April 12, 2026

Travel Blog: Malaysia- Part Two: Dives, Vibes, & An Indoor Water Feature

April 12, 2026

Welcome back to my two part series on my most recent trip to Malaysia! If you are new here, welcome, I’m happy to have you. I just wanted to let you know that there’s a part one to this whole adventure that you may want to stop, go back, & take a gander at before we continue on. Totally up to you if you’d like to do that, there’s probably some set ups & introductions in there that will be continued on here, but either way, I’m happy you’re here! I’ll link part one in a big ole button below this introductory paragraph before we get that big, bold “part two” title & continue on. If you read part one & are here for part two, you honor me with your commitment! Thanks to you as well! Alright, enough of my jabbering, let’s get back to it shall we?

Part One

PART TWO:

Day Five

Our morning dive time reset. The previous day, with our trip to Sipadan, we’d had to be up & at the boat by 6 AM. Today we weren’t required on the jetty until 8 AM. That didn’t stop the call to prayer from waking us up, though I think Evan & I pushed through until around 6/6:30 at which point we gave up & went down to breakfast.

Following the day prior, Evan had resigned himself to ‘possibility.’ He would go down to the jetty for each perspective dive, sit through the briefing, & decide, based on the brief, whether the dive was for him or not. We call that growth folks. Snaps for the growth.

Evan didn’t end up going, but this morning we were heading over to the neighboring island of Kapalai to dive the house reef of Sipadan Kapalai Dive Resort, called “Mandarin Gardens.” The house reef featured a number of man made structures that acted both as wave breakers & as artificial reefs & they were full to the gills with macro life!

Although we were all fairly on top of one another this dive & the visibility was only about 30 feet, the sight was exceptional. There was a lot of “look at this, no wait, look at that, ooo, look what I found!” going around. Right off the bat, in the water Roy found an black Ornate Ghost Pipefish. We found a number of Mantis Shrimp, a Crocodile Fish, tons of Rabbitfish & Angels, Nudibranchs on nubibranchs on nudibranchs, Coral Shrimp, Chocolate Chip Starfish, Coral Catfish, more Batfish, another Flamboyant Cuttlefish, & finally something I never thought I’d see again in my life, much less all the way up here off the coast of Borneo. The Lembeh Sea Dragon.

I’m going to stop here & geek out over a fish for a second. This is my blog, I can do that if I want. The Lembeh Sea Dragon is a fish that most divers go their entire lives without seeing, in part because it is so very difficult to see. It looks like a piece of hair or a little bit of algae that’s come loose from the reef & is hanging on by a thread as it sways in the current, & I guess that’s the point. The dragon is only around 1mm in width & is only about 3-4 cm in length, that is about the thickness of a fingernail & the length of your average table grape. Tiny. The crazy part is, the guy that spotted it did so from a good 10 feet above it. It was unfortunately too small for my videos to pick up & focus on.

I first saw a Lembeh Sea Dragon when I was diving the Lembeh Strait back in October of 2022. You can read about that here. The Lembeh Strait is a 10 mile long stretch of ocean that sits between the islands of North Sulawesi & Lembeh in Indonesia. It is also one of the premiere dive spots in the world because of the muck diving here & the specialized creatures that live here, like the Lembeh Sea Dragon. It is also around 825 miles from Sipadan as the crow flies. You can then imagine my surprise at finding this tiny little special speck that far north of its typical habitat. I was geeking out then, just as I am now.

After out dive had concluded we went back to Mabul for our surface interval. The food & beverage offerings were once again coffee, tea, juice, cake, & toast. I leaned into the toast & had my entire first slice crumple in the toaster. The tending resort workers & I spent the next ten minutes or so getting it out of the toaster bit by little bit. & yes, it was unplugged. The pineapple jam on slice #2 made the struggle all worth it though.

Dive two was back on Mabul as well, this time at a site called “Coral Reef Gardens.” It was a wall dive that also had its fair share of fun little inhabitants to observe. We found a number of Orangutan Crabs in Bubble Coral (the gesture for which I got to demonstrate on land to several people after the fact), a Yellow Boxfish, lots of eels (one of which was a Fimbriated Moray & one Green Moray that was truly massive), a teeny black Frogfish, some Sexy Shrimp (another fun one to try & give hand signals for), &, of course, a number of Nudis, Turtles, & some impressive schools of Anthias! By the way, the dive signal that I gave for “Orangutan Crab” was arms scratching up my sides from hip to arm pit followed by a pincer motion. Tonny replied back to me with the pincer motion & mimed pulling at long hairs on his forearm. I liked mine better.

