Semester 20 Chapter IX: All The Things She Said

Okay, all good things must come to an end. And boy, was this a good thing. Checking back in from a hotel room in the city of Tawau. I left the Pom Pom Island this morning and can’t lie… I do feel a bit emotinal. Over those three weeks we formed a super dope community and I’m totally gonna miss some people and the whole island life rhythm. Let’s focus on the positive tho… I’m very fucking grateful for everything and everybody at TRACC. I’m kinda rethinking what to do with my life next and this experience has a lot to do with it. At the end of the day, there’s a big part of me that’s built for this. That’s built for this climate, for diving, for linking up with people from all over the world... I need to cool off a bit but I might wanna keep some of this energy around a bit more. And I’ll damn sure see some of the people again somewhere down the road. After all, I’m still young enough, I work remotely and there’s really no reason to push myrself into spaces you have no desire for. Anyways, let’s cover the last week…

 

It was pretty much the same regime as the first two weeks. We got some new people and again… Everybody I had a chance to parlay with turned out to be a solid cool individual. I was enjoying the fuck out all the work dives. Working with spider structures, cement, translocation, cleanup… Plus all the extra dives. I clocked nearly at 60 dives within the 3-week window. Which is a lot. And I’m still not sick of it. Fucking junkie shit. Shout out to all the die-hards who were on that type of shit with me. I see y’all and we will dive together again. We also did some yoga, we played some more volleyball with the local boys and the very last fucking evening, a bonfire session happened spontaneously and man… Sky full of stars, some guitar (the locals posses some serious musical skills), singing, chatting, playing games… Could not have asked for a better ending. Again, sending all the love to everybody out there.

 

My last dive was also epic. I did it with a great group, we saw some amazing colors in the shallows, we took some epic group pics, I was truly moved when we ascended. It was all followed by the last beer float. Oh, and we also spent three nights watching Heated Rivalry last week. That was a moment when my age became painfully obvious. The show needed to be downloaded due to unstable connection and in the age of streaming services, nobody had a clue how to do that. Nobody except yours truly. At one point, I was actually explaining what internet used to be like to a group of 20-year-olds. So listen kids, long time ago before Facebook and Netflix… There used to be files that you would download onto your hard-drive. Anyways… The show was really cool, it sparked some deeper conversations and I can’t get that All The Things She Said song out of my head. It threw me into a time portal because I still remember when tatu released it 20+ years ago. I’ve had it on repeat since and I feel like it’s not going anywhere for the weeks to come.

 

I went for 2 more nighttime turtle walks, too. On the second one, we found two massive turtles (Green and Hawksbill) laying eggs. So we actually witnessed the whole thing. We collected about 150 eggs and brought them to the hatchery. And let me tell you… 150 turtle eggs are pretty fucking heavy. Took three walks in total but eventually I got to be there for all that.

 

So yeah, this whole experience was bomb. I hope I’ll get to bring some of my people for something like this at some point in the future. We vibed effortlessly with our little group, I’ve heard some super nice feedback and pretty much everybody assumed I was in my late twenties before finding out. That’s actually not that important but I do wanna throw it out there. Do some exercise here and there, keep it real and go vegan!

 

yup, that's me

This morning, I had last coffee and breakfast on the island and then we hopped on a boat to Semporna. Lots of hugs and goodbyes, it was all very touching. From Semporna, I shared a cab with one of my favorite fellow volunteers to the airport and then I got one for myself to Tawau. I checked the hotel surroundings, got some food, taught my first class in more than three weeks so yeah… Guess I’m slowly arriving back to reality. Got 5 days here before I fly back but the real mission is over. And I don’t wanna repeat myself but man… Thanks to everybody who made that experience what it was. All the love. For real. Until the next time! I will try to edit some of the underwater footage and share it with y'all once I'm back in Europe. Keep it light, keep it positive, don’t entertain bullshit and don’t let them fuck with your inner light. One!

