(Oct 10 and 11)
I woke up on the morning of the 10th in absolute dread. I knew I had another amazing day of diving ahead of me, but to realize that it was my last real day of my travels was devastating. After this day, I transit (super long transit) to Hong Kong to see family. No longer a solo journey around the world. It was my last day of my Soul Searching adventure and I will cherish it forever.
Going to Sipadan, we get four awesome dives, so we leave the jetty at 6:30 in the morning sharp.
We have to pick up our gear at 6:15 and head out.
The water was "refreshing" to say the least...felt colder than the previous days, but no matter...the diving was still amazing.
Be prepared, i was trigger happy on the last day. Wanted to get as many memories i could captured.
I was lucky, another school of jackfish! This one was even bigger. I was surrounded by jackfish. As i hovered in the middle of them, i took a deep breath and thought to myself....how many amazing things God has created for me to see on this trip. It was just spectacular.
Not long after seeing the shark, we saw a school of baracuda. The thing about baracudas is that they swim against the current. Usually, when we are scuba diving, we swim with the current. So in order for us to be able to see the whole school of baracuda, we had to hang on for dear life on the coral. Of course, we are all marine life friendly, so we could only hold onto rocks or dead coral...which is very hard to find when you are trying to swim agaisnt a very strong current. Luckily, thats what dive masters are for...to point out those spots for you. Trying not to do damage to any of the marine life, all of us were only hanging on with one or two fingers.
I was having a bit of trouble hanging on and accidently hit my knee on the sea floor, which was covered in coral. I felt a horrrrrible stabbing pain in my knee, it felt like a needle had gone into my knee. I looked down and saw something long and white sticking out of my knee. My first instinct is to pull it out, so i reached down and tugged but no matter what, it woudlnt come out. It stung like hell. Then i realized, i was trying to pull off a piece of my skin. The long thing was the piece of skin the coral had cut off. Yum. I was trying to hang onto my knee cuz it hurt so much and saw that there was black stuff coming out of my knee. I was so confused because i thought the coral had maybe got some black rock/dust into my cut...but the stuff kept coming out. Only after a while did i realize it was my blood ....i was bleeding non stop for aboout half an hour. Nasty. I had a moment of fear when i remembered how many sharks we've seen....but then i remmebered, reef sharks dont eat people. I spent the next half hour of scuba diving having my new massive deep cut submerged in salt water. You know what tho? The baracuda were totally worth it :)
This is a lobster, you cant tell but its tiny. About the size of my thumb! Adorable!
All of our surface time was spent on the island, having breakfast, snacks and lunch. The day was just perfect- the clouds had parted, the sun was shining and the water was warm.
I think it was God's way of telling me to enjoy my last day in Sipadan. I really, reallllly did.
The colours are insanely bright and beautiful near the surface. It was just breath taking.
This adorable turtle swam right above my head. Too, toooooo cool
In addition to thinking how beautiful marine life is, while i was underwater, i was trying of think of some way that i could stay in the island instead of flying to hong kong. Break a limb maybe? Lose my passport? Unfortunately i failed miserably...none of my ideas seemed feasible :(
Tried to swim up super close to this shark here, almsot got a close up of its head, but then it swam away. Booooo
How cool is this? TWO white tip reef sharks :)
My last dive group of my trip. Im particularly going to miss patty (aka bernard) and clare. Been diving with them since the first day and its been awesome. Also, thanks to my awesome canadian dive master luke for a wonderful last day of diving (bottom left)
Of course, my dive trip would not have been as cool without my new buddy Anil. It was so much fun diving with him and swapping photos. Hopefully we will meet again in another awesome diving destination one day.
My bags getting ready to be put on the boat....so saddddd
Dunking tanks for diving equipment.
I wish i could express in words how much I loved staying at this island and how much i enjoyed my time here. The goal of my trip was to be enlightened and find a bit of myself...i think i found it here. I was meant to be underwater and my new goal in the next couple years is to become a dive master. One day, i will reach that goal!
Location:Sipadan Island, Malaysia
...one day we definitely have to meet again... to do some more diving and other cool stuff...take care, Teresa!
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