Lunch was the usual fanfare & was followed in the early afternoon by our afternoon dive.

This dive was only Erica, Jennifer, Roy, Tonny, & me. At least from our boat. The site was just off the resort, but wasn’t Paradise 1 or 2. Instead it was the Seaventures Dive Rig just off shore from us.

The Seaventures Dive Rig is an old oil rig turned dive hotel & dive site. The rig is mounted into the ocean floor below it at a depth of only around 30-40 feet & features an abundance of man made reefs, all of which are host to a plethora of marine life. Once again, specifically macro. It’s only about a minute & a half-two minute boat ride from the jetty of our dive resort.

The visibility when we got down was pretty low, maybe 20-30 feet max. Additionally, once you got out from under the rig the current was blasting. That’s not to say it wasn’t a great dive with lots to see. There were mantis shrimp, lots of nudis, crocodile fish, eels (including a male Ribbon Eel), Lionfish, Stonefish, Cherry Grouper, big ole Jellyfish, tons of beautiful corals, a type of urchin I had never seen before called a Flower Urchin, a little orange frogfish, Scorpionfish, & we rounded out our dive with a Day Octopus cradled in the rock, completely white.

I ended the dive with a little less air than I would’ve liked. I remember slowly ascending up the line that we used to have our safety stop in the midst of the rushing current, just watching my breath drop 10 psi with each methodic one I took, making sure Roy & his spare was in reach if needed. It’s not that I wasn’t checking my air, it was the current kick up & fighting it that caused me to burn through my supply on our way back to our entry point. Evan was less than pleased at the number I told him when I was done. Again, we recognized the problem, & went about ending the dive once it happened & had steps in place in case my air went too far down.

The rest of our evening was spent at the bar with the group. I sat there editing video, Evan edited photos, we had fries, samosas, rum & cokes, & went off to dinner when we were informed of its readiness. It was another early evening though as our 6 AM call to Sipadan awaited us in the morning.

End Of Day Five

Day Six

Back to Sipadan which once again meant back to that 5 AM wake up. We’d planned in advanced this time & ended up getting some cookies from the souvenir shop to have as breakfast so there was at least something on the stomach for dives & medications. We’d snagged a Thai brand of Oreos called Cream-O’s (yes, that’s their real name) & honestly, they were pretty solid! We’ll get more into Cream-O’s later on in this blog, I’m sure!

The protocol for this morning was the same as our first trip to Sipadan; 6 AM departure with everything loaded onto the boat, 45 minute crossing to Sipadan, check-in at the park office, dive briefing, dive. This morning’s first dive was at “Barracuda Point” just around the bend from where we’d been two days prior. Evan naturally opted out because of the current & instead chose to stay on Sipadan to read & sit on the beach.

Barracuda Point was actually a really solid dive! The visibility was way better than the days prior & while we didn’t run into any schools of Barracuda or Bumphead Parrotfish, we did at least see some, amongst a lot of other things.

For starters, the coral here was outstanding. All different shades & expressions as far as the eye could see. The top reef was only about 10-20 feet below the surface & then the entirety of the rest of it slopped off gradually on either side of the point to about 60 feet. Like I said, we did see the two target species here. We ended up running into about four or five different bumpheads & managed one barracuda as it swam along the drop off. Nemo’s parents beware.

In addition we ran into a school of Yellowfin Tangs, a couple of Clown Triggerfish, a rather large set of fish bones, a Six-Banded Angelfish, another huge green moray, a Whitetip Reef Shark, tons of Bubble-Tip Anemones with Clownfish, schools on schools of Green Chromis, & a big ole Napoleon Wrasse! The other half of our group saw an Indo-Pacific Leopard Shark & the FOMO there hit hard.

Our surface interval was also a similar set up as the two days before. Fried noodles, hard boiled eggs, fruit, toast, tea, coffee, & little sausages followed by a briefing for dive number two of the day.

