After a long working day nothing could be more interesting than going to an underwater photography exhibition, held by Emirates Diving Association (EDA). So far nothing strange, I always loved photography.
Strange might be if you know me: I don’t know how to dive, not even how to swim. This can be very embarrassing in my age and grown up in Romania in a city with a big river and many lakes.
I always thought the underwater world is a world I could only dream of and will never enter. I had the strange opinion, humans dose not belong there and are misplaced in-between the underwater life. But this event gave me access to impression capture from people in the same room. Making the step into an diving into a different world was for me a huge barrier of fear of the unknown. But seeing all these amazing photographs of another beautiful and astonishing world made me curious. I felt it is a different approach to life or even yourself, as hundreds of years before nobody knew what this world has to offer.
I am not sure how I met with Jason from Atlantis Diving centre Dubai but during our conversation there was of course the question: Are you diving as well? And there it was again this embarrassing moment, but I had be honest and answer straight away: Unfortunately I don’t know how to swim! His prompt reply: Well, you don’t have too. That was surprising for me and made me even more curious. I think he didn’t recognize what his answer moved in me, his quick and short reply gave me the impression, that diving might be in reach for me. I guess he never expect me, ever to show up and take his answer serious.
My better half must have recognize my thoughts and told me a few days later about an invitation for a dive trip to Malaysia. Luring me with some more photos of paradise islands and world famous dive sites let my curiosity and motivation grow. I’m also not sure if he really expected me to take the bait: If you want to come on this trip, you need to get you dive certificate and write about your experience. Not even that I have to face my fears, even more if have to share my embarrassing secret, in my article that I don’t know how to dive.
Only a view days later I showed up at Atlantis Dive Center…meeting Jason and informing him that I am ready to go for a diving course. He recommended me a discover Scuba experience before starting the course. But I made my decision – I guess Daniel and Jason were surprised. After the 2hrs introduction I was 100% convinced to do the Open Water Course to be a certified diver and ready to go to Malaysia.
I had no trouble using all the equipment and breathing air out of a tank – what I heard is the biggest problem for most beginners not swimming. But Jason was not 100% honest with his first answer – you need to know how to swim or at least somehow to float 😀
My dive instructor Jodie Bush(special thanks for being an amazing girl and great support) the 300 meters, test which Jodie had to swim with me just for me to don’t be afraid of sinking, I believe I wasn’t so bad in the end and succeeded. Honestly if you are no/not a good swimmer the fins help a lot. The next burden to take, floating for 10 minutes. That’s what I called a “miracle of Jodie”, who asked me to think of a bicycling and to forget I am in the water…believe it or not I floated for the next 10 minutes having a nice conversation with Jodie and not realizing it…and since than I can’t say anymore I don’t know how to swim. Some days and dives later with the help of the amazing team from Atlantis Dive Center made me a certified diver an looking forward for a lifetime experience…and here starts the real adventure into the Blue.
I have a bad habit of getting easily bored. The coastline of the UAE is for sure not one of the most amazing dive sites in the world and everybody recommended me to go to the East Coast. Going to Malaysia / Borneo the feedback I got from experienced divers: This is not a place to learn diving… if you have been there you don’t want to dive anywhere else again. This seemed to be an insurance not to get bored. Seeing the sandy beaches and the rich marine life captured in photos from Sipadan Island, could convince even a non swimmer (doesn’t apply to me anymore) to go for at least for a sun bath and an amazing snorkeling experience. (a lot of non-swimmers go snorkelling wearing a life jacket)
Here we go 1 month later I found myself in the airplane on the way to Malaysia. It was a mix of excitement and doubt, as I am still a beginner and had only three open water dives – but there was no way back…or maybe there will.
Our first flight connection with Brunei Air offered us a stop-over to the capital of Brunei. Our 8hrs stop-over was just enough to make a short city tour and a quick visit to traditional Asian life on the water. The water village which if you are not use to the real life of Asia could be a bit strange knowing that are around 20 000 people, really living in that houses and having police station, schools or a fire fighters station all build on piles in the water.
