Sumilon Island, Cebu, The Philippines

11th March 2012 Having cooled our heels at the swanky little jetty on very comfortable chairs, we set off into the gorgeous view that we'd been looking at waiting for our boat to turn up and take us to the island. It took a few minutes and then we were mooring at the shifting sand bar and jumping into impossibly fluffy white sand and making our way to the resort on the other side of the island.

From Sumilon Island, The Philippines

As first impressions go, it was pretty damn amazing, the water was crystal clear, the fine sand was bleached white and the sea shifted colours from turquoise to marine blue with plenty of other shades in between. It took a few minutes to cover the interior, Sumilon wasn't all that big, we paid our money – I think it was 3000 pesos each (you pay more on a weekend) and set about exploring this little slice of tropical gorgeousness.

From Sumilon Island, The Philippines

While Kate and Djalma faffed around I wandered off and took some photos of the scenery, the infinity pool, one of several jacuzzi's a cute little jetty that wasn't used any more and the swathes of brightly coloured bougainvillea that lined the walls separating the island from the sea. It was all just gorgeous.

From Sumilon Island, The Philippines

We left our bags near reception and went down to one side of the island where there was snorkelling and kayaking. After a few wave photos I left my camera bag with two guys working a quiet counter and hustled into my mask, snorkel and fins. Getting into the sea was a bit of an issue, the weather was windy and drumming up a good amount of chop on the surface, we made it in with minimal salt water intake and not too much dignity lost, my bikini bottoms don't put up much of a fight when it comes to staying up. We stayed in the water for less than half an hour, the waves kept us rocking to and fro not really allowing for any good photos. The coral was sporadic and there were some fish but nothing jaw dropping – I have been spoiled I admit.

From Sumilon Island, The Philippines

We got out when the rain started coming down and decided to have a kayak race to warm up. We each jumped in our own kayak and raced off down the small mangrove lake, well I say raced, I headed straight into the trees while Kate sailed on past with ease. Even with a good head start I didn't do that well but we did warm up and had plenty of fun tying each others kayaks to trees, juvenile but funny.

From Sumilon Island, The Philippines

We trekked back to the moving sand bar where I waited with the sarongs, flip-flops and my beloved camera while Djalma and Kate went for a snorkel along the drop off. A group of three Filipinos including a very charming halfway there lady boy were having a grand old time with a bottle of rum, I started to feel a bit silly standing there by myself and so wandered round the tiny little sand spit and took several photos.

From Sumilon Island, The Philippines

I love beaches but as a photographic subject I find them kind of limited, mountains and lakes are much more interesting. The sun came out and I decided to head back up to the buffet to wait for the others while stuffing my face, they saw me leaving and left the water, Kate managed to leave her mask and snorkel in the water and we stood in the shade while Djalma went back down to retrieve them. We left the turquoise waters behind and went for lunch. It was pretty good and but I was more interested in the cakes. I had loads, it was a good thing they were all bite sized pieces.

From Sumilon Island, The Philippines

We decided to chill out, literally, in one of the jacuzzis. We mucked about, creating whirlpools and stuff and then decided on some cocktails. The jacuzzi looked out over the sea and we had a great view of the black clouds rolling, time for a tropical storm. We rinsed off the chlorine and had our cocktails back in the pavilion where Kate and I played pool and then darts, neither of us were terribly good but Kate still managed to beat me at everything. We got the last boat back to Cebu and waited for a few minutes on the roadside for a bus going North to Lilo-An and then got the next ferry to Dumaguete on Negros. We were lucky with times, we hardly waited at all for the next boat or bus and arrived in Dumaguete just after dark.

From Sumilon Island, The Philippines

Oslob, Cebu, The Philippines

10th - 11th March 2012 We pulled up in a little town about 8km before Oslob, we asked for the whale sharks and the guys on the bus dropped us off at the right place, we had a great time trying to find a room near the beach, it was the weekend and everyone had travelled down to snorkel with the whale sharks. We eventually a place to stay with a family, I don't think they were an actual home-stay or hotel but they let us have the rooms in a stand alone building with a plywood sheet separating our bed with Kate's, a couple of fans and the use of a tiny bathroom outside. It wasn't the Ritz but we were relived that we didn't have to go into town to sleep. Getting food was the next big challenge, we were repeatedly told to go the 8km into town and get something there but we persevered and found a place selling pork on sticks – mini kebabs. They were marinated in soy sauce and vinegar and it was the tastiest and most tender meat I've ever tasted, we asked for rice and a lady who'd helped us find a place to sleep went back to her house and came out with a container of rice for us. Aside from the drunk boatman, who kept on trying to form sentences without much luck, it was a lovely meal.