 

 

 

Highlights:

• Singing.
• Laughing.
• Diving.

Semester 20 Chapter VIII: Diving & Science

Okay, here we go again. Still on this island, still deep in this life, still enjoying the hell out of it. Not much new has been happening, the routine is still in place and it’s all still very pleasant. 2 work dives every day, mostly 2 additional dives on top of that, yoga, beach volleyball and a whole bunch of hangouts with some dope people.

 

Last week, I got to do some new ways of coral planting, I did some cleaning and I even got a chance to join a science dive of one of the researchers here. I helped record some data she was collecting down there. Again, I really enjoy doing dives with a mission. There’s a lot of fun diving too but having your little tools and following a plan feels pretty damn rewarding. On Sunday, we did a fun dive at a site named the Lobster Wall which was my first time diving there. See, apart from the House Reef, we got Mandarin Playground, North Tip (that’s where most things happen and where we do most diving) and Downstairs. There are two other sites around the island I haven’t seen yet but I’ve been told they are not that interesting. Who knows tho, maybe we’ll get there before I go.

 

We also had a quiz night on Thursday. Some questions about the organizations, fun facts about their staff and also a segment of our baby pictures where we tried to guess who were we looking at. I had to contact dad for one. We also had a movie night on Saturday. I missed the beginning as I was under water but I got the second half. I believe the name of the movie was The Last Breath. It wasn’t great but it wasn’t terrible neither, Woody Harelson was in it and man… If it wasn’t based on a true story, I’d call bullshit. Next week, we might watch some Heated Rivalry. Yay! Oh, and we had a beer float (in my case an electrolyte drink float) on Sunday, too. Like last week – you just chill in water, chat and drink beverages off a surfboard.

 

My right ear started feeling funny about two days ago but I don’t think it’s anything serious. I can still equalize without any issues and I did both of yesterday’s dives comfortably. I didn’t do any optional extra dives tho and today I might stay out of water for the first time since I started diving here. I'm also using some ear drops and even though I feel good, it might not be the worst idea to let the body chill for a minute. This morning 16 people left. All the A-Level students and many of volunteers including some of my favorite ones. We got 8 new arriving in the evening. So there’s definitely gonna be a bit of a different vibe for these last couple of days.

 

So yeah… All good here. Sitting in our communal space (nicknamed Number 4), drinking my coffee, watching the ocean surrounding our jetty. I’ve done more than 40 dives in this motherfucker already and I’m about to stack up some more before I leave it. Hope you guys are doing well too! Keep it light, keep it positive, don’t entertain bullshit and don’t let them fuck with your inner light. One!

Highlights:

• Diving.
• Quiz Night.
• All the good chats.

Semester 20 Chapter VII: Trauma Bond

Okay, so I’ve been on the Pom Pom Island for a week now. It’s Monday which is technically a day off. I’m gonna try to upload this one sometime soon but it’s quite likely that I finish it a bit later or maybe some other day altogether. Let me preface this one by saying that coming here was one of the best decision I’ve made in recent years. Everything about this has been super cool and I vow to do something like this every year until I’m six feet under. Before proceeding, I wanna shout out T.I. for the Trauma Bond song. That shit is totally my soundtrack for this trip. Had it on repeat for a good week now and I can’t seem to get enough of it. Eating good like in Abu Dhabi end of Ramadan!

 

Okay, so the departure here was delayed by a couple of hours due to some issues with supplies and gas but we made it here Monday late evening. We were welcomed by staff and some of volunteers, we had dinner and we were shown our tents. Let me start with food. It’s great, mostly vegetarian and they do cater to vegans. There is a little vegan gang here so sometimes I get some extra treats like mayo or ice latte. They don’t see a male vegan very often and true enough – I’m the only plant-based motherfucker here. Second, tents are actually pretty cool. They are more like tent-like cubicals with an actual bed, fan, light and some small racks and hangers to put your shit onto. It’s basic but you don’t really need much more than that.

