Saturday 16th marked the 10th Bubbles of Hope reef cleanup done and a very special one for multiple reasons.
As usual, our day started at the Jesselton Point Jetty, heading off under the bright sunshine and blue skies. Our first dive site was Sulug House Reef where we immediately ran into ‘Bumpy’ the residential humpback hawksbill turtle. Shortly after, we emerged from the warm waters with a bag full of trash collected from the sandy bottom and headed to a small, secluded island for our surface interval.
Normally, we would do a beach cleanup in this exact location, but today was a special day as it was the last time we would be diving with one of our divemasters/buddy, Awie, for a while. And so instead, we ate some cakes kindly brought in by Pik Yen, one of our teen divers.
It wasn’t long before we were heading off again to our fun dive yet again near Sulug Island. As we hurried to get into the tropical waters, no one expected what was to come…
The visibility was incredible – probably the best one I’ve seen in the park – and we excitedly roamed the top reef before coming to the slope where we followed a humongous school of bigeye snappers on our right shoulder. We continued along the edge, finding beautiful block corals, soft corals and an adorable, vibrant purple nudibranch.
Eventually, the visibility seemed to get a little foggy, and we headed back the way we came, running into our school of snapper friends again and taking many more pictures and videos. At last, in exactly the right location at the right time, a spotty shadow loomed towards us from the blue. The shape and pattern was undeniable: we had run into a whale shark mid-dive!
Squeals of joy, denial and disbelief bubbled to the surface as it looped around us slowly, yet efficiently, and we took as many pictures and videos as our cameras could hold. After it had faded away into the blue again, the magical feeling still lingered and each mask had wide eyed gazes.
Shortly after that, a chubby black tip reef shark came by just to make the dive even more incredible then it had already been, and we resurfaced in cheers and awe.
As we headed to lunch, there was no other topic of discussion but endless recounting of funny reactions and excitement as we rewatched the videos captured.
After lunch, logbooks were filled with drawings and bold titles of ‘WHALE SHARK!” and it was so amazing to think that for Isabella, one of the teen divers, this had been her very first encounter with one of these majestic creatures. And for Lung Ip who is only 11, this had been his second time in only 35 dives! A special dessert was the cake that I baked as a goodbye to Awie and each of the present members had signed it with a short message.
Nothing but happiness and stories returned to the shocked parents. This was an amazing reminder of what we are doing these cleanups for. It was a real-life (unexpected!) encounter with one of our rarest marine neighbours and it was just the most perfect way to send off Awie and to celebrate our 10th Bubbles of Hope dive trip!
I am very much looking forward to many more to come, and am more than ever motivated to help clean up our watery home.
Happy Bubbles!
Julia (Bubbles of Hope)