From Oslob, Cebu, The Philippines

We slept well and the next morning I woke the other guys up with my work out, grunting and panting a sweating like a real lady, we donned out swimming costumes and then walked down the road to pay and register for the whale shark boats. We had a little briefing, don't touch the sharks, keep your distance, be respectful to the boatmen etc. etc. and then our 30 minutes of fun began. We got into the little boat, having carefully wrapped my camera bag in a plastic bag and we were rowed out the 50 or so metres to where there was a whale shark swimming around eating tiny fish. We waited until our guy saw the shark and then we jumped in the water with our mask and snorkels to get a closer look.

From Oslob, Cebu, The Philippines

It was amazing. The whale shark wasn't as big as I'd expected it to be and it was also a lot more beautiful. Kate and Djalma had both been looking forward to it while I was a little apprehensive, it was nice to see that it would have had great difficulty swallowing me without realising it.

From Oslob, Cebu, The Philippines

One time while we were waiting for it to circle back round, we were all just bobbing in the water and it swam right behind me, almost on top of me, I caught it out the corner of my eye and nearly wet my pants (not exactly a big issue in the sea).

From Oslob, Cebu, The Philippines

The skin was grey and speckled and looked like velvet even though it was close enough to touch several times, we kept our hands to ourselves and just watched.

From Oslob, Cebu, The Philippines

It was amazing, at one point it came up to the side of the boat and was fed by one of the boatmen. We spent most of our time bobbing round in the water, Kate and Djalma did a spot of free diving but there wasn't much else to see except the shark, our boat man found us and I rather inelegantly hauled myself back into the boat taking most of the paint with me, Kate and Djalma did a much better job of it.

From Oslob, Cebu, The Philippines

Back on dry land we ditched the life vests and had coffee and barbecued pork belly and chicken for breakfast, it tasted delicious and along with the beautiful view of the beach, the boats in the water and the palm trees (of course!) it confirmed a beautiful start to a brilliant day. We were done by 8am and headed back for showers before paying up and leaving. We walked about a kilometre to another jetty where we waited for a boat across to Sumilon Island.

From Oslob, Cebu, The Philippines

Manila, Luzon, The Philippines

8th - 10th March 2012 Having spent the night in a comfortable bed we woke up feeling ready to take on the world, sort of. I didn't feel that great so I stayed in bed most of the day while Djalma went out and booked tickets for flights to Cebu to meet Katie who was coming out for a couple of weeks. He was gone most of the afternoon and just as I was really beginning to worry he came through the door and we went out for dinner. At a 7-Eleven.

From Manilla, Luzon, The Philippines

The next day I was determined to feel better, I got up at 5.30 and pounded through my workout, no doubt waking up the people next door and below us with all the jumping about and heavy breathing, oh well – it was all in the name of a six pack (I wish!). Djalma sent off a few copies of his CV and then we hit the pavement ready for a day of tourism in the capital. We had a couple of snacks from the mini mart next door to our hotel and then promptly got on the wrong bus. We realised our mistake and walked down a few streets to get the sky train to the centre of town (we staying near the airport and not any where central), the streets were busy and dusty and sometimes smelt awful but there was a really nice atmosphere, people were friendly and we had plenty of good mornings and smiles along the way.

From Manilla, Luzon, The Philippines

We spent most of our day in Intramuros the older, walled section of the capital. I didn't know that Manila used to be the Pearl of the Orient, after the Americans and the Japanese bombed it to smithereens, not much remains which is a shame but it was nice to wander round just the same. We stopped for a second breakfast in another 7-Eleven, here the ever present shop has small tables and chairs for people to sit and down and eat and talk to friends, they felt kind of like a cross between a McDonald's and a café, after a warmish breakfast burrito and a watery coffee we headed towards Fort Santiago.

