Sea Gypsies, Sipidan & Load of B*******

Unable to combat the mentalness within me and just dive, I'm in the world-class diving resort of Pulau Sipidan with my matching pink snorkel and mask and a pair of hired fins. I know it's not quite the same, but for now at least, it's going to have to do. We arrived in Semporna, the nearest mainland to the island and discovered fairly quickly that there is very little to do here. There's no beach, which is a real bummer - the only way I can discover this underwater paradise, is to join the dive boat each day. Andy had three days of Sipidan dives booked, so the first couple of days here, we visited two of the neighbouring islands of Mantabuan and Sibuan. Beautiful and tiny, these paradisical islands are inhabited by sea gypsies. Living in shacks built from palm trees, they roam from island to island. We managed to amuse the children who pestered me all day for my bracelets/ rings/ dress / peanuts by taking photos and films of them and playing them back. My return gift was a Sand-Sammy sculpted there and then, resplendant with big boobs and massive ears.

The only other inhabitants of the islands, are the military. This is in response to the kidnappings which occurred on Sipidan a few years ago. They are also there to protect against the bother which is going on in the Phillipines at the moment, and to deter any dynamite fishermen. They also keep a register of who visits the islands each day and verify that all the divers have permits for Sipidan. Andy finds their presence reasurring, but I find it a bit intimidating. Especially so when he's off diving and I'm being hassled for a bikini photo. I don't think so! Succinctly, I told them as much, despite their being armed with massive guns. How hard am I? They soon left me alone for a spot of sunbathing and Su Doku. Phew!

We pitched ourselves at Scuba Junkies - a reputable dive company who also provide very cheap accommodation. The name of the place conjured up images of "Xtreme Sport" men with bleached hair, shark-tooth necklaces and tribal tats. This preconception was largely accurrate, but in addition to this, they are actually all very sound. I only hoped they would be safe and sensible too. Soon, all would be revealed...and I mean ALL.

The day finally came for us to go to Sipidan and Andrew could barely contain himself. There were a few black clouds on the horizan, and the sea seemed a bit choppy, but we were in good spirits. Like the Owl and the Pussycat, we set sail. After about an hour, we stopped off at Mabul island, having had to endure the tirade coming from a very loud English bloke, reagling his extreme travel stories so far. He was literally shouting at the top of his stupid voice - it was only when he began to feel sea sick that he shut up. I think we were all starting to feel a bit nauseous as the waves had really picked up since leaving Mabul. We were getting soaked as the waves were coming over the sides of our not insubstantial boat. We opted to stand at the front and hold on for dear life, but the boat was being thrashed about all over the place. It was when a massive wave came over the windscreen of the boat that we all fell silent, but the dive master didn't look too concerned and thus we were reassurred.

Further exacerbating my sense of gastric unease, an unfortunate sighting of not one, but two specimens I hadn't expected to be viewing that day. Boys, if you're going to wear shorts with no knickers underneath, PLEASE ensure there is an attached safety net. Absence of said netting treated me to an unrivaled view of hairless testicle belonging to the Dive Master. Really trying my upmost to look elsewhere, I had the tremendous misfortune to happen upon an (this time netted) appendage belonging to a ginger Swiss bloke. I thought it was a small octopus in a bag at first - imagine the shock? That's him there - Andy's dive buddy for the day. How unfortunate. The mad lady at the back was my fellow snorkeller for the day - oh joy, and the beautiful couple are an example of what everybody else looks like at Scuba Junkies. Eventually we reached the diving Mecca of Sipidan. I was more than relieved.

Waving goodbye to Andy, I ventured away from the boats and began snorkelling from the beach, at a safe distance from the mad lady. There wasn't much to see initially, just sand and sea grass, but there was an astonishing array of Starfish. Very beautiful, but I lost count at 30. After a couple of minutes, I spotted a couple of nasty-looking Titan Triggerfish (that toothy-looking feller opposite) from our Perhentian experiences, we knew how aggressive these blighters could be, so I felt a bit scared. They have a massive overbite which makes them not just nasty on the ouside, but on the inside too as they are very territorial, especially the females around egg-laying time. I think I already told you that they attack people unprovoked. I really didn't fancy being attacked whilst on my own, but made myself continue. I soon saw what I thought was a massive fat man swimming about in the gloom. Brilliant - I wasn't alone afterall!

