today I found my first orangutan crab,  a banded pipefish and a tiny lionfish. As well I saw a beautiful mandarinfish… so I’m getting my eye tuned.

I’m starting learning some words of bahasa melayu (malay language) a

nd yesterday I had my first “super satisfaction”… After repeating some words with a boat captain, he told me that I had a very good accent unlike the others… Brits

so, write to you soon
cheers Marco

Finally yesterday I got on the island, after a long day waiting for the boat to get me here, I can now see myself how it looks like. It is actually veeery beautiful! today I got to do my first two dives and to guide a snorkeling trip. Very cool, I already got to see some highlights like the orang-utan crab, the mantis shrimp and many nudibranches. In the afternoon I saw some squids, turtles, lion fishes, clown fishes and many more while snorkeling near mataking.

Unfortunately, there is not only good things, the reef here has been bombed (as in bomb-fishing) and some bits are in an horrible state, what a shame.

Now I’m super tired and I need to sleep… I’ll write soon again

cheers Marco