From Manilla, Luzon, The Philippines

You have to pay a small ticket price to get in here but it's lovely, horse drawn carriages were dotted around and took some groups of Filipino students for joy rides around the small green park. There were lots of life sized statues and Djalma and I had fun with some of the sculptures. We made our way through the grounds which are home to a shrine to the Philippines pride and joy, Rizal, a Doctor who was imprisoned for inciting revolt against Spanish rule. He wrote poems and many other things which spoke about freedom, nothing actually that revolutionary but the Spaniards took him down anyway, doing more to help the revolt than stop it. We walked through a small but beautifully set out museum that had pieces of his writings on walls, floors, glass cabinets as well as normal posters.

From Manilla, Luzon, The Philippines

We stopped by the Manila Cathedral which having been rebuilt several times was closed for more renovation, it really seemed that perhaps this Cathedral was just not meant to be. We strolled along the sun baked streets and managed to have a quick look inside the San Augustin Church, built around the turn of the 17th century it's the oldest church in the whole of the Philippines. It's well known for it's 3D painted ceiling, the art is so good it looks like the ceiling is carved but it's just clever paintwork that follow the direction of light from a window at one end of the church. There were lots of alcoves lining both sides of the aisle, the ones on the right (on the way to the altar) were filled with Jesus looking in not so great health, very sad and in very good clothes and the ones on the left were filled with his virgin mother, also rather sad but with almost floor length hair in some and always decked out in the very finest of clothes with plenty of flowers as well.

From Manilla, Luzon, The Philippines

It was being closed for a ceremony so we didn't have time to dawdle, we left through the huge carved wooden doors and started heading towards Rizal Park so Djalma could have a look at the 3D relief map of the Philippines. We strolled through the park and walked around a large pond which the map was in, Djalma loved it and pointed out where we were and where we were heading over the coming weeks, bless that man and his love of maps!

From Manilla, Luzon, The Philippines

After a few photos our stomachs were telling us it was time for food so we started to head towards a shopping centre (to print postcards) and a Middle Eastern restaurant for what would be a huge feast.

From Manilla, Luzon, The Philippines

We sat down in the air-conditioned room of the restaurant and ordered up food that we both loved but hadn't eaten since we'd left Jordan about a year and a half ago. We tucked into the most delicious iced tea and falafel, tabbouleh, sizzling beef, olives, hummus and foul and flat bread. I cannot begin to describe just how delicious that meal was, certainly it was a little too much for just the two of us and we wanted to have even more of the other dishes on the menu but saner heads prevailed and we stopped before gluttony got the better of us. It was so good that the happy food fog settled over me for the rest of the afternoon and I spent my afternoon with a satisfied smile on my face and a full tummy.

From Manilla, Luzon, The Philippines

We strolled over to one of Manila's shopping centres and ordered prints for postcards and checked out what was showing at the cinema on the top floor, we got tickets and then I picked up my photos and make it back just in time to have missed the first few (and crucial) minutes of the film – what happened to the twenty minutes of trailers and adverts and reminders to turn off your phone?! The film was good and it was nice to sit down and give our food time to be digested. After leaving the air-conditioned comfort of the shopping centre we walked along the street trying to find a jeepney going our way, we stopped and asked a security guard who was extraordinarily polite and helpful, he even said 'God bless you' and it sounded like the nicest thing ever (although I must confess that all this Catholicism is starting to feel a little creepy after two weeks in the country). We found one which dropped us off at a place quite far from where we'd asked to be dropped off and so had a long dusty walk back to our hotel for much needed showers and bed.

From Manilla, Luzon, The Philippines

The day dawned on the 10th and we made our way back to the airport for our flight to Cebu to meet my little sister. I started writing postcards waiting for our flight and then we cooled our heels for a while after arriving in Cebu – if anyone goes to Cebu airport, you should really try the sweet rice and the coffee in the airport restaurant, they're rather good. Djalma played cards on the computer and I used my caffeine boost to write more postcards, only 41 of the little buggers, before my anticipation got the better of me and I went outside to wait in the heat for my sister to walk through the door of Arrivals.