Closer inspection would lead me to discover this was actually the biggest turtle I had seen in my life! He was enormous, with a flipper-span greater than my own and big fat legs and tail (quite unlike my own). He must have been a very old, Green Turtle - how amazed was I? I went along with him for a while (though, despite his grace, it was quite frightening to see something so BIG) and before my synapses could figure it out, I was swimming with a family of five!! Amazing, but I felt a bit overwealmed - especially as I was on my own. So I turned round and started back to shore to comprehend what I'd seen. Then I saw a flash of silver ahead of me in the gloom. I could barely look him in the eye as I quickly changed course, for I knew I'd happened upon a Giant Baracuda!

You may think I'm exaggerating, but he was easily of equal dimensions as the one in the link. And what was he upto in such shallow water?? There was very little for him to eat...except me!! He watched me as I legged it back to the beach. Macrolife on the dive boat aside, everything else here was so MASSIVE!!! Could I please have some smaller, less terrifying fish and some nice coral instead? I began to wonder what on earth Andy was experiencing in the depths of the Celebes Sea. After a short breather, I went to seek the company of other people. Not that I wanted to talk to anyone, I just didn't want to be eaten alive by a sea-monster and nobody know about it. Andy would return from his dive to find a half-finished Su Doku and a collection of hermit crabs listening to Orbital on the MP3 player.

Sipidan is a limestone pinnacle extending some 600 metres from the sea bed. When you see an aerial photo of the island, you can see the coral reef surrounding it and then the differentiation from light-blue into dark-blue. The dark-blue was the bit that scared me, but I'd already come face-to-face with the biggest baracuda alive, I had to continue. I couldn't quite believe what my eyes were seeing. After a minute of swimming, I reached the coral. It was alive and teeming with fish of the upmost vibrancy and numbers I've ever encountered. Further venturing brought me to "The Wall" - that terrifying drop-off into the Deep Blue. It felt so surreal to be floating over the edge, looking down into blackness. Visibility was amazing, but the depth made me unable to view anywhere near the sea bed. The most amazing creatures were swimming up the wall or emerging from either side of me. So perfect in appearance, they look like they've been carefully painted with gouache.

Yellow Puffer Fish, Angel Fish, four different species of Pipe Fish, a very cool Crocodile Fish, Unicorn fish, a very beautiful Clown Trigger and a humungous Grouper all came dancing into view. You could hear the Parrot Fish pecking at the pristine coral and see turtles sleeping on the coral ledges down the wall. It was astounding, I culdn't even begin to imagine what was lurking in the inky depths hundreds of metres below me, or further out to sea.

Sitting on a shelf of the wall was a marvellous Giant Puffer Fish. I was able to catch a glimpse of him as he swung in and out of his resting place with the tide. Eventually, he emerged to give me a full view. Quite unlike the fugu we'd seen in Japanese restaurants, this feller was huge. Throughout the next few days, I was to see a collection of very cool things. An enormous Cuttle Fish came into view - it was so big, I didn't think it could possibly be a Cuttlefish, but being the nerds we are, we like to do our fish i.d. at the end of each day. It seems that everything is a giant version out here...what the hell must the sharks be like?

I then decided that the next step would be to snorkel from the dive boat which was to be visiting Turtle Patch that afternoon. So I jumped out with the divers and began to follow their path, but it wasn't long before all I could discern was their steady stream of bubbles - they's descended beyond sight. So then it was me, alone, in open water. No need to panic, the boat could see me couldn't he? So I did a cursory swim about, seeing more than 20 Green Turtles in all. It was amazing, and I was relatively happy swimming over the coral, but the boat was pitched somewhere in the deep and I was too scared to swim across the open water on my own, especially with the relatively strong current! So I started waving at the boatman, attempting to banish all thoughts of that film from my mind. After a few attempts, he still hadn't seen me but luckily, another boat managed to signal to him and he came to pick me up. Now I don't know if it was just me being a scardey-cat, or if this was actually a very frightening thing to do.

Busying myself with the amazing sight of two Green Turtles mating on the surface of the water, I tried not think about it. They went at it for ages, the male clearly having a better time of it than the girl turtle. Every now and then she'd try to come up for air and he's just bat her head back down with his flipper. More disturbingly, there was a third turtle who seemed to be watching the whole scenario - turtle porn in the making! I believe this is quite a rare sight, so I felt like a documentary-maker and took lots of rubbish photos, whilst vowing to never snorkel in the open sea again. Meanwhile, young Andrew was having an altogether different kind of experience...

Underwater photos by Andy using rented Sony Cybershot 5.2MP camera with underwater housing.