Under the Sea!

If I thought I was excited about diving before our first experience, it was nothing compared to how I feel after having done it 4 times! It was sooooo amazing and even addictive!

One of my wishes as a kid was to either fly or be able to breathe underwater since I loved swimming so much. So, you get a bit of both as a diver because the weightlessness of floating along only adds to all of the beauty you get to see.

Though the visibility (the “viz”) wasn’t exceptional at certain depths nor in distance, what we were able to explore was nothing short of awesome. We saw angelfish, trigger fish, barracuda (yikes!), blue-spotted stingrays, a puffer fish, and clownfish (Nemos ☺).

What was great about getting certified here in Kota Kinabalu, was that our “confined” water dives were done in shallow water off the islands, whereas many courses do this skill work in a pool. So, we got the benefit of being surrounded by tons of colorful fish while practicing our skills. (The fish surrounded us because they are used to being fed by snorkelers and divers.)
Learning what to do if your regulator (the part that lets you breathe air from the tank!) comes out of your mouth while diving and how to clear your mask underwater if it starts to fill up are just some of the skills we needed to master.

We also had to learn how to take off all of our gear underwater and put it back on in case we were ever entangled, and we had to learn to read gauges and share air in cases of emergency. Just like in school, though we had a dive computer to work with, we still had to know how to calculate maximum dive time according to depth by hand.

Each day we had lunch on the island (Mamutik or Sapi). Though I ordered a beef burger on Mamutik, it didn't taste like any beef I have ever had before! Can you say "meow"?! I hope not! On Sapi, I had rice and chicken while we enjoyed watching the large lizards scavenge from tourists. Don't be deceived by the proximity of the lizards, they can be dangerous!

I have to add that our dive instructor, Jaclyn “Jack” was fantastic. She’s a 29-year-old Malaysian gal who was very patient and thorough in her instruction, and she even took us out after each day of diving to show us the town and hang out with some locals.

Tuesday after our dive, Jack took us to the Sugarbun Café, where we tried a specialty beverage made of sweetened condensed milk and hot tea (tarik tea) and listened to a live band sing less-than-memorable hits from the 70s and 80s.

Then we went to a local bar “Jugs” (yep, we told Jack what we thought of the name) to play pool. Being that it was a Tuesday night, the place was empty, so we enjoyed having the place to ourselves.

Last night Jack took us to the café she owns to celebrate our dive certification, and we met several of her friends. Ironically enough, Jack’s friends wanted to go to another restaurant to eat Western food after Shannon and I enjoyed the delicious Malaysian dishes of satay with peanut sauce and compressed rice and tofu in coconut milk!