Our first stop in Borneo was Semporna, the gateway to the diving Mecca of Sipadan. Every diver dreams of its stunning coral gardens that sit atop cliff-like walls and falls into the deep blue. It's the home of the big stuff – thriving schools of sharks, manta rays and turtles everywhere you look, and schools of Barracuda that are so big they darken the underwater landscape as if night were approaching.

There is really nothing else to do here but dive and it's reflected in the plethora of specialty shops that line the main street. Accommodation at the floating Dragon Inn in Semporna was amazing, The rooms are as comfortable as it gets. This means the beds don't sag and there's hot water...oh how my standards have changed! For some reason the Malaysian's just don't see all the plastic floating in the bay. As the tide was going out, the water under the resort reminded me of the Ganges (read about the filthy holy Ganges in Haridwar, India). But, we came to dive at Sipadan right?

So, here’s the drill. You go to Semporna and book a room in one of the 7 or 8 resorts on a little island called Mabul which is about 40 minutes by speedboat from Sipadan. Sweet little Mabul Island takes 17 minutes to leisurely circumnavigate on foot. Mainland Malaysia moves at an excrusiatingly slow place. You know, the tropical countries tend be somewhat lethargic. Pulau Tioman was dawdling compared to the Mainland. Well, Semporna makes Tioman look like a thriving metropolis and Mabul is weeellll, let me put it this way…I’ll have some lithium with my thorazine, please.... Enough said. Weaving through the 2 villages it becomes apparent that they could single handedly repopulate Malaysia. Kids are everywhere. The sad thing is that for some reason every 2 doors is a candy shop and all of the kids' teeth are rotting out of their heads. Another issue is that many of the inhabitants on Mabul are Philippino's who migrate here for work, but the government refuses to recognize them so needless to say, the kids are not allowed go to school. If the parents can find work they wiil stay on Mabul and send their children to boarding school back home. Unfortunately, they will usually not see their kids again until they are well into their teens.

We booked with a somewhat famous resort called Uncle Chang’s which was built on a long platform over the sandbar. Neither Helen nor I were exactly thrilled with it, but I'll get into that on the next page. The oil rig that you see in one of the pictures was purchased as junk and some enterprising person converted it into a dive center. Under the rig was amazing "muck diving" which basically means there is a bunch of very cool and odd little creatures living in the sediment of the sea floor. It can also mean that junk, old tires, sunken boats, pieces of old railing, and just about anything else you can imagine is down there too – and, I have to say, it looked like Sanford aand Son had set up shop under there. The interesting thing is that the muck makes a perfect habitat for unusual and exotic fish. One lazy afternoon I walked in on a bird that was hanging out in the entrance of our back door. He became a friend who returned every day. Also, turtles regularily swam into the resort's center area. One beautiful morning I was photographing one of the many group of kids that would swim by in an innertube. By the time I got coffee and returned, which was probably about 10 minutes, a storm had built and was dumping on them.

In 2000 a group of pirates/terrorists called the Abu Sayyef from the Philippines kidnapped 21 people off the island of Sipadan. After their 5 month abduction the island turned into a military base, as did many of the other islands in East Sabah. The end result is that every day the roster of each resort is scrutinized by boatloads of scary M16 totin' teenagers swaggering around in their Malaysian Navy uniforms.