Family and diving go hand in hand.

I apologize once again for the lateness of all these posts. Not that you were waiting or anything. Hah. Also, thanks to the amazing Niki for designing my watermark!! You'll see it on the photos towards the end.

The next day we were off to Mabul. Letter served as the DM again, Baby came along, and the diving couple from the day before was with us as well. Our first dive was at the house reef.
Ok, let me pause and tell you how much I dislike the house reef. Yes, I know they bring people there b/c it’s something different to look at besides the real reef (it’s basically an artificial reef of sorts) but I really don’t find it interesting. Sorry. The only things worth looking at there are the giant groupers, the giant (lone) barracuda, and maybe the school of jackfish. That’s about it. Give me some real reef for crying out loud! I am such a snob.
Anyway. This was my third time there this trip (once is ok, but three times? c’mon) and I was getting bored. It didn’t help that Letter totally bypassed most of the structures and we didn’t see much. Sigh. Strike one of the day for Letter. We anchored our boat in between Scuba Junkie (and everyone goes EWWWW!!) and Borneo Divers (yayyyyy). Whilst I was trying to get warm by sitting on top of the boat I saw Maadil and we had a smashing conversation…ok, well it was more like yelling since he was a ways away. Maadil is such a bawse. Have I said that yet? Anyway, during our surface interval one of the guests wanted to go on land b/c she was getting seasick. So we let them off at SWV and docked there. Then we proceeded to collectively decide to forfeit our second dive since the guests wanted to and the rest of us were tired. Haha. So I promptly took a nap b/c I thought everyone else was going to, but no. Apparently Letter decided to tell everyone his exciting stories as a gangster. Like legit gangster. But, more on that later. After lunch and chilling out on the boat we decided to do our next dive at Paradise 2. Here’s where the fun began. (Please note: Sarcasm) So we go down and we reach the sandy bottom (b/c you dive deeper in the beginning and then shallower in the end where the reef usually is…etc. etc.) And we’re swimming along the sandy bottom for the LONGEST time. I motioned to Letter that we needed to go towards the left to reach the reef, but he wouldn’t listen to me. Strike two. And THEN one of our guests had been swimming with his feet higher than his torso (which usually means they have too much air in their BCD or their not properly weighed or their buoyancy is just that terrible…haha) so Letter told him to take some air out of his BCD, which requires one to be vertical in the water. Well, Letter went on his merry way to go search for the reef (in the wrong direction still) so that left ME to make sure the guy was ok except I didn’t realize Letter had left us. Yeah…the guy totally almost blew through his safety stop and I looked around for Letter, who was nowhere to be found. Strike three. So guess who had to go rescue the poor guy? Oooo!! Pick me!! I always really hate having to pull people down from floating away. But, you gotta do whatcha gotta do. So, I went up, pulled him down, and gave him one of my weights (I usually wear 2 kg of weights just in case someone needs one b/c I can dive fine with just 1 kg). And then both of us were lopsided…haha. This is where I told Letter once again that the reef was on our left side and we needed to stop going straight. But did he listen to me? Nope. He’s SO hardheaded!!! ARGHHH. He claimed that he thought it went deeper to the left, which it did NOT. By this time it was already 30 mins into our dive. We decided to surface since there was absolutely NOTHING down there. When we came up, where was the reef? Oh, on the left side. BADUMPCHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Who has dived more times in Paradise 2? ME. Thank you very much. I rest my case. ANYWAYS, after scolding Letter for a good while we decided to rest for a bit and do a short shallow third dive. Lol. Letter is never going to live this down. =) Since I love Paradise 2, it was very enjoyable and thankfully nothing terribly exciting happened, or else I don’t think I could’ve handled it. Haha.

Our fearless boatman, Basir, and our boatman assistant, Black.

Pulau Mabul. <3

If you look really closely you can see Maadil on the boat...haha.

Seaventure dive company. The converted oil rig. There's some awesome muck diving down there.

He thinks he's sexy.

So we gave these Bajau boys food...and then they sang to us...and wouldn't leave. haha.

Letter thinks he looks cool with my sunglasses.

Vis was bad, but that didn't stop this turtle from tryin' to get the ladies.

Hey, dude!

I saw this and instantly thought of Arody and Sophie...and a certain sea snake we saw in Tonga...haha.