From Oslob, Cebu, The Philippines

It took a while, I was very excited, and when she did come out I hugged her for too long and had a little cry. Welcome to the Philippines Katie! I was hungry so we went to a small point-point cafeteria where I had rice and beans and beef and then got a taxi to a bus station where got on a four hour bus to Oslob.

Mabul and Sipadan, Borneo, Malaysia

2nd - 7th March 2012 With all the ferries leaving in the morning and we had a night to kill in Semporna before leaving for Mabul the following morning at 8am. We got a room in Dragon Inn, it looked the part, a big space, big comfortable bed, air-conditioning, small balcony etc. actually it was wonderful until I heard our neighbour singing through the thin bamboo walls, I knocked on the wall and the singing stopped but that didn't stop them him shouting on the phone at 3am or giggling with his girlfriend late at night. I hate noisy neighbours.

From Mabul Island, Borneo, Malaysia

Djalma and I bumped into John, a young English guy we'd met on the live-aboard in the Similan Islands in Thailand, we said hello and moved on to get some dinner and book onward tickets. We ate on the street, some gorgeous chicken, a big plate of noodles and some gado-gado – probably our last for a long time. We found our way to the ticket office for a company running luxurious night buses to Kota Kinabalu. We booked our tickets for the night before our flight was due to leave and then headed back to the bar where John and his diving friends were drinking up a storm. Djalma got a couple of beers and after a short while I disappeared off to bed, not really feeling the atmosphere in the bar or the expensive cans of beer. The next morning I got up at 5.30 to work out and tried to keep quiet for our neighbours although I really felt like stomping about as much as I possibly could just to return the favour. We had banana fritter sandwiches and coffee for breakfast before getting on the speedboat that took us out to Mabul where we would be staying for the next three nights.

From Mabul Island, Borneo, Malaysia

The ride was choppy and the weather miserable, the hour trip seemed to take a lot longer and I was so grateful to get off the boat and get a cup of tea. Djalma and I decided not to dive that first day, we had booked our permits for Sipadan for the 4th and 5th and decided to snorkel and explore the island that morning instead. The boat was privately owned by the dive company, Uncle Chang, and his restaurant and rooms were spread out on wooden stilts over shallow water, it felt like we were stepping onto a different vision of Waterworld. We eventually found our way onto land, down a myriad of wonky wooden pathways and we liked what we saw.

From Mabul Island, Borneo, Malaysia

We were expecting a completely dive oriented island and what we saw was people getting on with life, repairing boats, chatting to friends, women selling sugary snacks for children who queued up for sweet noodles and doughnuts in-between playing football or skipping or chasing tyres down the hard packed sand paths. Everything was swept clean and the wooden houses, sometimes shacks on stilts all looked orderly and well kept in their own way. We followed John's directions to a cheap home-stay further down the “beach” stopping frequently to make sure we were going the right way. We pulled up at Panglima and negotiated a room for 30 ringgit each per night, it wasn't luxurious but it was clean and dry and it smelt nice. We dumped our stuff down, locked our bags up and went out exploring.

From Mabul Island, Borneo, Malaysia

We strolled round the island, passing over more of the wonky wooden pathways that connected houses, restaurants, jetties and home-stays with the island, the water underneath the houses wasn't exactly pristine. The water was clear and allowed perfect views of old trousers, metal cans and lots of other rubbish too heavy to be carried away with the tide. All the toilets and showers emptied directly into these shallow waters as well, always good to know beforehand I think. We saw a monitor lizard sitting on top of a wall and followed a rather more stable wooden path out to a more luxurious walk lined with hibiscus and bougainvillea.

From Mabul Island, Borneo, Malaysia

After poking our noses around and admiring the clean water and the schools of small fish clearly visible beneath the surface. Walking further on back on the beach we stopped to watch a small group of boys watching the water intently, after a few minutes we still couldn't see what it was that they were watching so we said goodbye, to many giggles, and walked on this time following a fence. We thought at first that the fence was something to do with one of swanky resorts but it seems that it is there to separate the sea gypsies from the Malaysians, apartheid on an island this small (a population of 3000) seemed unthinkable, we only found this out on the morning we were leaving to go back to Semporna.

