Mabul Water Bungalows Pulau Sipadan

... another evening jaunt out onto the river. I think we used more repellant in 3 days than in 3 weeks here by the way. Showered about 9 times and layered the stuff on after each time. Same trend for the evening except we didn't get hammered in a storm this time. Our guide did point out a Probiscus monkey sat on a tree with his red chilli. I wasn't quite sure I heard him right until I notice said ...

... four to six days but even I don't think I would have liked that and can cope with quite a bit - it was clean but we didn't have air conditioning and I am just sick of being really really really hot and sticky. We had a delicious late lunch and then got on our boat with Aji the driver and just us. We have heard about all these tours of boats full of people going around together and lots of noise and difficulty to see the animals so we were feeling ...

... Boxer shrimps, amazing bright purple and blue nudibranch, schools of fish I can't name and about another 20 varieties. Dinner (all included) was a whole fish cooked in a delicious sweet and sour sauce just beautiful, honestly I at last feel relaxed and on holiday and am driving the girls mad by saying "wow can you believe we found this place" and "don't you love this place" every 2 minutes!! Day 2 Singamata Well it was a bit of a warm night and we just slept ...

... so it was full of school kids running around. However it is in the edge of a nice national park that has lovely nature walks. We hadn't planned on a big walk but once we started once we kept going. We were on the lookout for wild orang-utans we didn't spot any, but it was quite exciting anyways. We did see other monkeys though and a flock of big hornbills flew above us, we just herd the noise of their wings flapping and looked up ...

... bunk dorm accommodation on the mountain and we got our bunks for 60 ringgit each and 100 ringgit park entry fee which was crazy cheap in comparison to what you see advertised on the net. We did bring our own packed lunch though. Well after being in Nepal and trekking up to 5416 metres and loving every minute of it we couldn't resist another high altitude climb. But it was tougher than we thought. We still had a lingering cold which is my ...

... and of course...rigt when we loaded the boat....the storm hit...I thought they would cancel dive...but they went for it. This was the craziest boat ride I have ever been on the waves were huge...the small speed boat kept crashing down on the waves which actually hurt our butts and bodies...plus the rain was so intense...the boat even almost tipped over twice....lots of screams...the boat actually lost course becasue the drivers ...

... you could see clearly to the bottom. After about a 45 min ride...we pulled up to the most luxiourous resorts Jeff and I have ever stayed at. This whole hotel is on stilts built on a sandy reef. This place was magical...even at sunsets the sky was full of color and nothing around but blue sea. Words cannot even explain this place...just wait till we post our pictures..plus we have a video...YEAH!!. Right when we got there we had orientation and off to ...

... Eve dinner was BBQd tiger prawns and beer near the water front but as we were quite tired we didn't make midnight (worrying about a 7am pick up next day) and we sure saw no other Europeans throughout our stay there. Picked up for the drive to Semporna and the transfer to the Seaventures Dive Rig. Now this is an old exploration rig converted to a dive 'boat/platform'. Liz was wary but is converted as its great - really roomy and pleasant, moored ...