Pom Pom Island

Pom Pom Island is on the east coast of Sabah. It's not quite in the famed Sipadan set of islands, but for second-best, it's not bad... We unfortunately had to fly, as with work I couldn't make the 8-hour drive to Tawau in time for the transfer to the island. It felt like a rather crazy dog's leg, driving west to Kota Kinabalu, then flying east over the mountain range I live in, to Tawau, but it takes far less time. It's a 40-minute boat ride from Semporna to get to the island, through water villages and past other islands.

We also saw some kids collecting shrimps from a homemade trap, in amongst the wooden houses of the water village next to the jetty.

It's a bit bizarre, the lovely, brand-new, hardwood jetty, next to some of the poorest houses I've seen in Sabah.

It gets more bizarre, though, when you arrive at the island, which is absolute paradise.

On the day we arrived, there was an earthquake in the Philippines, which meant I did my diving certificate in water that the instructor described as "murky, horrible."

Shall I show you a picture?

Ok, I'll admit that it did get a little bit murkier the following day. I did the second half of my certificate in surging sea. I had to kneel on an underwater concrete platform for some of the exercises; my knees afterwards looked like a schoolgirl's, and not in a cute way. My instructor promised sharks when she saw all the blood, but it wasn't to be... Concentrating on the instructions was really tough when I was being dragged five metres and dumped on the sea floor inches away from spiny anemones half a metre wide. Okay, maybe not half a metre, but close. They were big, alright? 

I eventually got to dive below the swell, and it was amazing, with crocodile fish, lots of Nemo fish (if anyone still calls them clownfish, I have yet to meet those people... even my instructor called them Nemos) and several turtles. One was so enormous, I didn't see it at first, in that way that the human brain has of mentally filing a very large animal as a very large piece of sea floor.

When we left on Sunday morning, it was still unfortunately feeling the effects of the earthquake and was really very gloomy below the jetty as we walked to the boat. Ah well. I guess I'll have to go again sometime to see it when it's really good.