Dive two was also at a dive site close to one from the first trip to Sipadan, this one was on the other side of the island from Barracuda Point at a wall dive called “Staghorn Crest,” so named because of the abundance of Staghorn Coral on the reef here. This site had been requested by Erica because she wanted to get better photos of the schools of Jacks that populate the area. Her request was “get me in the middle of a jack tornado.” So we went jack hunting.

You can see the schools of jacks from the surface of the water, they appear like ever morphing shadows under the surface. We pulled right up to one & Jennifer, Tonny, & Erica were off before the propeller could die down. I was the first in of my group of Darin, his daughter, Deb, & Roy & as soon as I was in the school of jacks came thundering beneath me just about 15 feet below. They swept through followed by Erica with her camera rig finning after them.

The vis on this dive was less than stellar, but I experienced something I’d never experienced in the ocean before here. It swept over the reef almost like a cloud cascading over a mountain top.

We were down at around 40 feet after moseying around the wall. Our visibility was already only around 20-30 feet when all of a sudden this cloud of silt & sediment descended upon us. It cut our already fairly low visibility down to around 5 feet on average. At one point the sediment was so thick that I could barely see my hand when I stretched it all the way out in front of me. The craziest part was that it was temporary. We pushed through, continuing on the direction we had been, & eventually came out the other side of it, instantly gaining 10s of feet of visibility.

Other than the jacks, the cloud, & the sheer abundance of Turtles, the dive was less than stellar. Not mad at it though, it was a pretty relaxing one with the current sweeping us sheepishly along.

Back at the resort we checked off our daily game of “spot the dinosaur” only this time it was a different Asian Water Monitor Lizard than before, this one was much smaller than the one we’d been spotting around the island.

Before departing from the rest of our boat for lunch & the afternoon we were asked by Jennifer if we wanted to join her, her family, Darin’s family, & Erica on an excursion into the village in search of alternative food. They’d been told there were several markets in the village where we could purchase food, though all of the little restaurants on the island were closed for the ongoing observation of the final week of Ramadan. The six of us gathered down by the jetty & began our walk around the island.

One of the main paths on Mabul cuts between the entrance to the resort & the jetty. It then goes all the way across the broad side of the island, curves & meanders through the local village, before looping you back around to the front entrance of the resort once again. We struck out at the first stall which then led us to push farther into the village.

I was clearly at a height disadvantage here as most of the electrical for the homes & businesses, weaving the street, sat about eye level. Any time I needed to cross from one side of the path to the other I had to duck down to avoid the lines.

We eventually found a shop that had some of the items the others were after, picking out chips, some toiletries that were needed, some other different snack foods, & a few local or sought after beverages that were missing from the resort.

The whole time we were wandering the village we had the local children coming up to us so they could offer up any English phrases they knew along with a smile & a laugh. We’d reply back accordingly, but it was typically already at the length of the conversation’s capability. They do much better than me though, I could hardly offer up even the most basic of greetings in Malay, even after spending a week there.

At one point a woman who on a video call got very excited at our passing, turned the camera on us, & informed the person on the other end of the line to “look!” Exclaiming, “we have guests!” We all smiled & waves before moving on through the village.

Once we returned to the resort it was lunch time. Most of us were satisfied with our gatherings from the excursion, but we went by anyway just to fill in any gaps we felt we were missing in our afternoon meal. Towards the end of lunch it started to rain. At first is was just a sprinkle, which we used to return to our room before the downpour came, & boy did it.

We were just about back to our room when the storm unleashed. Massive rain drops hit like meteors in the dry dirt, the trees roared with the wind & the smattering of the droplets. We ran the rest of the way back & quickly pulled our drying gear from off the rack on the balcony.

Not three minutes into the storm the waterfall started.

Remember in part one when I talked about waking up in the middle of the night unable to breathe? This was around night #2 at the resort. I remember distinctly telling Evan that what I was feeling was similar to when there is an abundance of mold present in a room. I am very allergic to mold. Well, we now know the source.

Yes, the waterfall started. Down the wall between my bed & the air conditioning unit was about a three foot wide cascade of water streaming down the side of the wall & dripping from the ceiling. I quickly got up, moved my laptop that was charging on the outlet right under the leak & scooted out the bed from the wall. As soon as we had done that we noticed the trickle of water that was starting to emerge from under the baseboards on the opposite side of the room. It began to pool & puddle pretty quickly. I gathered my shoes & an umbrella & made my way back to the dining hall which also housed the reception desk for the resort.

