Sibu Island

Since we had a three day weekend for the Easter holiday we took a trip to Sibu Island, Malaysia.  It is about a three hour trip from Singapore.  We hired a driver who drove us to a jetty then we boarded a speed boat to the resort.  Since we left after work on Thursday it was dark when we boarded the boat.  It was one of the most beautiful boat rides I have ever been on.  The moon was almost full, there were hundreds of stars and as the boat cut through the water it looked like fireflieswere in the water.  It was bioluminescence.  I have never seen anything like it before and it was incredible.

The view from the resort bar area.

Our room

Room

I saw this funny looking structure on the water and asked the boat driver what it was.  He explained that it is a fish farm. We saw many fish farms in Vietnam but they were much smaller and not in the middle of the ocean. It looked like a storm would blow it over.

This island was one of the islands we dived (this is the correct tense for dive when referring to scuba) around.

Me diving in my new gear.

This was my favorite picture from the trip.  I use to have a salt water tank and loved having clown fish.  I was thrilled to see bunches of them this weekend.

 

I thought this coral was really different and cool.

We saw some really cool fish.  We even saw a sea turtle that was about 2 feet across.  It swam so fast we did not get a picture but we got a good look at it as it swam right in front of me.

At times we would look up the entire area would be full of fish.

Another one of my favorite pictures!

There were really vividly colored corals and anemones.

And if all of that were not enough, this was the what we saw as we surfaced from our dive. 

So once again another exciting weekend in southern Asia.  Miranda will be here in two more weeks and we have some really fun trips planned. 

Open Water Diving

Sorry for the lack of updates...you know how it is life gets in the way of things sometimes!  Anyway, since this year is suppose to be about adventure I have found something that is truly adventurous!  We decided to get our scuba certification.  Let me rephrase that, Greg decided that we should get our scuba certification and I declined.  I was having no part of being shark bait. That was until my BFF, who tells me the truth instead of what I want to hear, reminded me that living is about stepping outside of our comfort zones and experiencing new things.  This along with Miranda getting her certification peer pressured me into this adventure.  I am now certified and am really glad I did it.  This statement comes with only 5 dives under my belt with ZERO shark sightings so we will see...  I miss everyone and hope you enjoy the pictures. 

We had 11 people go to Tioman including us. 

This is more of the group.  It is nice to have good friends to share the adventures.

Greg before we went out for the first time.  Please note the smile because later in the day none of us were smiling.  We arrived at the resort at 3AM and had to get up to dive at 9.  The waves were coming over the side of the boat.

I used the term resort loosely when referring to where we stayed!

Greg entering for his first dive.

This is my first dive also.

During the training dives we had to hold onto a rope so none of us got lost.  The visibility the first day was very low, I think about 5 meters. 

This was on our second or third dive but we were still training.

How sweet...

We were shown this later by one of the instructors as something we "saw".  Apparently I saw things that I did not even realize!

Of course, this is my favorite.  I had a salt water tank years ago and had clown fish.  Seeing these fish made my entire day on Sunday and the weekend worth it.  They were amazing.

Then again maybe the sunset on the beach made it all come together.   It is hard to have words to describe the way the sunset makes me feel especially after such an incredible day.