Mabul

We arrived on Friday in Mabul, where we are staying for the weekend at Billabong Scuba. We dove three dive sites here yesterday and are diving three sites at Sipadan today. It’s beautiful here and feels like a vacation from my vacation. Bianca, the South African girl I’m rooming with, and I were thrilled when we opened the door to our waterfront hut. The fact that I have a bed in an enclosed room with no bugs plus air conditioning makes me feel like I’m living the high life after camping outdoors these last two months. If you look below and think this room looks like a shitty motel in a rundown part of town in the states, I don’t care because to me this is luxury.

We spent the afternoon swimming and hanging out on the beach. We had our own little area until a bunch of the local kids started hanging around asking for money. They usually go away when you tell them no, but these kids were relentless. See below for a little girl maybe eight years old grabbing at Taylor’s cigarette, which happens all the time. It’s sad to see these kids under ten smoking and walking around with no clothes on and dirty all the time and I still haven’t gotten used to it.

At night we hit the Reggae Bar, which is a small bar on the water that sells beer and rum. It is apart of Scuba Jeff’s hostel (that is both his name and his business’s name). And let me tell you, Scuba Jeff is a character. He is a bald, heavy set Malaysian man in his forties who loves to drink, smoke and party. He had tons of stories for us, as he’s owned his business for over ten years after retiring from the police. Clearly the island life suits him better, and you can tell he loves hosting gusts from all over the world. He even cooked dinner for myself and Bianca and it was the best food I’ve had since being in Malaysia. Marinated chicken, fresh caught tuna, rice and creamy potatoes, it was amazing.

We dove three different sites on Mabul yesterday, each of which were beautiful. Compared to the damaged corals, sparse marine life and rubble we are used to seeing on Pom Pom, we saw beautifully colored corals, giant groupers, huge schools of fish, flatworms and plenty more. It was a nice change in scenery and makes you wonder if our efforts at TRACC will ever help to return the area to even a fraction of what Mabul is.