Blue Sea Divers Semporna

... classic songs together while the locals jammed on their guitars, all the little local kids smiling and saying hello when you walked by, and most of all…. the diving. I dove with sea turtles, barracudas, cuttlefish, octopus, frogfish, leaf fish, lion fish, eels, sea snakes, and a hundreds of other types of creatures. I would have to say the best part of the diving was swimming with sharks ...

... br>*Very basic budget longhouse homestay on Mabul with its own dive operation. Also provides accommodation for day-trip operators from Semporna.<br><br>-1 night at semporna(resort)+breakfast<br>-taxi ...

... to work out where it'd come from.<br><br> We get on a bus to Semporna, the nearest mainland town to Sipidan. Unfortunately for us, Hari Raya (A Malay Festival) is upon us and there are no permits for sipidan available anytime in the next few days. Looking at the prices it amazes me to see how much the cost of snorkelling has risen - more than doubled since i was here just over a year ago to almost 80pounds. Ridiculous. It seems a shame to have ...

... there over and over again, it gives such joy.<br>We are so blessed to be living on our beautiful blue planet.<br>If you are not a diver, let us share with you our joy.<br>If you are a diver, of course you know what I'm talking about and if you've already been to Sipadan I'm sure our videos will bring big smiles to ...

... because the island is so well protected it has a small military base on it to make sure there's no-one there that shouldn't be. Like me. Everyone had to sign their name beside the approved list of names, and as a solider stood over me with his automatic rifle, I just squiggled something beside Jasna's name and hoped no-one noticed.<br><br>We had our first of three dives around 9am, and that one dive was better than ...

... specifically told not to. Unfortunately the place was booked up until September, so I didn't even have the chance to get annoyed at the Japanese blatant disregard for the prohibition of flash photography.<br><br>Instead we went with Rok and Jasna to Semporna, and to a place where they had stayed the previous week. Singamata was a hostel built 10 minutes out from the mainland on a coral reef. And if you're thinking that ...

... on stilts that<br>reached out from the beach about 50 metres into the sea. Most people<br>that i met there were there for the diving, the islands nearby are in<br>the top 10 dive sites in the world im told. Diving seems complicated<br>and expensive though so we just settled for snorkelling. On the first<br>day we checked into our rooms, picked up some snorkelling gear and<br>headed out on another speed boat to one of the dive sites. The water<br>there was perfectly ...

... a massive amount of untouched and unadulterated underwaterlife a great source of excitement for avid divers. <br><br>Im really not a scuba junkie as some would call it... I dont live and breathe to see my next cuddlefish or eel ray... I dive for the cool experience of seeing something I haven't before and doing something I wouldn't normally do... the challenge of it is invigorating and the impacts of seeing something amazing... last a lifetime. Even still, I was driven or ...

... this side of the island, I found out about a place called Uncle Tans who run a wildlife adventure place on the Kilanbantan River in the heart of the jungle. After meeting at the 'Ops Base' we had a 4 hour transfer, half of it on road and half of it off road through Palm Oil plantations until we reached the river. There was quite a big group of people on this trip, Brits, Yanks, Aussies and other Europeans so it was quite a cool time to swap stories and find out ...

... Koh Tao had nothing on this place. The whole area is protected marine reserve and we sped out to one of the deserted island, Sibuan, to dive the reef off it. It was beautiful crystal clear waters and such a massive variety of fish and invertebrates. Also something really clicked with me, I suddenly got it, I could dive, be confident and bouyant in the water peering under rocks without touching the bottom (sorry nondivers ...