 

I volunteer for TRACC (Tropical Research And Conservation Center) which is an organization that responds to damage caused by fish bombing. Now, fish bombing is a wild practice where people throw a fucking bomb into water which easily gives them 40+ kg of fish but also completely annihilates everything in about 15-meter radius. Including coral. It is banned now but it’s still happening. Not around this island anymore but man… So much destruction. Anyway, there’s still some coral left and this center works on restoring and cultivating it. They locate healthy pieces of coral, they attach them to underwater nets, then they attach them to custom-made structures and let them grow again. Throughout my dives, I’ve seen different stages of the process and it’s really cool somebody works on that. Apart from divers, there are researchers and scientists on the team who plan everything and oversee the execution.

 

When it comes to the crowd… I love how diverse it is. You get pretty much everything from the age of 20 to about 65. In my group there is an American married couple who had started diving 5 years ago and they’re both cool as hell. Talk about life goals. You got people from all corners of the world and everybody I’ve had a chance to hang out with turned out to be a nice person. We got uni students, we got some former military, we got people with medical and social work background, it is all very colorful. There’s this dude from Canada who also came on the boat with me I probably hang out with most. It all reminds me of summer camps of my theater group I used to go to as a teenager. You are in the middle of nowhere, completely disconnected from civilization, you have some projects to do and in the meantime you eat, you talk, you read, you listen to music, you play beach volleyball. I haven’t touched work in a week and I’ve grown pretty reluctant towards reading news. I would like to congratulate Hungary for not re-electing Orban. That is something.

 

When it comes to the schedule, it’s all very well organized. First, we got briefed about the organization, about what they do and about some basic camp rules. Apart from being respectful and not acting like an idiot, you also take up couple of cleaning shifts a week. Another similarity to the aforementioned theater camp. It’s nothing crazy tho – you pretty much clean dishes after lunch or dinner twice a week. And you’re always in a group of three. Sometimes you wipe tables or floors but again. No biggie. And then you have the diving. Now, there are probably more beautiful places in the world to dive but after certain amount of dives, you just enjoy being in water. And you particularly enjoy doing things that are a bit out of the ordinary. I enjoyed diving in The Netherlands last year and I’m enjoying this now. And seeing all stages of coral recovery is something you don’t get to witness every day. So yeah… You got two work dives on the daily. You always follow whatever has been assigned to your group and it’s all really fun. It feels cool diving and following a mission. Most people here are really good divers and those who came here to complete a course or two before fully jumping in are getting a 5-star treatment. Since nobody is in a hurry, instructors have plenty of time to extend the course however they please and students can simply ask for an afternoon off or a couple of fun dives in between to unwind. Honestly, the best possible set-up. Apart from volunteers, there is also a group of A-Level marine biology students who sometimes mingle with us. Besides diving, we have also molded some cement structures to be planted at the sea floor later on as a basis for corals to hang onto and prosper. And again, everybody I have met here is a lovely person. Wanna send a shout out to my friend in London who sent me a link for this thinking it might be something for me. You were 100% correct.

 

You can also dive some more if you want to. If you are a Rescue Diver, Divemaster or Instructor, you can team up with another person of one of these ranks and dive the house reef without local staff. I’ve teamed up with different people and I’m averaging at more than 3 dives a day. My secret mission is to dive so much that I’ll be sick of diving by the time I leave. I don’t think that's realistic but I’m under water every chance I get. Oh yeah, the house reef is the only shore dive we do here. Everything else is off a boat.