Sunday arrived and we had decided earlier that it would be our “go-into-town-and-get-everything-we-needed” day otherwise known as “Keri-becomes-girly-for-a-day." So go into town we did. And by town, I mean the one that’s an hour away that’s a lot bigger than Semporna. We went to go get dim sum and I finally got to eat some of my favorite dishes. Fried yam cake and fried radish cake with eggs. Mmmmmm. Haven’t had that in a while. We all (and by all, I mean the girls) wanted to get our nails done (b/c it’s super cheap and they do a really good job) but the workers hadn’t gotten there yet. So what did we do? We went shopping for clothes. (But of course.) I had a lot of fun trying everything on. =) Then we went to one of those shops that have all those cutesy Asian-looking stuffed animals. What did I instantly gravitate towards? Stitch. B/c I LOVEEEEEE Lilo and Stitch!! Eeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!! So adorable!!! Somehow this summer I influenced Baby to like Stitch too. HAH. So we both bought a Stitch…hers was huge and mine was a small pillow-ish looking one. Then Baby left to go meet up with her friends and Auntie Beth and I went to get our nails done. They have so many workers (b/c there’s so many people that go to this particular place) that you can get a mani and pedi at the same time AND you can get a design on your nails for super cheap too. *Pretends to be super girly* Some of the workers were deaf and had to sign to us to see what we wanted done. It was so cool! They’re all super good and really precise. If mani’s and pedi’s were that good and cheap, I’d get them done a lot more often than like…once a year. Haha. After that I went to go get my hur DID. (Said in a ghetto accent…just for Raygene) And by that, I meant I went to get my hair trimmed, thinned/layered, and then washed. OHMYWORD. When you get your hair washed anywhere there they give you a head massage for like half an hour. It’s OH-mazing!!! I need a moment. Sigh. Ok. I’m done. After that we went to eat a late lunch then went and picked Baby up. And thus concluded my day of being girly. I have now reached my monthly quota of being girly. That night was Lee Chong Wei vs Lin Dan in the badminton gold medal match. I’m pretty sure ALL of Malaysia was breathlessly watching the match to see if Lee Chong Wei would win the gold/revenge against Lin Dan (who he lost the gold to in Beijing)/get the RM4.5 million promised to any Malaysian that won gold in the Olympics. We stopped by BGS to see if anyone wanted to go yum cha with Raymond (Baby’s cousin on her mom’s side but we’re all kinda like cousins anyway) and his wife, Baby, and me. We found the whole reception area full of people including Letter who was staring very intently at the TV. We left them to their viewing pleasure and then Raymond decided that he wanted to go to the Floating.
Pause. Ok, the Floating is actually the Dragon Inn Hotel which is the only “hotel” that is over the water (hence the “floating”) in Semporna (basically little water bungalows or chalets). We grew up going there to randomly eat dinner and we used to love looking at the big fish they had in the nets looking all forlorn b/c we were going to eat them. Hahaha. But, after a while, the raised their food prices to an absurd amount (which is only really expensive outside of Malaysia especially Semporna) so we stopped going. Sad times. But it’s still pretty iconic here in Semporna and all tourists take tons of pictures of it. Haha. Ok, unpause.
So since Raymond’s wife is from KK and this was her first visit to Semporna we were trying to show her around (during night albeit). Thus yum cha at the Floating. Anyway, as we were expecting it was “expensive”, complaining that a cup of Milo cost RM4, which is still cheaper than in the US. LOL. In the meantime Lee Chong Wei unfortunately lost in the third match and everyone was super disappointed but still supported him to the utmost. GO MALAYSIA!! WOOT!! After we finished we drove around town just for the fun of it, showing her the other grand sights in Semporna (please note sarcasm). We made Raymond pass by Kampung Bangau-Bangau aka Kampung Famous. Read: The druggie village. And then we were being stupid on the way back telling her every single little detail down to who lived where…lol. Poor girl. She doesn’t know what she’s gotten herself into – our crazy family.

My ugly feet and pudgy toes....and beautifully done nails. Haha.

So on Monday, the fam bam and close staff once again embarked on an outing. This time it was with Aku Apo, Auntie Beth, Kian, Baby, Raymond, his wife, Jefrey, Roslee (the new DM), Letter, Black, and our boatman, Mahadir (or however you spell his name). We zoomed towards Pulau Adal, one of our beloved places to go to, for the first dive. Since we had so many people diving we ended up splitting in two groups half way through the dive. I love the coral there! Back on the surface we decided we wanted to go to shore…but alas, it was too shallow and we ended up getting stuck on some of the reef (I know, I know!! We’re horrible people). All the guys ended up having to get out to push the boat off the reef. Lol. Since going to shore wasn't an option we ended up anchoring our boat to a Bajau boat that we had just bought fish from. The owners of the boat then went onto a different fishing boat or something. Earlier, on our way to the island, we had stopped by another fishing boat to buy some small fish which was then cut up and mixed with green mangoes, chili, kitcai (aka small limes or calamansi), and dark soy sauce. Yes. Raw fish. It was really good (and probably super unhealthy…but hey…I’m still alive!). =) After lounging around for a while we did our second dive at a different dive spot but nearby. The kids went with Roslee for a fun dive while the rest of them went on…an expedition of sorts…lolol. Our dive was quite exciting and we’ll just say that Roslee received approval by the end of the dive from all of us. Haha. We’ll just leave it at that. ;) When we all finally surfaced Auntie Beth, Jefrey, and Letter decided to go back down to um…see something else…hahaha. After they finally surfaced we made our way to a different pulau to go to shore, this time to Timbun Mata. I love this place as well, great coral, not so much wildlife. Also, I have a dive site there that’s named after me. =D Baby and I decided to walk part of the island and snapped pictures while they were getting lunch ready. We ate till our hearts content
(with our HANDS, Bajau style!) and then headed back and called it a day. That night we had steamboat!!!! I love steamboat!!! Such a great family meal time. Basically it’s a special pot with an open flame fueled by propane, you put water so it’s boiling, and then you put different veggies and other things in it, my favorite being tofu and fishballs/fishcakes. =) SO. GOOD.