27.3.2010, Sandakan, Sabah, Malaysia

We spent the last night on Borneo in Sandakan, which isn't quite the mightiest metropol I've visited. Refreshingly, however, the Chinese owner in our hotel was a deadpan character with a larger than life collection of action movies and a knack for perfect Engrish.

24.-26.3.2010, Borneo, Sabah, Malaysia

We took one of Uncle Tan's infamous jungle safaris. While the jungle in question is a narrow strip of riverside forest surrounded by oil palm plantations, it manages to host a surprising variety of mammals and birds, the most famous of which are the hornbills.

The guides sailed the river and trod the paths relentlessly until they had managed to find all six native primate species for us. We caught a glimpse of the painfully endangered orangutans, but the proboscis monkeys remained the most stunning sight.

The kingfisher species were numerous and vivacious. On the night tour, the guide pointed out a sleeping individual and assured us that the bird would not know what hit it while we pointed our torches and flashlights at it. I had hard time believing this, but the bird didn't seem to mind. In fact, had the kingfisher not blinked every once in a while, I would've assumed it was a taxidermic item.

22.-23.3.2010, Sipadan, Malaysia

Now, I'm not exactly the most experienced diver in the world, but I have taken sixty dives in thirty locations all over the South Pacific including several sites at the Great Barrier Reef during the last three years. Yet, I never expected Sipadan. I never would've dreamt that from the very first second after getting my forehead wet in the waters of lagoon near Barracuda Point, I would be dumbfounded, thunderstruck, and in an utter state of aphasia. (How can you tell when you're underwater, you may ask. Well - first of all, from the fact that you have to hold the mouthpiece of your regulator with both hands to prevent it from falling from your mouth.) The very first thing passing by me in this shallow lagoon - while the crown of my head was still above the surface - was a caravan of hundreds of emerald green bumphead parrot fishes. Each of the bumpheads was less than a meter in length and equipped with a prominent beak, fearlessly gliding through our dive group two by two. King Kong was not as nonplussed when he first hit the streets of Manhattan as I was among this endless queue of ugly but gracious aliens.

*Copyright Albert Kang

Once we could take our eyes off this weird sight, we started to descend to our actual dive depth. To do that, we first swam about two fin strokes to reach to the edge of the reef - and here comes the thunderstruck part: the drop off below us was absolutely, perfectly vertical. We knew the ocean floor was down there at six hundred meters although we couldn't see it, just the huge blueish black void above which we were hovering. Imagine the vertigo that a window-washer of a skyscraper feels, looking down from the top of the Empire State Building and preparing to go down, and you may know what it felt like. Except, of course, that this wall was entirely covered with corals and palm-sized nudibranchs and patrolled by reef sharks.

Eventually, we had to dive the massive wall of Barracuda Point twice to find what we had come here for - the barracuda swirl. Thousands of meter-long predator fishes gather up to swim in circles and form a fish tornado that extends from the unseen depths almost all the way to the surface. Did I already say something about being flabbergasted?

We were lucky enough to get six dives at five sites in Sipadan - many divers get only three, and some get none, as diving is restricted by a limited number of natural park permits. At Hanging Gardens, for example, we had crystal clear visibility of more than thirty meters, revealing huge areas of the wall above and below us, every square inch covered with corals and reef fish more diverse and colorful than the lucid dream of a candy flipper. Our photos fail to do justice to Sipadan, but those of my dear readers who have joined the dark side called FB really should take a look at Albert Kang's magnificent video titled Sipadan, Malaysia - March 2010 at Seaventures Dive Resort's fan page.

Afterword

A few weeks after the Sipadan trip my colleagues and I went diving on Heron Island, considered by some as one of the top dive locations of the Great Barrier Reef. I would be lying if I said that I was bored to death by what the underwater scenery at Heron had to offer, but I must admit that I was disenchanted. You have been warned.

21.3.2010 Sunday, Seaventures oil rig, Mabul, Malaysia

It is not possible to stay overnight on Sipadan Island anymore, but the neighbourhood is dotted with stilt supported floating villages serving as launch points for Sipadan dives.

The floating villages seemed charming enough, but as they come in two vastly different flavours - targeting either the market of dirt rich Japanese or round-the-world travellers on a shoestring budget - and we weren't really either, we decided to choose a different kind of accommodation: an old decommissioned oil rig that was standing right on the shore of Mabul Island and had been refurbished with state-of-the-art diving facilities.

Unlimited number of dives directly underneath the oil rig were included in the price of our stay, and we didn't hesitate to take Seaventures up on their offer. We took the elevator of the rig to enter the water, and off we went. While the underwater scenery near Mabul is largely man-made and somewhat barren (that is, consists of steel grids, concrete slabs, old boats, car tyres and even toilet seats), the fauna was jaw-dropping. We saw nudibranchs (pictured), flatworms, giant barracudas, reef sharks, scorpion fish, turtles, moray eels, and a robust ghostpipefish (although we mistook the latter for a floating piece of detritus for quite some time). In the evening I took my first night dive ever.

20.3.2010 Saturday, Semporna, Sabah, Malaysia

We landed at Tawau in the south-eastern tip of Borneo on the 19th and took a late night taxi ride to the fishing village of Semporna. Half way along this 50 km long and poorly lit road we witnessed a gruesome sight: a truck and a minivan had recently collided with destructive results. There was a huge dark puddle of something that I hoped was oil on the asphalt.

The main purpose of our journey was to dive the legendary Sipadan Island, famous for its large pelagic fishes, of which our personal favourites are manta rays and their various ray cousins. Ironically, the first sight that greeted us in Semporna harbour was a two-meter devil ray being dissected by the local fishermen. Later on during our trip in Borneo we decided to take the opportunity to try blue-spotted ray, and to our horror, it turned out to be absolutely delicious. While I have no problem eating horse, and I would try dog meat if I had a chance, I would not have had the guts to eat any manta ray meat, but I have no doubts whatsoever that it tastes too sublime for its own good.

13.3.2010, Roma Street Parklands, Brisbane

Soundtrack of my life Moottoritie on kuuma Ari Taskinen & Petri Tiili

I wrote the last words of my thesis and listened to some of the brightest highlights of Finnish pop music on this very fine day. The world is calling me, and I am listening.