My Paradise in Celebes Sea 2011 - Day 3 , 6 June 2011, Kapalai and Mabul Island

Its a beautiful day with some clouds.  The water is crystal clear, we started our journey to Kapalai.  It took us more than 1 hour in pakcik traditional boat.  The visibility in Kapalai is good and the coral is healthy although lots of people stay there.

The boat stop at a drop off near Kapalai sand bar and we started snorkeling.  The fish there is big in size and we also saw lots of clown fish.  They are only a few step away from the water bungalow.  Although the area is not big, we still swim for more than 3 hours there.  We enjoy our snorkeling there as we swim up and down for more than 10 times.

We keep on snorkeling until the visibility become low.  I raised up my head to see why, it is going to rain.  The rain started and we came out from the water.

The rain is so heavy until our boat man also lost his way.  We can't see anything.  Now only I realize they don't have any compass or other equipment, they only look at the landmark to drive the motorboat.  So we advised him to go back to Kapalai, we afraid we will go to Philippines as its only a few kilometre away.

We waited and waited.  The wind is so strong and the waves is so rough, our boat keep on swaying.  To compare with the waves in Antarctica, it is nothing.  We were so cold as we don't bring extra clothes.  We just have swim suit.

Luckily the rain stop after 30 minutes.  So we set off to Mabul Island and have our packet lunch from Feng Ling.  We have a short visit Mabul Water Bungalow and started snorkeling again near the jetty.  We didn't use any fin and found out it is difficult to swim without them.  We saw lion fish under the jetty, so we swim near them, in a sudden I heard my sister shouted snakes, immediately we swam away. I didn't see the snake, but snake is my life-threatening animal.  I don't give them a chance.

There were lots of rubbish in the water, but the visibility is good.  The coral is also quite healthy with lots of coral fish.   The clown fish is awesome.

I am thinking, if they don't pollute the area, I think Mabul is a snorkeling paradise.  I slept while snorkeling in Mabul for 3 times, thanks Ching for waking me up.  Why we still snorkeling is because there are a lots of coral fish, my favorite.

We even saw some Malay stepping on the coral, now only I knew why all the coral in Timba-timba die, if everyday have a boat with this kind of no moral value people and they don't know how to preserve our nature,  off course all the coral will be dead.  Beside is the picture of the stupid Malay that damage the coral.

Before they came, the sea anemone and clown fish is fine, after they step on it, the sea anemone drop from the rock.  They also make the visibility in the water become low.



We snorkeling until the boat man call us off, than we go back.  After shower, we went to Mei Xiang Restaurant to have our seafood dinner.  The food is delicious and quite cheap.  I love their butter prawn, 12 big butter prawn only cost us RM 12, the crab is nice too.  We also have a chance to eat 2 kilo of 东风螺, my favourite food.  This is also the reason I keep on going to Sabah each year to taste 东风螺.