Scuba Junkie Hotel & Diving Semporna

On the bus to Semporna I met a couple of orang putis who were (unsurprisingly) planning on diving. Nils was from Sweden, and had already travelled for some time, having taken the trans-siberian railway into China, and headed through Tibet and Nepal himself, so we had a good chat and he gave me a few tips for my own journey. Tim was a fellow Englishman, and we arrived in Semporna in pretty much exactly the same position, both without bookings and both wanting to do our Open Water courses and ...

After our jungle adventures we headed down through the billions of hectares of palm oil plantations to, yet another, concrete jungle called Semporna. Why did we go here? For world class diving! Although I had already booked, I was a bit early, but I managed to start my open water course the next day. I was with two lovely people, a Welsh girl (Stacey) and a guy from Holland (Arjan), I made great friends with them both and we ended up having a great time together. Our first day was spent insid...

I arrived in Semporna about 6 hours later and easily found Scuba Junkie. They were booked on accommodation for the first night I was there (fine since I changed my dates a few days earlier). They put me up at Dragon Inn which is a floating hotel. It was nice on the outside, but just mediocre on the inside. The rooms also had openings in the top that made everything stay damp since it was on the water. I eagerly opted to move to the scuba junkie dorm for the rest of my stay. I cannot say enoug...

Right then. Its not been funny hobbling around KK, like Douglas bleeding Bader, but there is a distinct kinabalu hangover in my leggies. Time for a spot of sub-aquatic sport, methinks. A simple enough travel arrangemnt. Get the 55ringgit flight (thats 8 quid) to Tawau, get picked up by the dive school and get chaffeured for an hour, to the dive school in Semporna... Alas no. It seems 8GBP flights are based on the carrier retaining a non-negotiable position of deciding whether it can be ***** ...

(Christopher wrote this entry.) Having heard that the best snorkeling in the world is in the Sulu Sea off the east coast of Sabah, we headed to Semporna to squeeze in one more swim with the underwater galaxies. The bus ride from Sandakan was memorable only for the videos. We watched the same hour of Troy twice because the disc got stuck. That was not so bad. But then came the music videos. We saw a concert video of the wildly popular (in most of the world except the US) 1970s band Boney M (se...

We think "Finding Nemo" was shot in the wrong location! Semporna, or more accurately, its surrounding islands can only be described by Crush, with "You so totally ROCK!!!" Semporna itself is a bit of a dive (the three roads we visited anyway) but Scuba-Junkie dive shop, with its cheap accommodation and good reputation, were based there. Our first night and next day were spent completing our Open Water course. Fully fledged independent divers, we spent the next five days diving three times a d...

You may wish to look away now if you are easily bored by my enthusing about diving, cos basically thats what I'm going to do this entry!! Firstly though, I am going to moan. I was really looking forward to the next part of the trip - I had planned to go to Kinabantagan, the jungle area around the river of the same name, for 2 days of wildlife spotting. Apparently its possible to see loads of different species of wild animals - probiscus monkeys, orang utans, pygmy elephants, etc etc - and the...

Sipadan. Sipadan. Sipadan. That is all you hear in these parts. "You must go to Sipadan."(in a European accent) So we went to Sipadan. The famous dive spot with barricuda schools, sharks, beautiful coral, giant sea turtles and too much more to mention. The resorts on this island got kicked off and it's now a national park. We stayed at a neighboring island named, Mabul. We stayed at a hostel that was on stilts over the water, you could see water in the cracks of the floorboards. The water wa...

Just a quick update! On a whim, I decided to go to Sipadan, one of the worlds top dive sites. After a 10 hour bus(es) ride from hell, I arrived in Semporna, coastal town at southern tip of Borneo, and I immediately started studying for my Open Water course. Within 2 hours, I went through the first 3 of 5 modules for the course. The next day, I did 3 dives and loads of skills tests off of Sibuan Island. Sibuan has a gentle beach slope perfect for learning in the open ocean. The island comes to...

05/15/09 Today was another lazy day on Mabul.. Julia and I caught a boat from the longhouse around the island to the main jetty. Walking up the jetty we saw another sea turtle and were able to get a good look at him. Jessie took an early boat back to Semporna and I decided on taking the later boat so I could hang out and snorkel. Julia and I went snorkeling for a couple of hours and went back to the Scuba Junkies main lodge to wait for lunch to be served. I managed to snag a hammock and fough...