From Mabul Island, Borneo, Malaysia

We stopped for a rather delicious coconut and snacked on the juicy flesh after drinking the water, the girl who took our money, Linda, had the biggest smile and was just charming, we walked along with our little pile of coconut and watched weekend life in the village. We stopped in the shade of a huge tree on a beach and while I sat on the sun lounger and took photos of boys fishing in small boat from afar, Djalma strapped on his fins, mask and snorkel and swam out to the oil rig 800 metres off shore. He was gone a fair while, of course from shore it looked a lot closer and after swimming for several minutes and not getting much closer it felt even further than it was. He made it though and climbed up for a look managing to get a ride back to shore. I wanted to get out of the sun so we headed back to our home-stay and had some noodle soup for lunch.

From Mabul Island, Borneo, Malaysia

We got up early the next day, I worked out and then we headed over to Uncle Chang to get breakfast, scrambled eggs and baked beans (it did make me laugh) and get kit for our dives, none of it that great. The wetsuits were all some kind of micro fibre and retained smell (not great for sea weeing) the fins were the kind used when snorkelling (not with booties) and gave some people some horrendous blisters they were also rather too flexible to give you any kind of propulsion against currents. Not really minding that much, we were soon to be diving in Sipadan one of the worlds top dive sites! We got into the boat around 8.30 introduced ourselves to our fellow divers and in under half an hour we were pulling up at Sipadan.

From Diving in Sipadan, Borneo, Malaysia

We registered and got back on the boat, our guides finally introduced themselves and ran through the dive briefing with us. We'd heard some horror stories about Uncle Chang unsafe diving practices, I won't repeat them hear because I have no idea how true they are, suffice to say I was paying close attention and Djalma and I made sure to stay close together. The weather was cold, grey and miserable and the boat ride wasn't the smoothest, we got in the water at our first dive site and descended to 30m, as soon as we started moving I started to feel nauseous, properly vomalicious, one little burp almost came out with my scrambled eggs, coupled with some petrol scented air and I could take it. I'd heard that if you are sick under water you should just chunder into your regulator because the urge is to take in air immediately after throwing up, my regulator was making sounds and the thought of blocking my regulator with vomit 30 metres under the sea filled me with terror. We signalled to our guide and promptly made our way to the surface where I took in big gulps of fresh air and apologised profusely to my very understanding husband. Our first dive at Sipadan did not go how I expected. We sat, shivering on the boat waiting for the everyone else to come up. When everyone was out of the water we made our way back to Sipadan Island and had tea and snacks, well I had just tea not wishing to add much more to my groaning tummy.

From Diving in Sipadan, Borneo, Malaysia

Our second and third dives were great, the visibility wasn't amazing because the sky was so overcast but we saw so many reef sharks, we saw schools of barracuda and jack-fish and hovered above an amazing coral garden on one of our safety stops.

From Diving in Sipadan, Borneo, Malaysia

Back on Mabul we had dinner at the little restaurant near our home-stay and listened to a lady singing karaoke, she was surprisingly good and not too loud either, we were rather impressed. The next day we had three more dives at Sipadan, I forget the dive sites (but all the photos are tagged) we were with a different group of people this time, James from the UK again, a young Danish couple, a French girl and a quiet Japanese guy, it was another great group of people and we had a wonderful time. I was careful not to over eat at breakfast and didn't suffer again, we saw so many things, more harks again and of course turtles, we got close to a large school of barracuda and a school of big bump head parrotfish, we saw a huge school of jack-fish and two giant trevally swimming with them. Towards the end of our second dive we passed through a patch with several big, aggressive triggerfish who chased a couple of people in our group, it's fair to say to was anxious to get out of the water at this point.