The same day we caught our next plain to Kota Kinabalu. The next moring by plane again to Tawau then one hour by bus to the shore of Semporna and finally 30 minutes by boat to our paradise island Mabul. Crystal clear water, Palm trees, blue sky with some fluffy clouds – honestly my expectations were exceeded.
After our first dive briefing and lunch it was time for an orientation dive. I was still amazed by the beauty of the island and the sea but it could not hide that I still had doubts if I’m prepared and I was afraid to maybe face a shark. The sea was a little bit wavy this day and currents made it difficult to stay with the group. Our dive guide put together the buddy teams he would go with Amir from Malaysia Tourism who was in the same position like me – he just finished is OWD course. I was with Daniel but we agreed to stick to the dive guide not only for the reason of safety, more about this later. Apart from all my fears, I was honestly most afraid of to spoil the experience of the other advanced divers and will be a burden for them. It was wavy, but I could see lots of corals and on the edge of the reef the drop into the dark blue. As many dives in the region, this was also a wall dive along the edge of the reef. To don’t allow myself to start thinking to much about doubts, i focused on my equipment check and was one of the first jumping into the water. The water didn’t had the temperature of a bathtube and I easily get cold but i was so excited that I didn’t feel anything. (the water is 25-29°C what will be considered by most people still as warm). I was still afraid of float and swallowing water because of the waves, the only option to get away from the waves was to go down. I mentioned already a lot of my fears and doubts but I can add one more: I am very afraid if I can’t see the bottom and don’t know what’s under my. I had my open water dive here in Dubai before but I knew there is nothing big in the water and the bottom is not deeper than 15m. Here it was the Chinese Sea famous for an enormous variety in marine life and also sharks and other scary creatures. When our dive guide LJ gave the sign to dive, there was anyway no other choice.
There are no words to explain you the surprise when I entered this new world. I dived into a completely new and different world with so many corals in all the colors, shapes and more than 100 years old. Diving deeper into the blue and being surrounded by small colorful fishes all around you. I know i might bored experienced divers with my impressions and being not able to outline names and unique species only found here, but for me it was breath taking (don’t take it serious – I was still breathing an my equipment worked well). I have to admit, I complete forgot I am 18meters below the surface and there was no more room for fears and doubts. The 45minutes of our first visit to this world flew by like seconds. It was an amazing experience and it happened what so many divers warned me off – i was infected with the addiction to go back into the blue. As soon as I’ve been on the boat I was looking forward to the next dive. I couldn’t stop talking about the dive and questioned everyone this ridiculous questions, did you see this fish, did you see the turtle… obviously we dived in a group an LJ was pointing out obvious and hidden thing to everyone. As much as I wasn’t able to hide my fear before the dive as much I was unable to hide my excitement now. It was also a nice experience to see, that diving is about sharing moment and impressions underwater and I felt, that my fellow divers welcomed me in their community. It’s one of the greatest things in this world if you can share moments with people even though if they all have been strangers to me on the first day.
From now on my after dives of 45minutes or more not being able to talk, I sued the surface time between the dives do compensate it. The second dive was also in Mabul at the house reef of Borneo Divers Resort where you can directly dive of the jetty. The reef is not dropping that deep to only 16m, the very few resort guest not diving snorkel in the shallow water which is full of marine life. There I saw people snorkeling with life jackets I had to think back to my self that 2 months ago, I would have been one of them and never imagined to be here today, just finished my second dive. The house reef develops over the few days on the island to our regular dive spot for the 4th or 5th dive a day. But I was so tiered after the dives and my brain was overloaded with pictures and impressions, that I didn’t do the night dives. I need to keep some more things to discover in the following years 😀
The days were loaded with experiences and I had in total 16dives. Most of them on different dive sites which are all in the reach of an one hour boat drive. It is really incredible that each and every dive site was different artificial reefs, coral gardens, dive sites with high density of nudibranches, turtles, sharks…. Below are some of the dives and information to it:
As a beginner I’m still not perfect in bouncy and maybe seem sometimes like an octopus with 8 arms, trying to keep my position or to point out something. So it happened during one dive, by mistake – if someone will happen to do this to me I’ll most probably panic – over excited about the underwater world my action of trying to get the attention of the dive guide without watching him, I hit him with my fine and remove the regulator out of his mouth without noticing it, only when he knocked me on the back showing me what I have done… but he was laughing at me and all was fine. This underlined what I learned make sure you always watch over your buddy and try to pay attention to your near surrounding for of both of you. As mentioned some corals are very old and fragile, if you hit them while fining you can easily break them.
