Note : This has been pre-typed ages and ages ago.
When I first heard about the snorkeling trip to the Satang Island of Sarawak. Boy, was I excited. However, when the day of the trip drew closer and closer, I was wondering if was crazy enough to say that I’d wanted to go. It meant that I’d have to sacrifice my Sunday sleep in. I’d have to be up by 5:30am. I love my sleep. I think I love my sleep more than I do anything else!!! There was not guarantee that the water would be really clear being year end and all. What I really wanted to see were dolphins and turtles, and obviously there isn’t a guarantee. Besides, these two creatures are pretty hard to spot. Chances of seeing them were pretty much slim. The only guarantee of what we would see for sure were fishes. Corrals. Sharks? But in what are the chances of that as well right?
Sunday, 16th October 2006 soon came around. When my alarm rang, all I wanted to was to shut
it off, roll over and head back to dreamland. Which I knew that
I couldn’t. Not after having committed to the trip and paying for it. What I did do however, was to hit my snooze button quite a few times. :P Dragged myself out of bed bleary-eyed and headed for
the bathroom. And the rest as they say, is history. Tek and I were to pick up my brother and Joe as well. We didn’t quite think of preparing any other food since this is our first trip out. All we were told was that no pork was allowed with respect to our boatmen. So what we did was to just buy cans of premixed tuna and crackers. Joe outdid us all. He prepared a huge sandwich using a frenchloaf, stuffed it with cornbeef, onions, garlic, egg and cheddar cheese (drool, drool).
Once the 4 of us were in the car, off we went to Siang Siang, MJC where we’d scheduled to meet up with Whei Shing, Alvin and the rest that were going for the diving/snorkeling trip. Siaw Fung and Melissa were meeting us @ Sematan itself, and the poor girls waited more than an hour for us. The agreed time was to reach Sematan before 8am, but with the dilly-dallying that happened, we reached there @ 9am.
Last minutes provisions were obtained @ the sleepy town of Sematan. We then headed to the jetty to meet up with the boat that will be taking us out to sea. By then, I was already gripped with excitement. The skies were clear and the weather was great. It was slightly hazy but that didn’t put much damper to our mood. Everyone was in a jovial and basically anticipating the diving/snorkeling sessions.
Our boatmen were two very friendly men whom we were to later learn had extremely keen eyesight. They could spot sights that were far off and rather indistinguishable to the untrained eyes of us city people.
The Talang-Talang Islands are basically divided into 2 islands known as Talang-Talang Besar (Big Talang-Talang) and Talang-Talang Kecil (Small Talang-Talang). Both these islands apparently do have different coral structures. These islands are also known as turtle sanctuaries which is under our Forestry Department. They are also one of the most successful turtle sanctuaries that we have. Being a sanctuary and all, it is obvious then that visitors to these islands are advised not to remove anything from the corals here. From the jetty of Sematan, it took us slightly over half an hour to reach Talang-Talang Kecil. During our boat ride over to these islands, Ernest our guide for the trip told us to keep our eyes on a lookout. Who knows?? We might be lucky enough to spot dolphins!! Sadly though … we didn’t see any.
My mood soon perked up once more when we reached Talang-Talang Kecil. Disappointed as I was when we didn’t spot any dolphins on our way there, I would just (perhaps? If I’m willing to sacrifice my sleeping hours!) make another trip out here to try and spot them. The minute we looked into the water, I was very much pleasantly surprised @ the clarity of it. We could see all the way down to the seabed where the corals were growing in abundance. We could also see fishes that were busy darting around the corals and nibbling (on algae I guess..) @ the bottom of the seabed. Ernest briefed the divers and snorkelers before we jumped in full of excitement. There were basic safety precautions that we had to adhere to which were simple enough. We were also informed that the corals that were living around Talang-Talang Kecil, were hard
corals. They weren’t those soft and wavy kinds that we normally see on television. The fishes that we saw here were also very much different from those that we normally see living in corals on television. Because, these corals are hard corals, they aren’t as colourful as their relatives. There are rather dull coloured. So most of the fishes, that were living around these corals aren’t all that colourful either. We did manage to spot quite a few different spesies of fishes though it wasn’t an easy job!! The speed that those fishes were darting about, you basically just get quick glimpse of them.
After frolicking around for about an hour, suddenly one of the boatmen gave a yell.
