My last solo dive trip was to Sipadan, Malaysia, at the recommendation of the same friend who persuaded me to learn diving in the first place. The trip started out a disaster. Through no one’s fault but my own, I missed my connection and had to sleep at the airport, and ended up almost missing the first day trip. Since there’s strict timing requirements for dives, if I missed this first day, I wouldn’t be able to complete my full advanced diving certification training.
Thankfully the nice people at the diving school decided to wait for me on a small boat, and I was able to catch up with the big group. The main group was a few friends from Hong Kong, who had been diving forever, and they quickly took me under their wings. They literally saved my life when I accidentally pressed the wrong button and was sprinting to the surface (at the risk of my lungs exploding due to the expanding air), and did not yell at me at all even though I chased away a rare school of barracudas with my over-excitement (ok, we were under water so it was a little hard to yell anyway). They are frequent visitors to Sipadan, and knows all the good local joints. I ended up joining them for dinner every night, having the freshest seafood cooked to perfection. Then we’d go back to the hostel (owned by the dive school) and chill on the balcony with a beer in hand, and talk about the fishes. What started out as a disaster ended up being one of my favorite trips ever, thanks to these guys.
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