Rita explores the soft corals on the Rice Bowl Wreck
Brigitte, Nigel, Tino, Rita and Mark enjoyed a trip to Kota Kinabalu in early May to experience the wreck diving opportunities and we were very impressed by the BorneoDream team! Many thanks to Jo, Billy and Ron for making it happen with such a high degree of panache, these people have recently established themselves as a well-positioned and fully equipped dive centre in KK that cater to snorkellers, beginners and advanced divers alike with a taste for excellence.
Nigel and I bravely decided to drive to KK with loads of dive kit and a few passengers, whilst Brigitte took the easy option of flying with minimal kit in her check-in baggage and hiring what she needed on arrival. The drive to KK is simple even without GPS, we departed Panaga at 8:30am, were lost only once for a few minutes but discovered a wonderful indoor sports stadium at the end of a road in Limbang, and arrived in KK at 4:30pm, just 30 minutes before happy hour! Timing was flawless, an easy drive, lovely sky to view for the passengers and no floods to slow our progress.
Special thanks to Capt Jo and Bosun Zarina for skilled navigation, getting us spot on the wrecks
The Fortuner is about to be packed to the roof
Nigel patiently awaits his passport chops
Room upgrades were kindly provided by the Shangri-La upon check-in, resulting in complimentary drinks on the terrace overlooking Tunku Abdul Rahman Park, an IUCN World Heritage Site. The upgrades were well received with broad smiles crossing our faces! We met Jo and Billy at the Kinabalu Yacht Club Monday evening to enjoy the local camaraderie and agree a relaxed schedule for boarding their catamaran Borneo Dream 3 at our leisure. This plan that was seized upon by Nigel who arrived 30 minutes late Tuesday morning.
Mt. Kinabalu beckons from the balcony
Shhhh, sleeping babies
Objective of day one was to explore the “Rice Bowl Wreck”, two dives on a Japanese freighter of name unknown, lying in 35m of clear water just 35nm north of KK. This is a superb dive, look at the photos of the shy juvenile nurse sharks! Details of the wreck can be found on the panagadivers website:
At 35 metres, enjoying this dive site will invariably incur mandatory decompression stops during ascent, not a problem providing there is a secure shotline to assist in a controlled ascent. We found the resident batfish to be particularly curious, ascending with us from the bottom to the surface, possibly hoping for an edible treat, or merely observing our strange silent yellow boxes and the bubble-blowers accompanying us?
Jo and Rita pose for a photo in a slight current
The team comprised four Ambient Pressure Diving Closed Circuit Rebreather divers (www.apdiving.com), one on open circuit twinset and two on open circuit single 80cf cylinders breathing nitrox 30. Our open circuit divers completed their decompression stops using nitrox 50 adhering to a deco schedule set by the author that satisfied the safety margins of Prof Buhlmann who assumed air as the breathing gas for the entire dive. Such a nice safety margin, gotta like that!
BorneoDream is a superb dive platform, with more than enough deck space to sort out our dive kit. She is equipped with all the mod cons including a private head, twin bunk for those who desire a short kip between dives, all the safety gear one could dream of and a pair of quiet 140hp engines to propel us to our destination at a comfortable pace. Hey panagadivers! We need this boat plus more here in Brunei!
Three silent divers discover the propeller
Our second day was an interesting challenge, objective was to dive a relatively unexplored wreck that is close to KK and to complete Nigel’s ERD3 assessment on a murky but very intriguing “Gaya Wreck” lying upright in 50m. This is not a wartime wreck as she is largely intact but wow, this is an excellent dive! Jo and Billy expertly set the shotline across the stern allowing 25 minutes to explore a site that is rarely dived. The absence of photos is due to everyone being preoccupied with exploring this gem!
Day three took us back to the Rice Bowl Wreck at Usukan to find more evidence of her identity. One teacup, a rice bowl and saucer were not enough. A perfectly timed departure left us with expectations of two dives however Mother Nature turned and as the wind picked up there were white horses smiling at us upon surfacing from our first dive. Billy and his team wisely decided to turn the dive and head for the lee side of TARP where we enjoyed a relaxing dive on a relatively unexplored reef on the lee side of Pulau Mamutik, within sight of Sutera harbour and our Shangri-La terrace where the complimentary drinks beckoned!
Billy and the Borneo Dream Team know what they are doing and do it extremely well. I certainly will return to KK for more and invite them to visit us in Brunei at the earliest opportunity.
Safe diving!