Adventure Time with Keri!

In between country hopping, I managed to go to Sandakan for the third time…with my parents and Auntie Belinda and Uncle Paul.  And what do I do when I go to Sandakan? I eat way more than I should. Of course. Daddy unfortunately got sick while we were there and was stuck in bed for most of the time. Poor daddy…and it was Father’s Day that weekend too. Haha.

Wednesday we all piled and squished ourselves into the company van to embark on yet another family vacation. We were one person too many to sit comfortably in the van so Auntie Beth’s response about having to squish in the back with 3 other people instead of 2 was, “Next time I’m going to get fat so I don’t have to squeeze myself back here.” Lol. Sometimes I feel the same. Sigh.

Anyway, we got to the airport and were attempting to check in when, lo-and-behold, crisis struck. Apparently the airport we were flying into in Indo didn’t have a Visa on Arrival counter like I had dealt with before in Jakarta previously. The airlines wouldn’t even issue us a ticket without the visa. So basically, my parents and I couldn’t fly to Indo. Rough times for us. There was a moment of panic and a lot of phone calling…BUT, there was a second option – which was to stay in Tawau all day and apply for a visa and hope they gave it to us before the next flight out 24 hrs from then. The rest of the family flew off and we went with my other cousin to apply for the visa. After a few long and sweaty hours of filling out paperwork, taking headshots, waiting, faxing, being interviewed, making tons of phone calls and texts, and more waiting, we finally got the visa!! PTL!! That was probably the first time I had had to be interviewed…and it was kind of hilarious, no offense to Indonesia. One of the questions was, “Do you like Indonesia?” Like…why would I be going on a vacation to Indonesia if I didn’t like the country? Lol.

Ok, so you’re probably wondering why a seasoned traveler like me didn’t think to get a visa beforehand to save us all this trouble. As I said before, when I went to Indonesia a few months ago, I got a visa when I arrived at the airport in Jakarta…so I didn’t double think. Plus, I checked around on the internet after this whole ordeal and all the top sites were giving me conflicting answers. Anyway, it probably a good thing that we didn’t go that day b/c daddy was feeling particularly dizzy that day (remember he had been sick that weekend?) and probably wasn’t fit to travel. My cousin that took us to get the visa was actually also sick and took him to his Chinese doctor to get traditional Chinese medicine. No, it wasn’t like in the movies where there’s unidentifiable herbs and who-knows-what on shelves and jars. Sorry, to burst your bubble, although the pills he was given looked like gecko eggs…hahah.

Fast-forward to the next day after all this excitement. We were finally able to fly to Indo! It took us only half an hour to cross the border…I kid you not. That’s how close we are to Indonesia. And then we got on a little speed boat to go to the island. The sea was unfortunately really rough that day and it felt like we were on a bucking bronco for four straight hours!! Our whole body was being jarred and bounced around the little boat. The boat driver even got sick! Lol. That’s how bad it was. I did, however get a little bit of sleep in the beginning and middle when the waves weren’t too horrendous – perks of being a DM and learning how to sleep on the boat whenever you can. We FINALLY made it to Maratua and all was right in the world. Somehow we conned them into letting me go on a night dive...at almost 9pm. Lol. That’s probably the latest I’ve ever done a night dive. All my family that had gone on the dive the night before told me to watch out for the lionfish that like to come up to you and scare you.

Ok, pause. If you’ve never heard of lionfish, they are these beautiful but extremely poisonous fish that can be aggressive when necessary. I can remember as a little girl being on an island with my uncle and listening to him tell a story of how his friend got stung by a lionfish and lost his finger. Ever since then, I’ve been scared to death by them…more scare of them than sharks, believe it or not. (Oh, and I reconfirmed the story with my uncle recently…apparently the friend didn’t lose a finger…either I have a wild imagination or they were trying to scare me as a child…probably both.)

Anyway, back to my night dive. So we’re going along and I’m on high alert b/c of the stupid lionfish. Just as I was letting my guard down and squealing over the cutest peach-colored frogfish ever, Amir, our DM, tapped my leg. I looked down and screamed into my regulator b/c there was the biggest lionfish just chilling under my leg. We all took our flashlights and shined it away from us…towards these little white fish and proceeded to watch the lionfish gobble them up. Well, it was more like one chomp. We hightailed it out of that area all the while doing a sweep with our flashlights to make sure it hadn’t followed us.

The next day we all piled into the boat and made our way to the nearby islands of Kakaban and Sangalaki. After a fail dive at Manta Run at Sangalaki and seeing NO manta rays (although the water vis was incredible), we headed to the actual island and climbed our way to the lake in the middle of the island. Not only is there a lake in the middle of the island, but there are a TON of non-stinging jellyfish in this saltwater lake. We had a grand time swimming with the jellies and taking pictures. I really hate jellyfish with a passion…probably b/c of how many times I’ve been stung and scarred by them…but since these don’t sting, I was quite the happy clam.

After playing with the jellies we set out for Sangalaki on our second dive of the day at Barracuda Point…and saw NO barracudas…epic fail!! There was a really strong current at the bend of the coral wall so we all were kind of like holding on to the wall and peeking around the corner to see if the barracuda were there. Sigh. Oh well. 

We stopped back at Kakaban to have lunch…and somehow acquired a ton of coconuts while we were eating.

We headed back to Maratua and did our last dive at Mid Reef to see if we could find thresher sharks…nope. Nada. We went 40m and came up with nothing to show for it. Sigh. Such a fail day for diving. My only consolation is that the visibility was great and so was the company. Haha. I mean, the dive sites were good too…it’s just that we were looking for specific things and couldn’t find them. Oh well. 

