We leave Kapalai today :-( much to the sorrow of all of us. Had two last dives, at Mid-reef and Hanging Gardens. Though the marine life was abundant, the dives were a bit of an ordeal for me. I felt nauseous and had a headache through the first and felt weirdly claustrophobic during the second. But we saw a spotted leopard shark, beautiful, and aerodynamic, at the Hanging Gardens. It was on a ledge about 25 m below the surface, and as we approached, it got up and swam away. It was about 6ft long, I should think.

Also spectacular was the school of bumphead parrotfish which were swimming at about 15m. There must have been 30 or 40 of them, and I swear you could hear their jaws clacking as they ate coral.

Anyway, we were back in the resort by about noon. Packing madness ensued, followed by lunch, and then a boat ride to Semporna. We left around 2pm, waving goodbye to Amin, the resort manager, and anyone else in the dining room who cared to wave to us. The moment we stepped onto the jetty at Semporna, everyone wanted to go back.

From Semporna followed a long tiring bus ride back to Tawau. We arrived at the Heritage Hotel at about 4.15. It's comfortable enough though they tried to charge us for an extra bed (which we'd already paid for) and were reluctant to give us an extra sheet to lay under the blanket. I guess you can't expect much from a small town or perhaps the exemplary service at Kapalai has totally spoilt us.

Luckily dinner was very good and pretty cheap, at the Nam Ling seafood restaurant near the bus station. Really fresh steamed tiger group, and mud crab fried in pepper till crispy, a lovely home made braised tofu, which Isabel scarfed, fried rice and egg foo yong, and two kinds of veg. We had five bottles of beer and the whole thing came up to RM235. Really excellent. We rolled back to the hotel and into bed.