From Diving in Sipadan, Borneo, Malaysia

(Photo courtesy of Polish couple from previous day's diving) We stopped in between dives for much needed cups of tea and food, the weather was crap, it was a little windy and it rained, only lightly, the whole day – not what you want when you want to get warm and dry after spending so much time in the water. We headed back rather elated at all the beautiful things we'd seen that day and shivering from the cold at the same time. James headed back to Semporna almost immediately but not before we all exchanged email addresses to swap photos. We made plans to meet for dinner after showers and naps, Djalma never made it out of bed, the poor darling was absolutely shattered so I went to say hello and then headed back to my big baby. We lay on the bed and gorged on Cadbury's chocolate, hot and spicy pringles and fizzy pop and watched a film, it was deliciously naughty.

From Diving in Sipadan, Borneo, Malaysia

We had a lie in the next day, until 7.30! We chilled out for most of the morning, I worked out and then worked on the photos, Djalma did our washing and went snorkelling. Just before 4pm we said goodbye to the cat and her six kittens and got the last boat back to Semporna were we killed some time in a restaurant before getting the night bus up to Kota Kinabalu. The journey took a about 10 hours and we spent most of them cramped and freezing in under the arctic air-conditioning. We arrived around 5am and pre-apologised to each other for any nastiness or rudeness from a night without sleep, we found a café packed with local dudes and sat and had coffee and watched Tropic of Thunder. By the time the film finished at 7am we'd both laughed quite a lot and were feeling much better about the day ahead. We trudged out to a bus stop and got a bus into town, we nipped into the toilets of a swanky hotel and had quick washes, brushed our teeth and attended to nature. Baby powder fresh we had a look at the fish market before finding a place with wifi and cheapish food to spend the day before heading to the airport for our flight to Manila.

From Kota Kinabalu, Borneo, Malaysia

Our flight to Manila was at 6pm so we had all day to upload photos and relax, I got some postcards printed but was very upset when I noticed that bits had been chopped off all of them and then being told 'it's only a little bit' I could've screamed (it wasn't that bad but I was sleep deprived!) I took them back and got a refund. When 2pm rolled round we decided to head to the airport, a couple of buses later and we were there. We both had proper washes in the toilet cubicles – Djalma had the brilliant idea of taking in the magic towel, filling up one hand with soap and then stripping off in the cubicle and blasting himself with the bum gun, he looked so refreshed that I decided to try it for myself but it was much harder to negotiate big trousers and a bra with a full hand of soap on a wet floor. Our flight was only two hours long and we didn't have long to wait, after sending up my usual prayers for a safe flight I snoozed most of the way. When we touched down in Manila it was dark and there weren't any buses, we flagged down a taxi and then had to direct him to our hotel in-between listening to our driver ask for more money the whole way. Not cool. When we arrived at our hotel we were greeted by a grumpy little midget who had given away the cheaper room we had booked and didn't apologise at all for it. She was not the nicest welcome to a new country and it took our combined will power to be nice and sort out a different room without jumping over the counter and giving her a good thump – she was so small I think I could have easily had her in a fight. We got our small room and a little fan, had showers and instantly felt much better about the day and then promptly went to sleep.

Bunaken, Sulawesi, Indonesia

24th - 29th February 2012 Despite some good meals at Scubana I still wasn't overly impressed after an hour in bed wondering what 'that' smell was, I turned to sniff my pillow to find a very strong animal scent possibly a bit of wee. Lush. A failed dive trip the next morning clinched it. They left without checking our equipment, the stuff was old and not looked after, my spare breather didn't work properly and neither did Djalma's main breather, coupled with a persistent leak from the air canister, we decided to give the dive a miss and went snorkelling instead.

From Bunaken, Sulawesi, Indonesia

The snorkelling was a gem, the visibility was pretty good and we followed the edge of the drop off. We saw NINE turtles and an eagle ray among other things. We checked out Panorama when we got back and I much preferred the look of things there, for a five dollar increase for the two of us we got much better digs, a cool, dry, light and airy room with a shower and sweet water that wasn't at all saline for washing. We sorted out business with Randy, the owner of Scubana, and moved our things across. We sat on comfy chairs on our long wide balcony and read our books with a gorgeous sea view just in front of our propped up feet.