We hurried back to the dive center and Amir disappeared b/c his team was about to play a game of football (soccer). The surrounding kampungs and islands had formed a league of sorts and there was a series going on. We went to go cheer their team on and on our way to the field Mas picked us up on his motorbike…all three of us. Yes, we managed to squeeze 4 ppl on a motorbike. I was holding on for dear life, let me tell you! When we arrived a short ride later, I was surprised to see so many people there! It was as if the whole island had come out to see it! (I was told later that there were 5 different villages on the island which is why there were so many ppl there.) 

Since we were with Mas, who happens to be the chef at Maratua, we got to sit right next to the sidelines to help cheer them on. They won, 3-1!!!! I’m not really into football/soccer, but I WILL cheer anyone I know on even if I only pretend to understand the game. Hahaha.

We all walked back… as Amir took us one by one back to the resort on his motorbike…his can’t handle four ppl on it. Haha.

The next day we had a lot better luck during our dives. We all squeezed into a small SUV and drove the short way to the other side of the island and then walked down a very LONG and rickety jetty. A short ride later we reached East Wall and right away as we were descending we saw a leopard shark! Then we saw a giant sting ray, a bunch of eagle rays, and a small school of bumpheads! We actually saw the eagle rays twice…the second time they were coming up…and then all of a sudden they turned around super quick and I lost my photo opt. So sad. Lol. 

We took a really long surface interval since half of us got deco on our dive watches (yes, very bad, I know) and so we sat around on this random jetty and talked…or in my case, slept.

After our really long surface interval we braced ourselves for the next dive. Why? You might ask…well, let me explain. This particular dive site is called The Channel. Now, in any given “channel” underwater you can always expect a strong current…except, here at this specific channel there were many different changing currents…and all of they were STRONG. Since we were all experienced divers we all said, “Challenge accepted!!”

Amir had briefed us at the dive center that morning complete with a whole painted diagram. He briefed in Malay so I only understood half of what he was saying…heh. Anyway, we all got ready and you could tell we were all excited and anxious b/c since the up-current there could be really strong we all had to be neutrally buoyant and go straight down to 20m without coming up! Usually when we get in the water we inflate our BCDs so that we pop back up to the surface, then we all wait till everyone’s ready and then go down. Nope. It was all fend-for-yourselves or everyone-for-themselves at this point. He had already warned us that if we couldn’t make it past 5-7m that we had to give up, surface, and abort the dive. NO WAY was I going to do that.

So we all fully geared up and sat on the side of the boat waiting for the countdown. There was four on each side and when we got the signal we were all going to do a backroll and swim for our lives…DOWN. Amir put up the first finger…and just as he was putting the second finger up, Aku Apo rolled out. Baby and I were laughing so hard we take out our regulators to laugh! He didn’t even wait for the third count…maybe he was too excited?? Hahaha, I don’t know. Anyway, Amir recounted to three and the rest of us backrolled out and it was an explosion of bubbles as we all hit the water. I realized quickly that I hadn’t take out all my air completely and quickly let the rest of the air out as flipped upside down and pointed my head towards the bottom of the deep blue sea. Usually I look back a few times to make sure everyone is there…but as I said, this was everyone-for –themselves and there was no looking back…or turning back for that matter. Thankfully the up-current wasn’t too strong and we all managed to get to 20m in record time. We all looked around and thankfully everyone had made it in one piece. Then we started the grueling swim of going against the current. If there’s one thing I loathe about diving, it’s swimming against the current. I always get a headache without a fail. We swam against the current for about 10 mins before we saw a school of barracuda. After admiring them for a while (and hanging onto the wall for dear life) we crawled our way to another wall. I’m not joking when I said we crawled. If we hadn’t crawled we would’ve been swept away…and we were crawling sideways, nonetheless. It was all quite hilarious. Then we came to a coral/rock wall where we then climbed and crawled our way up to another plateau. There, we hung on for dear life (in some cases we used hooks and our pointers…in other cases…we hugged rocks…see below for picture) and admired the school of jackfish passing by. The current was SO strong there pushing against us. Our regulators were shaking and those that wore caps or bandanas on their heads had to hold onto them for fear of losing them.  At that point in time half of our group was already low on air or almost out of air. After we did our safety stop we all let go at our respective times and flew to the surface…I had to let air out of my BCD so I didn’t go flying to the surface too fast. Right before I surfaced I saw little eddies nearby and hoped I didn’t get caught in one. Haha. We all made it in one piece and I even had more than half a tank to spare!! Phew, that was all the excitement we could take for that day so we headed back to the resort and relaxed. 

A few of us decided to rent motorbikes (with drivers…b/c that’s how we roll) to go around the island. So I followed Amir and we went joyriding around the island…it was like our own little motorcycle gang. Haha. It was quite leisurely so Amir and I ended up talking the whole time. I love talking to divemasters and hearing their stories. We drove around for about an hour, stopping at the airport construction site (no more 4 hr boat rides!), and riding through two villages. Amir and I stopped at the football field and watched the rest of the ongoing game. I cheered for whatever team Amir was going for since I didn’t know who was who. But…they won. =) 

Haha, anyway, after that we went for a sunset/night dive to see mandarin fish…and just hovered in 2-3m of water for almost 45 mins waiting to see glimpses of them. They’re super duper shy…but Amir managed to get a few pictures of them on my camera!

The night consisted of Amy being mad at us, traditional dancing, running away and being dragged to go dance, lots of pictures, randomly talking to some guy, accidentally leaving him to go work on our dive log, and staring at the moon. Yupp…that’s pretty much it. Lol. 

We woke up early to leave and make the long boat ride back…thankfully it didn’t take as long as it did going there and we made it back in 2 ½ hrs. We took a “city tour” of the small town…hahaha…and stopped somewhere along the way to eat really delicious Indo food before flying off. 

And thus concluded our Pua/Mau family vacation [outstation]. Till next time!!