This picks up from the previous post.
At the first point, we got lucky and saw all kinds of fish I could not name, a turtle, a ray, anemones, and Nemo, so I had not even noticed how tired I was. Once we got back on the boat, I talked it over with my family.
My younger sibling, my mother, and I have always liked the water, so I was not worried about us. But my father is not that fond of it, and I had wondered whether I had booked too intense a schedule. Seeing that he was enjoying himself and getting excited too was a relief.
Straight on to the second point.
From above the water, the second point looked deeper than the first. It did turn out to be deeper, with slightly rougher waves too.
The guide said that if you are lucky, you sometimes see sharks here. We had already seen a turtle and a ray that day, so I got excited thinking, maybe a shark too? So, into the water at the second point!
They said the first point was 4 m deep and the second was 7 m, and it was deep enough that I could really feel the difference. Maybe because of that depth, the corals were a little darker too.
It had a completely different feel from the bright, cheerful first point. The fish were bigger too, and there were lots of darker fish that somehow looked tougher.
I was snorkeling along peacefully when my family and the guide were pointing somewhere and watching. I looked over and saw a huge fish moving along the bottom between the corals.
Even though the bottom was quite far below where we were snorkeling, it was so big that my first thought was, is that a shark? The guide told me from the surface that it was a grouper.
I had not caught it on video or in a photo, so I searched Google. It looks
pretty wild.
A fish that eats sharks??? Maybe it was lucky that it did not notice me?
After seeing the grouper, I went back to snorkeling along peacefully until the boat came to pick us up.
The boat came much earlier than it had at the first spot, so I was disappointed, thinking the second spot was already over. But just as I was about to get on, the guide gestured for me to follow him. I did, and ended up snorkeling for another 40 to 50 minutes or so, about as long as at the first spot.
When I got back on the boat, my wife was already there. She said the long boat ride and being tossed around in the rougher waves had made her seasick.
I had even looked up and packed motion-sickness medicine in Korea, and then could not use it when it actually mattered. Of course.
The pharmacy had confidently recommended that medicine when I said I was taking a boat. I guess we will get a chance to try it someday?
After we finished snorkeling at the second spot, my wife’s seasickness settled down. While we waited on the boat for another group that was scuba diving, I suddenly got very hungry.
We had rushed out and barely eaten breakfast, and there had been so many twists and turns since the tour started. Maybe the hunger hit once the tension finally wore off.
Luckily, the rest of the plan was to get off at an island for lunch and a short break, then do the final snorkeling session.
Once the diving group of Western tourists joined us on the boat, we headed for the island. As I sat there spacing out, we arrived at a place called Padang Point beside Sapi Island.
You reach the island via a deck, and just like in the city, there are Malaysian flags everywhere.
As soon as you arrive, there is a small beach and a restaurant right there. At the restaurant,
we ordered the two kinds of fried rice the guide recommended.
The yellow fried rice in the photos below was just ordinary fried rice—not especially good or bad, but good enough to enjoy after snorkeling. The fried rice with the dark sauce was delicious, though. I would like to have that one again.
After a proper break, we got on the boat for the final, third point. On the way, something was coming toward the boat through the water.
Even from far away, I could see the dark shape getting closer. The guide said crocodiles sometimes show up, and while this black thing kept coming toward us, I was quietly hoping it might be the turtle I had missed earlier.
Up close, it turned out to be a lizard swimming along without a care. It was the first time in my life I had seen a lizard swim.
I think it was also the first time I had seen a wild lizard that big. And it could swim that well. Looking back, it may have stayed with me more than the turtle did.
The lizard made the ride to the third point even more fun. Luckily, the waves were calmer and the water was relatively shallower than at the second point. Knowing it was the last one made me even more determined. I am going to take all of this in!
There were more brightly colored corals here, like at the first point. One huge yellow coral stands out because I did not get a photo or video of it.
I found a photo that came as close as I could get. There was a yellow, mountain-shaped coral like the one in the picture, with fish of all kinds of colors moving around it. It was really beautiful.
When I looked more closely, it seemed like there were territories within the coral too. Watching larger fish boss the smaller ones around reminded me of the early days with my aquarium, when the bigger Nemo picked on the smaller one so much that I eventually had to separate them.
If I could scuba dive, I might have been able to see it from a little closer. Watching only from the surface did leave me feeling a bit regretful.
Leaving that regret behind, I kept watching other corals and fish and found a place where lots of tiny fish had gathered.
Normally, fish rush to hide among the corals or farther away if a person gets even a little close. These ones barely moved away even when I got almost right next to them.
I swam with them and looked ahead. Moving in the same direction as all those fish made me feel like I had become a whale in a documentary, with small fish swimming around it.
After that little whale experience, I drifted around following the fish wherever they went and somehow ended up toward the shore. Looking down, I saw something piled up all over the bottom.
They were branching coral skeletons!!! So many of those precious rocks piled up on the bottom—it was strange to think this might once have been a coral colony all the way out here.
Keeping corals has made me realize over and over how important temperature is, so seeing so many dead corals in the wild made me sad too.
I had been on my own for too long, so I went back to my family.
My wife and father, who are still not used to swimming, had been holding tightly onto that tube the whole time. My mother, my younger sibling, and I are comfortable in the water, but for the last ten minutes or so, all of us ended up clinging to the tube and floating there. I was only there to be with my wife, so I have no idea why everyone else did it too haha.
Once snorkeling was over, we arrived back at the DBKK JETTY where we had started. After getting the photos and videos the guide had taken, the snorkeling part of the day was officially over!
The guide had used a DJI camera, so we needed the DJI app to receive the photos. The app was about 1 GB, and between no signal at sea and slow internet, downloading it alone took about 20 minutes. Sending the photos took another ten or so. If you ever take a similar tour, it may help to check this before you set off so you can wrap things up more quickly.
There was unfortunately no changing room at the jetty, so we changed in the restroom using the spare clothes we had brought, then took a Grab back to the Hilton.
There were lots of people standing by the entrance to the jetty, so I thought getting a Grab might be hard. It was not, though. Just like usual, we easily got one and arrived at the hotel!
And then….
The ramen we had at the hotel was honestly one of the best things we ate on the trip haha.
