Ladies and Gentlemen, the time has come today where we will be embarking on our journey to Semporna - the gateway to a specific island which Jacques Cousteau commented 'I have seen other places like Sipadan, 45 years ago, but now no more. Now we have found again an untouched piece of art.... a jewel'! 

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that place is Pulau Sipadan - a round of applause please!

Pulau Sipadan is rated as the worlds top dive site, it's based in the Celebes Sea, for you divers out there you don't need any introduction. But for you non divers, Sipadan is an oceanic island and was formed by living corals growing on top of an extinct undersea volcano. Helen has always wanted to visit ever since watching "The ghosts of the Sea Turtle".  Sipadan is in the heart of of the Indo Pacific basin making it one of the most diverse marine habitats in the world. 

Having had a quick breakfast in Sepilok, the hostel gave us a lift to the junction where we will be catching the coach to Semporna - approximately a five and a half hours journey. The man who dropped us off told us it was a yellow coach that we should be looking for, we waited around 20 mins before we noticed a white coach approaching us, even flashing their headlights towards us, we were thinking is that our coach or not? It turned out to be our coach - Nick cursed at the driver who dropped us off. 

On the coach and off we go - the journey itself was uneventful, we slept, read and watched a film on the iPad - the iPad is a godsend, much to the relief of our family who are able to keep in touch with us regularly :) Helen was almost in tears watching "Water for Elephants" and if you don't fancy Robert Pattison, this is a film that is almost certain to change your mind!

We arrived in Semporna, even Helen was counting down the km mark all the way to Semporna as she was that excited! But sadly, we arrived in a dump....both of us were not impressed especially as all the men kept looking at Helen. This is not a town to feel safe in. We checked into our hostel, Scuba Junkie Backpackers for one night and it's a fair comment when we say it was dank. However, we spent the evening in the bar catching up with Rosie who was Nicks scuba instructor in Pulau Tioman. 

We woke for our 8am transfer to Pulau Mabul where would be staying for the next 4 days at Mabul Beach Resort owned by Scuba Junkie. Pulau Mabul is known as one of the worlds best muck diving sites, one of the richest single destinations for exotic small marine life in the world. However, on our journey over to Mabul we were appalled at the amount of rubbish in the sea and we agreed to take part in Scuba Junkies clean up project, which was cancelled due to the weather as the heavens decided to open...

We couldn't resist snorkelling on our arrival at Mabul, even though Helen was going on and on about walking around the island and observing how the Bajau gypsies live. The temptation of the sea was too much to resist, we snorkelled for one and a half hours. We saw loads of fish, a massive green turtle and loads of Moorish Idols to Helen's delight. There were also a lot of fish that Helen could not identify...... More study is needed! 

We spent some time with some dutch people that we made friends with and had a early night to prepare for the days diving tomorrow around Mabul. Helens respect for Scuba Junkie grew tenfold when she saw a sign saying they do not serve fish as they are friends not food! :) 

On the first day of diving we saw.... A WHALE SHARK! Simply the best experience ever especially as it swam towards both of us, the magnitude of it's size was amazing. As we were still on the boat when the boat driver spotted it, Nick asked Helen 'what is it?' and Helen screamed 'whale shark' and jumped right in without a thought for anything else, this was not to be missed! Nick jumped in right afterwards. A.m.a.z.i.n.g, needless to say Helen and Nick were grinning for days afterwards. Helen even said to Nick, "now that's me sorted I can go home now". Helen has dreamt about diving/swimming with a whale shark since she started diving!! The whale shark was very elegant, and graceful in it's movement it's simply not going to be forgotten! Nick thought he would have to do about 500 dives before seeing one, but no he saw one on his 12th dive. So Nick considers himself a very lucky guy, and while Helen says she can go home, Nick is even more determined to see more Whale Sharks and is already getting excited about the west coast of Australia which is supposedly their breeding ground.

In addition to the whale shark, they also saw loads of turtles, moray eels, hairy octopus, razor fish, ghost and banded pipefish plus loads of reef fish.

The evening was spent doing a night dive, this was Nicks first night dive. Nick says it was a very scary experience and something he needs to build up his confidence with. However, we did see loads of crabs, eels hunting and pipefish. 

The next day was spent at Sipadan, where we had a 6.15am departure from the jetty. To dive Sipadan you need a permit, we organised our trip back in December 2010 as we had heard numerous stories of travellers turning up at Semporna only to be told there is a waiting list of several months! This is due to the government of Malaysia deciding that no dive operators are to be onsite with the aim of conservation and maintaining a balanced marine eco system. Diving Sipadan is a once in a lifetime experience, we did some wall diving where it dropped to 1600 metres below. 

It was absolutely breath taking, Helen did not particularly enjoy her first dive at South Point as we spent the whole time swimming in the blue against the current in the hope of seeing hammerheads. This was a gamble, and one that we lost! However the other 3 dives at Barracuda point, Mid Reef and Whitetip Alley were very enjoyable. The highlight of Sipadan for Nick was seeing loads of sharks, turtles, seeing schools of barracuda and jackfish and swimming in the middle of the schools. 

Although Sipadan has a lot of hype and a good reputation for world class diving, we much preferred the diving at Mabul purely because it's a macro paradise and we saw a whale shark. 

We had a early night as we were knocked for six, diving is certainly very tiring. 

On our last day we walked around the island, Nick played football with the local children and we even had a peep in some of their homes - needless to say we were surprised to see Justin Bieber posters on their Walls! The heavens decided to open so we chilled out in the lounge area. After lunch we did some more snorkelling and made the 4pm transfer back to Semporna where we would catch a bus to Tawau airport. 

The next part of our adventure is one night in KK before flying to Mulu where we will spend the next couple of days at Gunung Mulu National Park. For you nature lovers, this is the destination where the poor camera man from Planet Earth had to wade through thick steaming mounds of bat poo....more on this next week...