“Well, THIS is going to be an adventure,” I muttered to Tony as our boat dude disappeared into downtown Kota Kinabalu.

“Do you have any idea what he actually said?”

“Nope, I thought YOU did!!”

 Classic. 

Of course sensible people would organize snorkeling tours through reputable operators, not hang about on the docks with kids in swim suits and a dive bag waiting to be picked up like hitchhikers. But then, we’ve been known to hitchhike too.

The water was rough, and the skies grey but, down to our last day in Kota Kinabalu, we were bound and determined to snorkel, and snorkel we did.

It was breathtaking.

This is the first place I’ve ever seen a live and thriving coral reef, and we’ve snorkeled more than a few places. It was a fairyland beneath the waves. Every colour of the rainbow in beautiful conical forests, layers of petrified mushroom brown, yellows as bright as the sun, every shade of blue green and ripply. Sharp pointed bushes of spikes that hid schools of tiny black fish, wide plateaus of green knobby bubbles, like bushes on a savannah from high overhead.

In and out and around wove fish of every sort, nibbling the coral, picking at the anemones. I saw the biggest clam I’ve ever seen, at least 20 inches long and a beautiful green and red stripe to his inner person. He was open and filter feeding, like a good chap, so we could fully enjoy his fabulousness.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we had some pictures?

Yes, yes it would. Unfortunately, Gabe’s underwater camera began leaking and filled up with salt water for no good reason as soon as Tony hit the water with it. This is a $500 mishap. We are annoyed.

The water was rough, so the boatman had doled out life jackets for us to float around in.

The kids slipped in and out of theirs like fishes so that they could dive down and check things out. Elisha brought up a bit of dead coral that had fallen off. Gabe the red and brown of a crab shell that had made a delicious meal for something bigger. I paddled around the margins, peeking up every so often to count life jackets and making up stories in my head about the underwater adventures that happened on this beautiful reef, casting mermaids and starfish in starring roles.

On one such body count I popped my head above the waves just in time to see Tony clambering aboard a boat. It took me a second to realize that the boat was not ours. Another moment to realize that no one else was on it. I watched, sure I was missing something as he threw down his mask and started pulling the cord, trying to crank up the boat as the waves pounded him toward the jagged rocks. Five, six, seven pulls… only sputtering… eight, nine, ten… finally the engine roared to life and he slammed the tiller hard to the right and swung the boat around toward us.

Meanwhile, on our boat, was the extra passenger who’d inadvertently abandoned ship. It seems he’d come by to borrow some oil, was standing with one foot on each barque when a wave lifted him off onto ours, setting his boat adrift. Our able captain was so frantic in his efforts to start his engine and rescue the other boat that he rolled the anchor rope five or six times around his propellor. I’m pretty sure the boys got a vocabulary lesson in Bahasa.

Gabe, ever the boatman was swimming towards the scene of the rope fiasco and quickly engaging himself of disentangling from in the water, which was easier than from on the boat. He and Elisha dove down and gingerly moved the anchor from where the over zealous dude had hung it in the live coral in his attempt at a quick get away, and placed it in a sandy spot instead.

The dude who stupidly stepped of his own boat looked embarrassed as he thanked Tony for the save.

Everyone laughed.

We kept snorkeling.

Always an adventure.