“Penyu! Penyu!”, (Turtle! Turtle!) he yelled scaring the living daylights out of us that were hanging around the boat. Once the initial shock wore off in seconds, excitement started buzzing. We started scanning to the area where he was pointing towards. The island’s rocky coastline. However, to our untrained eyes, we could see nothing except lumps and lumps of rocks everywhere. Tried as we could, we could not see and there he was jumping and pointing for he was worth.
“Tuu… yang putih tuuuu!! Kat sana tuuuuu!!!”, he kept pointing and yelling out to us. Blindly, we just started to swim towards the spot he was pointing to. Sure enough, halfway there, we finally spotted the turtle!! It was flapping its flippers @ us and apparently was stuck because of the lowtide. It then slid into a pool of water where it got stuck. Half of the poor turtle’s body was submerged in the water but because of its body size and awkward position, it couldn’t manage to haul itself out. Instead it floundered around with 1 flipper out in the air helplessly. Poor turtle. As we neared the coastline, we started to flounder ourselves. Boy, were the rocks slippery!! I for one am sure that I looked more clumsy than the turtle as I tried to clamber up those rocks!
Getting the turtle out was real hard work. Real heavy and we're told that it isn't fully grown. The poor turtle kept banging it's head against the pool that it was stuck in while trying to get itself out. Took quite a fair bit of muscle strenght to manoeuvre it into the correct position and to push it up to give it the balance it needed to haul itself out and into the sea.
The experience seeing and being able to touch the turtle? Amazing. I was thrilled. I’d wanted to see turtles, but never did I imagine I would be able to see it so close and to touch it!! We then tried to help the turtle out of the pool. Heavy!!!!!!!!!!! We didn’t think that turtles are that heavy. It took the three guys to manage to help the turtle to maneuver out of its awkward position. Once the turtle hit the sea, it was an entirely different from the clumsy creature that it seemed to be on land. It became graceful and extremely speedy. After seeing its speed and grace in the water, I can understand now why some people say that turtles are the birds in the sea. It just torpedoed itself away.
With that excitement done with, we headed back to our boat for lunch. Joe’s concoction was awesome. Add hungry tummies to the timing, it was out of the world.
When the divers came back and we’d also had some food to munch on. We headed off to the 2nd island. Talang-Talang Besar.
The corals here were totally different from Talang-Talang Kecil. Here there were soft corals as well and we could see many colourful fishes darting back and forth. The water here was also a lot deeper compared to the waters over @ Talang-Talang Kecil. It was rather intimidating for me when I ventured into the water. Due to the depth, one couldn’t see too far ahead except the bluish hue of the waters. Below me as I snorkeled I could see such an array of corals. Corals that came in multitude of colours. Fishes
that came in varying colours. Saw Nemo (clown fish) too!!! But no Dory … L There were just so many varieties of fishes that we saw that we can’t remember all. However, there was one that made an appearance that strikes fear in most thanks to the movies Jaws! I suppose seeing a small shark would be a norm thing .. except that the shark that Melissa saw which swam beneath here was no small little shark!! Never did we think that our trip would be so exciting. We’d expected lots of fun, but never in our wildest dream so far did we expect to see so much! Much less experience so much.
Lookieeeee!!! It's Nemo!! 2 different spesies if you can spot the smaller one on the left hand side of the pic.
Despite the assurance that the shark is harmless so long as we don’t try any tricks on it, none of us really wanted to go back into the water. Only the guys went back into the water to try to retrieve a snorkel that had fallen into the water which was rather futile since it was quite far down. In the end, Alvin’s help was enlisted to retrieve it.
But the best was yet to come. The most wonderful surprise of all came right @ the end of our trip. Dolphins!!! We saw a school of 4-5 dolphins surfaced. That explained why schools of fishes were swimming and flying away into the air minutes before we saw the dolphins. They were trying not to end up as dinner. It was just totally awesome! It was a sight to behold.
Sorry folks, you'd have to zoom in on the pic to be able to see the dolphin's dorsal fins that are I managed to catch on camera. They didn't quite jump like Flippers in the movies. Still .. it was pretty awesome
So, would I go out again for another trip as such? DEFINITELY!!! Sacrificing my sleep was very much worth it and I would do it again!
The group of us that went out. Half went diving, half went snorkeling.
PS : Please note. Should you be interested to dive/take up diving lessons or go on such trips, please check out this website : www.wetwolfdive.com and the contact person is a Mr. Ernest Teo who by the way is the sitting in the middle on the top row. It was thanks to him that we'd a great trip.
The recommendable steak with red wine sauce. Too yummylicious for words!!
