[Mabul, Malaysian Borneo] Back on the local reefs around Mabul today so we were not expecting much but at least we had some idea of what to look for when it comes to the small stuff. Our DM for the day, Coco, was joined by a larger than life local lady named Rebbecca. She was so full of excitement about everything – her mood was infectious. We dropped off onto the ‘Lobster Wall’ site. The visibility was excellent and V immediately set about spotting the little things – a really cool baby morey (bright yellow), an orange and black flatworm some pipe-fish and the odd Nudibranch. Rebbecca twanged on her tank for us to come check out a pinkish sea fan. It took some pointing but we eventually saw what had gotten her so excited. A tiny (10mm long) Pygmy Seahorse on the fan. Coco was ecstatic. Apparently these guys are very rare and delicate. Even Jeroen, who has seen everything, has these guys on his list to photograph. We must have been lugging some golden horseshoes instead of weights!

Our next dive was back out at Kapala. Rebbecca led us this time down to a set of ‘houses’ (artificial reef) where we came across the biggest morey we have seen so far and cute little polka-dot yellow box-fish. Odd creature. Honestly looks like it has swallowed a rubic’s cube. From the houses we descended down and came up on a large fishing boat wreck. It was awesome. Felt like the opening scene of ‘Titanic’ as we came up and over the bow. Our dive profile meant we couldn’t stay long around the wreck. Rebbecca was on top of her computer making sure we were okay. On the way to shallower water Rebbecca pointed out a tiny Orang Utan Crab. We got the first sign for ‘crab’ but when she started making monkey arm movements we were lost.

The third dive was also good but not as memorable. We did see a large cuttlefish and V got caught out trying to adjust from macro to micro – she was looking for something tiny while I was pointing at a massive Scorpion Fish right under her nose.

Back at UC’s we spent a good hour scrubbing the jungle mud off our shoes – I hope the Australian customs guys appreciate it. Not much else to do but chill out and relax on the deck again. In the evening we heard that two Sipadan permits had become available for tomorrow. It didn’t take much for us to throw our budget even further out of the window and take up the offer. Resistance is futile 🙂

[Pictures: Check out the shots linked in the gallery including the stuff that Jeroen took]

– Posted from my iPhone via 3G