Mabul continued

Mark and I ended up spending 5 nights on Mabul Island, which was absolutely fantastic. We met loads of interesting people who we challenged to cards, Jenga and chess. The 'Penthouse Suite' continued to be a great place to stay, feeling like you are sleeping outdoors and with a view to die for. It was interesting to go for a night dive. Everything looks very different and in a way it's even more peaceful with vision being really restricted to your torchlight. The plankton looks beautiful under the moonlight and there are lots of new crustaceans that come out to play by night. Huge brittle starfish eerily crawl into rock crevices and are the size of octopi, turtles rest on the coral beds and look up sleepily under the torchlight, large eels are actively snaking around hunting for food and baby squid playing in the currents. It also makes you feel slightly like an extra in a James Bond movie jumping into the sea in pitch darkness wearing your weight belt and wetsuit. Just need the diver's knife clenched between the teeth…

On our last day, Mark and I walked around the island and snuck into the posh floating bungalow's reef. It was the most beautiful day – cloudless sky, warm breeze and the sea an unbelievable turquoise where the silky soft sand banks interspersed with the reef. The visibility was unreal and as with the rest of Mabul, even just snorkeling you can see some much aquatic life. I had a comedy moment when I felt something tugging at my fins – on turning around I saw a Titan Trigger fish with teeth bared trying to defend its territory. I quickly swim away on my back facing it so I could kick it every time it went for my legs and the little bastard chased me for about 20m and until I reached Mark, who was laughing. Then it went for Mark – haha! It's territory must have covered a huge distance as we had to swim another 5-10m before it left us alone – very funny. Also, we were waiting for the dive boat to come back so we could all have lunch together and we wondering why it was so late (we could see them about 400m out). We found out when they got back and guessed due to the huge smiles on their faces that they had been snorkeling with two Whale Sharks. Lucky buggers. JG