 

I also love my routine here. I get up around 6am and do some workout. We have a fresh yoga instructor among us and she gave her first class today to about 6 of us. That was fun. You kinda want to use the window between 6 and 7:30am as the sun is still just a bit behind the island and it’s not too strong. Than it’s morning dives, lunch, afternoon dives, sometimes some other activities and then voluntary sunset or night dives. Oh, you can do a 6 or 7am dive too but I haven’t yet. Might do that tomorrow. And they also organize turtle walks. You follow the local turtle team to look for eggs and place them in hatcheries around the island. That’s the fucked up thing. You would think that a place like this would be protected, everybody around would celebrate it and tourism would be heavily limited. Well, you would be wrong. There are 5 resorts on this tinie tiny island and they are building a new one. Which makes many of efforts here quite difficult for obvious reasons. For example, turtles have less and less space to lay eggs. There’s less sand due to all the construction so they often lay them at places which can be washed off by a tide. So people come out there every night to locate some, put them somewhere safe and then let all these little turtle babies back to the ocean. I’ve had a chance to see that happening and it’s the cutest thing. Sometimes you see the big ones swimming around in the ocean along with rays, cuttlefish, angel fish, box fish, crocodile fish, stone fish and dozens of others. Marine life here is colorful. And yes, there are resorts but you kinda forget all about them at our station. The whole island is still a paradise, the views are breathtaking and it all feels like such a treat.

 

So yeah, super happy and super grateful for being here. Got two more weeks to go and today we are getting a new batch of volunteers so my group is kinda moving into the “veteran” category. Oh yeah, and internet connection is quite unstable here which only supports my detox. Loving it. Shout out to everybody out here, shout out to all my people back home and shout out to Hungary. I’m gonna put up some diving videos once I get to some more stable connection. Keep it light, keep it positive, don’t entertain bullshit and don’t let them fuck with your inner light. One!

 

Highlights:

• Diving.
• People.
• Views.

Semester 20 Chapter VI: Semporna Czech-in

Aight, since I have some extra time this morning, I’m gonna update this thing now. Lots of things are happening, my memory is trash and I also have no idea how often I’ll be able to get to do this once I’m at the Pom Pom Island doing all that diving shit. So yeah, checking in from Nest Hostel in the heart from Semporna. It’s about 8:30am, some kittens are running around and since I’m on the terrace/reception, I can hear the bustling traffic downstairs.

 

The flights here were okay. No problems, everything smooth. My biological clock got all the way fucked up and scattered. I would sleep for a couple of hours here, for a couple of hours there. But I made it safely to the Tawau Airport Friday evening. Now, the research station I’m about to volunteer with had arranged a driver which turned out to be a bit of a headache. You see, the system is that you get a van but the van does not go until all the spots are filled (I’ve seen this at different places before). I was the first one showing up and the next group arrived about an hour later. So after about 30 hours on the road, I was chilling for another 1.5 hours at that tiny airport. Didn’t mind too much tho. Got myself a local sim card, called some of my people in Brno. And even managed to chat with a random traveler who turned out to be vegan too so we met up later downtown for dinner. The van eventually did get full with some Chinese tourists and around 8:30pm, I was at the hostel. Now, you can tell there’s tourism here but it’s mostly Asian demographic. Tawau airport is actually an international airport but the international flights mostly cover Chinese cities. I didn’t notice a single white person on the flight from Kuala Lumpur and I haven’t seen that many of them in the streets here over the past two days.

 

The go-to tourism thing to do here is island hopping. You got many individuals and agencies offering some hiking/snorkeling/diving packages. If I didn’t have three weeks of diving ahead of me, I might have considered doing some of those but I decided to stay here to explore whatever there is to explore. Friday evening, I was tired as hell and I slept like a baby. Woke up after 8am naturally so I guess my system had adjusted to the new time zone relatively fast. I had no plan for the day so I decided to check out the town. Went to the dock from which I’ll depart today, walked around a bit, had some coffee. Semporna is okay but it isn’t anything special. The most interesting thing to me are those communities who have built their homes on water. That looks super cool. Although, same as everywhere in these parts of the world, everything is fucking drowning in plastic. Sides of roads, water by the shore, streets. The infamous combination of plastic being so cheap so everything is sold in it and no infrastructure to deal with it. You see it in Asia, you see it in Africa, you see it all over the world. Around noon, I decided to switch things up a little. Asked my hostel guy if he knew about a place where I could rent a scooter. He said he didn’t so I just googled some random local guy’s Facebook page and texted him. He got right back to me so around 1pm, I was at his house about 20-minute walk from the hostel picking up the scooter. Very nice guy, his wife and two daughters were there too, and they took a picture of me with the kiddos. That happens sometimes. A white tatted up person is a bit of an attraction. Not the biggest fan but I also understand it and I don’t mind really. The scooter is like 10 EUR/day. Generally things are cheap here. You can easily get some lunch for about 2 EUR, coffee for like 50 cents…

