Day Two 20/08/03 Wed
7:15am morning call, 8:00am breakfast, 8:45am gathering and we all headed out to Sepi Island, one of the 5 islands of the Abdul Rahman Park, which is about 15 minutes via speed boat away from our hotel. This particular trip to Sepi Island had become one of our most memorable experiences for Melinda and I.
Jetskiing with Alec
As soon as we’ve reached the island, we were greeted by a manager of some sort, who took orders from us for several kinds of water sports namely, para-sailing, jetskiing, banana boating, and seabed walking. Jetskiing was RM150 for 1/2 hour or RM250 for 1 hour. I had tried that over 20 years ago in Patiya, Thailand before, so I took Alec out for a 1/2 hour spin leaving Melinda by the picnic table thinking a 1/2 hour wait wasn’t too long for her. As it turned out, we had to take a boat almost 2/3 of the way back to the hotel, which was about a 15 min ride to the jetski depot. So the 1/2 hour run became a full hour wait for Melinda.
Just as I was worrying how to make it up to Melinda when we got back, the local tour guide came over and asked us if we wanted to go for a seabed walking, free of charge! A 25 min seabed walking costs RM250 each, which works out to about HKD$530, and that would be a HKD$1060 deal. But, what’s the catch? Apparently, there was a Korean TV crew there making a TV documentary about the sand of Sepi Island. It was then that I took the first notice of the sand there which was so fine that it felt like flour. The catch was for the two of us to be interviewed by the TV show director and for them to shoot us on a walk on the beach as well as a walk on the seabed.
TV Crew Heading for Seabed Walking
The local guide promised to personally take care of Alec for us, who was now making sand castles on the beach. So off we went. The interview and the shooting was a breeze. The seabed walking was kinda exciting. Each of us had a very heavy helmet which was rested on our shoulders with a pipe pumping air into the helmet with an air pressure great enough to keep the water out of the helmet. We were to climb down a ladder to the seabed which was only about 5 meters deep, I was told. There was a crew there with one person holding the two of us at our backs on our waists to prevent us from falling down. There was another couple there going through the same deal as ours, and apparently they were shot candid by the TV crew, and was only told afterwards that if they’d let them air the shots, they’d get the seabed walking free of charge.
The walk itself was easy, with an occasional strong current that had me holding the guiding rope tight with one hand and holding Melinda’s hand on the rope with the other. A path was routed out with two other ropes about one foot above the seabed and about 3 feet apart. We were supposed to walk sideways like crabs do without stepping over the set path. The seabed was full of corals and there must have been hundreds of fishes around us waiting to be fed. The scuba diver showed us various types of sea creatures around. All this time, we couldn’t see our backs with the astronaut type helmets on, and that felt kinda of eerie for me. The entire walk took about 25 minutes and it was quite an experience. Unfortunately my camera, the Canon AS-1 underwater camera, could only go down to 3 meters at the most, and left me with no choice but the leave it on the surface.
Alec Feeding Fishes
Back to the island and we couldn’t find Alec for about 10 minutes. I immediately regraded going away from Alec and had me worried. It turned out that Stanley had taken him for swim on the other side of the beach. We then did some snorkeling and headed back for lunch. Lunch as OK, nothing worth mentioning. After lunch, it was time to head back to the hotel.
At the Street Market
After a shower and a short rest at the hotel, we charted a van with Stanley and his family to a local street market which is more or less like the “Women Street” Tung Choi St. in Kowloon, HK. I didn’t find anything interesting enough to buy there.
At the Islamic Restaurant
“Lai Cha”
Naan
We strolled off the market and was wondering what to have for dinner. We decided to try out a couple of restaurants one after the other. We went in to this Islamic restaurant were they serve “Lai Cha” which is tea prepared by pouring from one container in one hand on to another container in there other hand with a maximum spread of the arms creating a “waterfall” like pour of the tea. Not sure if the preparation had anything to do with the taste and texture of the tea, but it tasted very good. We also had naan, plain curry, and curry mutton. The naan was exceptional. We then headed to another restaurant which serves both cantonese and malaysian cuisines. That was OK also. After dinner, we headed back the hotel.
Continue on to Day 3.
Sepi Island looks like a decent place to dive.
I must say the Islamic restuarant looks very tempting.
Local waters were very shallow, which makes it not a bad place for novice diving. There were a greater varity of fishes over at Manukan Island than Sepi Island, where both islands are right by each other. There is supposed to be one island there without any restaurant. Given enough time I would like to have gone there instead hoping that there might be a lot less visitors and hense garbage. Not that there were a lot of garbage at Sepi or Manukan, just a few chip bags and chocolate wrappings were enough to make them not so desirable.
You might also want to find another country with clearer water as well. I would think the water would be more clear here in the winter with less rain.
Naan here at this particular restaurant is a must-try. When we went there the second time with the van driver, he told us that that Islamic restaurant has the best naan in town. It is just called the Restron Islamic, I think. Becareful though as we’d noticed later that most of these kind of restaurant looked very much alike.