After some amazing dives you get more confident with the team, the sites, water and everything it around and especially with yourself. Knowing now a bit more of this world, it doesn’t look so scary as you might think of it before, you quickly learn to appreciate and love it. And isn’t it like this for so many things in life – things we don’t know scare us.
The highlight of the trip have been the dives at Sipadan island which is considered as one of the best dive sites in the world. Since a few years all resorts on the island are moved off to other island (also Borneo Divers have had their resort their before) and Sipadan is declared as protected marine resort which is taken serious by the Malaysian government. Only with permission you are allowed to dive, to ensure and preserve the unique life at Sipadan. Clement Lee the owner of Borneo Divers and diving at Sipadan for more than 30 years told us he was happy to move of the island for the sake of protecting it, he could also tell us that this move showed already a positive effect on the marine life around the island. We were lucky, that Clement joined our group for all dives and shared with us so many interesting and amazing stories. Check out his Facebook page (Borneo divers) to see hundreds of piktures he has taken in the area.
Sipadan is a dream, imagine your buddy is indicating to look into a direction, all of the sudden you are in the middle of a school of hundreds of jack fish or barracudas. Honestly I was afraid, being stuck between all the fishes, everybody enjoying and me just perplex unable to move, so I kept close to my buddy. With more dives you get confident and dare more, I mentioned before my fear of sharks even if there is not much reason for it but Hollywood was successful to mark them with the image of a blood …beast. So it happened i wanted to face my fears and get closer to a shark until the shark was turning and directly handing straight to me. Like a little duck i directly stopped and let my buddy take the lead again keeping very, very close to him. Of course he was watching me and expected my reaction. I felt the shark might thing I’m his lunch, but luckily I was faster then him running in his opposite direction and putting the better deal for a shark lunch ‘Daniel’ in front of me. Well at that moment I just wanted to jump out of the water.
Last day, last dive, our air tanks were running low and Madil our guide for most of the dives, gave the sign to go to the surface but suddenly changed his mind pointing a a turtle heading straight to another one. He knew what was going to happen, it was mating season for turtles and we were lucky enough to be able to attend this rare event. Later back on the boat, Simone (who did all the underwater photographs in this article) asked me: Do you know how lucky you are? I’m diving since eight years and was always waiting for a moment like this.
Yes I know how lucky I am meeting all this people who made it possible to cross my boarders, face my fears and succeed in all of this. As reward I got all this great memories, impressions and more confidence to try new things even if they seem hard to achieve. Special thanks to Jody to prepare me, thanks to Tuan and the Malaysia Tourism for letting me join this trip and last but not least thanks to Madeel our dive guide for most of the dives in taking the time to look after me, giving me so much good advice. I think the whole group is also grateful for Madeel in spotting and pointing out the hidden secrets of the underwater world. Especially for me it was sometime hard to recognize what he was pointing at even if it was in front of my nose not knowing what i was looking for – try to find the fish in the picture
For people reading my story for someone never been there will sound like just a story, but for the ones which they’ve been there, I would say 100% of them
will return to Malaysia – no doubt.
I’m so happy to have done this adventure and weeks after I still dream of the underwater world. I hope I could encourage some of you to try diving or any other activity; it will not be failure even if you will not succeed but it will be a failure not having tried it at least.