From Bunaken, Sulawesi, Indonesia

Bunaken is a small island just off the Northern coast of Sulawesi, there's nothing to do but diving, snorkelling and perhaps a spot of reading. The current brings presents from the city of Manado, persistent, never ending drifts of plastic bags and coke labels sweep through the water to be washed up the south facing coast of poor little Bunaken. Fortunately for us, our little stretch of sand was swept clean every morning and the retreating tide didn't leave anything but little brown leaves to keep the shedding pink and white flowers company on the sand.

From Bunaken, Sulawesi, Indonesia

Saturday and we actually managed a couple of dives in the morning. Diving with Panorama was much more professionally managed than the other guys, good equipment and no problems, confidence restored. After a quick pancake and coffee breakfast we headed down to the little yellow houses on the beach to sort out wetsuits, BCDs, booties and flippers (according to the dictionary, this is the correct term, not fins... just saying). The first dive, at Fukui, was lovely we started out over a gently sloping reef with loads of big barrel sponges, there were some giant clams too. We saw a crocodile fish barely discernible in the sand, there were schools of cardinal fish and loads of other reef fish, the light wasn't amazing because the sun was slow to come out from behind some light clouds (so our photos weren't that fabulous).

From Bunaken, Sulawesi, Indonesia

We stopped back at the beach to pick up a couple of life jackets for two Singaporeans who were snorkelling and then headed to our second dive site, Turtle City. It didn't really live up to our snorkelling the previous day, we saw three turtles in total which isn't too shabby really. We followed the wall that most of the dive sites are spread along, the only thing that really killed the mood was the other guys who swam along touching anything and everything, crowding a turtle, chasing fish and kicking corals. We saw little of it in the first dive but with a big fat French guy as part of our group we saw it for the whole dive, it put Djalma in an awful mood and he mentioned it to the guy and over a delicious lunch we spoke to Sven, the German owner. The whole matter wasn't dealt with in the most delicate way and there was a little atmosphere over following dives. We spent most of the afternoon updating our dive logs and chilling out until dinner at 7pm. We sat down and ate with Guy, an English guy (haha) from Kingston who was a dive instructor in Bali and a couple of girls, one Dutch and one Swedish, who had been volunteering at a wildlife sanctuary. Dinner was delicious and the atmosphere sociable. The older guys who liked to look and touch the corals (et al) were staying a little further along and ate at a different restaurant so we were spared the big fat Dutch man's rendition of 'I want to have sex on the beach' ugh, not exactly delicious for the ears or the eyes.

From Bunaken, Sulawesi, Indonesia

The dives the following morning didn't appeal so we chilled out all morning, I worked out and read 1089 nights, a brilliant travel book if ever I've read one. Djalma went diving in the afternoon and was in for an unpleasant surprise along with all the other divers. His dive lasted a grand total of five minutes, almost as soon as the groups descended they were sucked down by a strong current, dropping about fifteen metres in just a couple of seconds. PANIC. Fortunately he regained his wits quickly enough to grab onto corals on the wall, pieces broke before he got one that held his weight. He looked around, couldn't see his group so he swam to the side bit by bit to where his group last was and then ascended to the surface the down current gone. It was awful enough for him but had it been me I'm not sure I would have reacted as swiftly, panic stations and a pooper scooper! When they came back, I was chatting to my Mum on FB and didn't really take in the potential consequences of what happened until later in the afternoon when I thanked God that Djalma was still alive and well.

From Bunaken, Sulawesi, Indonesia

We had another nice dinner, this time with two different girls, an American redhead and a Dutch brunette also from the sanctuary, as well as guy. We had a good old bitch about the lack of respect the old fat Frenchman, the old fat Dutchman and the old Alaskan were showing the reef after a good after dinner chat where we all got bitten by mosquitoes I never saw, we watched some segments of 'Planet Earth' to introduce the voice of David Attenborough to the girls. It made me feel proud to be English and have such an institution as the BBC and good old Dave to boast of.

From Bunaken, Sulawesi, Indonesia

Tuesday morning and we both decided to dive, we visited Tanjung Kopi first which had a really strong current where we started out from getting more manageable as the dive progressed, I can't say I enjoyed that first dive much, I like my dives to be a scenic as possible and as easy as the currents can allow. We were all down low on the coral bed holding onto anything to stop from being swept away, I tried to hold on only to dead corals and to be as careful as possible where I put my hands, at one point when we all stayed put for a few minutes to catch our breathe a small scorpion fish swam over my shoulder and sat on the ground in front of me, just so you know, they're poisonous. We finished the dive, and motored to the next dive site, Ron's point.

