Dive weekend

For my dive trip to Sipadan — a world famous diving destination — I must have my Advanced Open Water certification. So I got that done, this weekend while enjoying five fabulous dives in the TARP. Stands for Tunku Abdul Rahman Park named for first chief minister of the Federation of Malaya from 1955 to 1957. He supervised the independence process that culminated on 31 August 1957.

First pictures, on the boat and at the dive island.

Some flora and fauna from the dive island. This first little guy is a nudibranch. It’s a sea slug. They come in a wide variety of colors and configurations and are so popular that they have their own diver’s hand-sign to indicate when you see one.

Sea cucumber poop (they eat sand, their body processes what they need and then they poop out these kind of amazing little curls of sand) which litters the beach when the tide is out.

A tropical plant that I simply thought was cool the way it is unfolding.

The baby monkey that comes close. Papa monkey who got into a bag of chips.

A rather large monitor lizard, s. I took the picture late so it looks like only a few monkeys out on the grass field, but a whole bunch of them came out of the jungle when our lunch left overs were put out!

My new BFF Phillip from Germany took some underwater photos, including of me doing my AOW course and says he will email them to me. Hopefully he got the black-fin shark, octopus, cuttlefish and other amazing things ! I’ll post them here if he sends them.

The dives (mainly for me.) The lunches, mainly for JM.