 

Anyways, straight from the guy’s house, I started my little adventure. First, I went to the Bukit Tengkorak Archaeological Site. It’s a museum showcasing history of this region. It was open but there was nobody there to collect the entrance fee. No idea why. There is also a trail to a hill nearby but for some reason it was fenced and some kids who were running around confirmed that it had been closed. Then I took it to Bukit Sarari. It’s a hiking spot and boy, was that a tough one. For most of it, there a rope installed so you can hold on to something and some of the segments were much closer to climbing than hiking. Nobody in sight. When I was hanging off that rope halfway up some rock, I was reconsidering my life choices. It was fun tho. Great workout, I was pouring sweat and the views from up there were spectacular. I also loved the fact that everywhere I went that day, there were no tourists. All the people go on these boats but barely anyone does what I did. Lovely, quiet, peaceful.

 

After that I drove to Parapat Hills – another hiking spot. I paid 20 RM (about 4 EUR) to get a permission to hike to the top and spend about half an hour appreciating a view at surrounding islands. Another beautiful spot. I stopped by for a coffee at Tanjung Parapat afterwards. Yet another settlement on water just around the corner from there. While at it, I decided to visit a restaurant called White Wetland. It’s by a river, there are some mangrove trees and a small village. Another cool spot. On the way back to Semporna, I grabbed a meal by the road and before coming back, I took it to Kg sum sum for the sunset. Kg sum sum is the biggest village on water I’ve seen so far. And again, there were no tourists anywhere around. To the point, it felt invasive just walking around taking pictures. Some local guys spotted me and we started chatting. Eventually, they showed me around, brought me to the very edge of the village and took me to all the cool spots. The most talkative guy works a dancer at drag queen shows in Kuala Lumpur so we also talked about the situation for queer people in Malaysia (obviously not good) and then they invited me for a hangout to their house. Had some water, chatted for a bit more and then I finally headed to the town. In the evening, I strolled around a bit more. The town was full of people, there were many markets and food stalls open, it was all very lively. I bought myself some fresh durian (after fucking ages; still delicious) and parked it to bed. Took me a while before I fell asleep but the book I’m reading (Moral Ambition by the Dutch author Rutger Bregman) kept me company. It’s a really good read btw.

 

Woke up before 7am in the morning and I hopped on the scooter once more to check out a place called Tampi Tampi. They guys recommended that yesterday. Missed the sunrise but still thoroughly enjoyed my morning coffee over there. Another water settlement, nice people, awesome views. This one is even designed for visitors to swim. Since I already draw quite a lot attention without being half-naked, I stayed dry but many people there were having fun splashing around. Got back to the hostel around 8am. Have to check out at 12, return the scooter at 1pm and the boat to my island leaves at 4:30pm. And then the whole shit starts.

 

It’s about 9am, I got a lazy morning ahead. Might go grab some food soon. Oh, being vegan is not that bad over here. It’s pretty basic but people are nice and accommodating. It’s been mostly rice with some veggies but I can’t complain. So yeah, all has been enjoyable and I’m happy with the way things are going. Hope you guys are good, too! Keep it light, keep it positive, don’t entertain bullshit and don’t let them fuck with your inner light. One!

 

Highlights:

• Hikes,
• Views.
• Scooter rides.