From Bunaken, Sulawesi, Indonesia

The dive here was much nicer, the beginning was okay but it was where we finished that really impressed me, just five metres under the surface we hung about watching fish float above perfect coral and Napoleon wrasse swim in the distance. I've been DYING to see a Napoleon fish ever since I heard of them in Dahab, Egypt, but the Napoleon I want to see is a big one, these guys weren't much more than a metre long, if that. We also saw a black tip reef shark, trigger fish, box fish and a swimming star fern which was the most beautiful thing I've seen in a long time.

From Bunaken, Sulawesi, Indonesia

Waiting for the two new Dutch ladies, Charlotte and Kloske, to surface we soon headed back to land after our longest dive yet, 74 minutes of fun, we could have stayed longer but we were really cold. The next morning Djalma went on one last dive, despite setting our alarm for 5am we didn't get up until 7.40am which is five minutes before you should be down by the boat if you want to go diving. I decided not to rush and let Djalma go without me, wrong time of the month and no breakfast, I'll be chilling out thank you very much! By now we had scabbed the wifi password and so I sat on the bed with the computer and sent off some emails trying to organise things for later. Djalma came back with a headache, he only managed one dive, his head was too sore to enjoy the second which was a shame because it was a dive site we both wanted to dive. We had lunch and chilled out, Djalma slept most of the afternoon and I worked out.

From Bunaken, Sulawesi, Indonesia

We left the next day on a small boat that took us round to the pick up point for the public ferry. I hadn't slept well that night, both of were cold (we should have turned off the fan), there was rain and some distant thunder that woke me up, not to mention one or two of Djalma's extraordinarily putrid farts that dragged me from the depths of sleep to fully bear witness to their nastiness. I was not impressed. The ferry took an hour, we got a bemo all to ourselves from the port to the airport singing along to Celine Dion tunes, unfortunately for us and perhaps fortunately for the bemo driver we pulled up before 'My Heart Will Go On' reached the crescendo. We resolved to practise for some rip roaring karaoke on Manila (only Celine Dion and other appropriate power ballads will be playing on my Ipod from now on, after Beyonce...). We miscalculated the check in time and arrived four hours early for our flight, we tucked into some tuna, aubergine, greens and steamed rice as a second breakfast while we sat at an open window and watched the rain wash the palm trees clean in the airport car park, eating, reading and writing while we waited.

From Bunaken, Sulawesi, Indonesia

We got our flight back to Makassar where we had plenty of time to kill until our flight back up to Palu, a good five hours back in our new favourite airport, we had dinner and killed time in the waiting lounge. Arriving in Palu we got a taxi to a hotel we had reserved a room at, our room was right on the road and two guys were chatting animatedly outside, it was gone 11pm and our room was far from soundproof. Stupidly I suggested that we try to look for another room, of course. The next morning we had rice and chicken for breakfast and got a bemo back to the airport for 9am. We killed more time here first by trying to find change for our bemo driver and then snoozing in front of a standing air-conditioning unit. I woke up so groggy I couldn't talk properly we picked up our complimentary snacks on the way to the plane. I love complimentary snacks and so far Sriwijaya (the Indonesian airline we flew with that day) had the best nibbles. We stopped over somewhere, I forget where and finally arrived in Tarakan in Indonesian Borneo mid afternoon. We found a “cheap” hotel that totally ripped us off for our tiny room and two single beds with sharp springs poking out the mattresses. We ate in town not really in the best of moods and then slept soundly.

From Bunaken, Sulawesi, Indonesia

Day three of travelling and we finally made it to Malaysia, after buying our ferry tickets to Tawau in Malaysia we waited some more and then snoozed uncomfortably in the stuffy ferry for three hours. Once of dry land with free 3 month stamps in our passports (a bit hairy for a moment when we realised that we had no idea if Djalma would be refused entry or not) we got in a minivan and only circled the block seven times before leaving for Semporna, the last stop before Sipadan.