Once there the woman at the desk call for housekeeping. She then asked me to return to our room & wait. About five minutes later a man from housekeeping showed up, took some pictures, & told us to wait here. Then we heard nothing for about an hour & a half.

By the hour & a half mark I decided that I would need to return to guest services to see what the plan was. Once I got there I was informed they had moved us rooms & had apparently already prepared it for us about an hour earlier, the only problem was that the room was directly below the one we were in. It shared the same walls, the same ceiling/floor, everything. So I expressed that.

The woman working the desk, to her credit, had very good English. Again, far exceeding any grasp I could possibly have on Malay, but we weren’t bridging the gap of language barrier. I was trying to explain that due to my severe mold allergy I would need to be away from that room as much as possible. Nothing sharing walls, ceilings, floors, etc.. She just kept saying that she understood before saying they moved us to the room downstairs. Eventually I did the annoying tourist thing that I try to avoid, pulled out google translate, & illustrated the problem in Malay. That made it click. She then informed housekeeping one more time & they tidied a room & moved us down to another building, not connected to the first.

We’d skipped out on doing an afternoon dive in favor of a night/sunset dive. Those of us who were invested in the night dive (Erica, Jennifer, Roy, & myself) all met down at the docks around 6 PM. We also ended up diving with another guide that evening, but I unfortunately never got his name. At this point the rain had been over with for about two hours, but it had unfortunately left all of our gear from the morning pretty soaked. At least they were now cleaner than before, though that wetsuit was absolutely freezing to put on.

Our dive started around 6:30. At this point the sun had almost entirely set & night was rapidly upon us. We just dove right off the end of the jetty, technically doing a shallower redo of “Paradise 2” in the dark, only maxing out at about 40 feet. It was actually a wonderful night dive spot, mixing a bit of muck diving with reef. There were lots of things out & about for the evening & lots of things that had come in to the reef or nestled down in the sand for shelter during the night ahead.

The craziest thing was the amount of urchins that had come out for the night. They were literally everywhere covering most of the rocks, decking, sand, or anything else. Long Spined Urchins literally everywhere. I always wonder where they go during the day & how they manage to navigate the crags & cubbies they hide in with spines that are around a foot long.

We almost immediately found another day octopus (though I guess it would then have been a night octopus…………….) upon our descent into the darkness. It clearly didn’t want anything to do with us & kept attempting to use a shell to cover up the entrance to the cave it had found to hunker down in. After that the dive was a veritable blend of invertebrates & predatory fish.

We saw a large handful of hermit crabs ranging from size from fingernail to soccer ball. We found several black Forskal’s Slugs, a cluster of rabbitfish attempting to appear as a rock on the ocean floor, Tube Anemones, Hancock’s Flatworms, some sleeping sea turtles, Tile Starfish, a Papal Miltre, a small school of Antennata Lionfish, a Zebra Eel, lots of different Pufferfish, a Banded Pipefish, a Velutin Snail, lots of nudibranchs, a big ole Horned Helmet Snail buried in the sand bed, a Bearded Fireworm, some Shrimpfish hiding amongst the spines of the urchins, & two juvenile Harlequin Sweetlips wiggling about.

By the time we’d finished the dive the tide was up so high that we could just float up onto the dock to get out. We quickly dried, stored our gear, & made our way down to dinner which was on the verge of closing out. After that we were all fairly beat & called it a night.

Washed Up Trees On Sipadan by Evan Buddenbohn

End Of Day Six

Day Seven

This was to be our last day of diving. If you’re unfamiliar with dive protocol you’re not supposed to dive within 24 hours prior to a flight. So, typically dive resorts keep your last day with them clear so that you can keep that window of time clear. Since we weren’t out at Sipadan we got to sleep in a bit AND have breakfast.

We were back out at Kapalai this morning. Our dive site was “Little Okinawa.” Not entirely sure why the site was called that, but it featured a sloped reef that led to a sandy bottom with another smaller reef on the other side. Erica & Jennifer went off with Tonny & Darin, his daughter, Deb, & I went down with Roy, as per the usual arrangement.

I’d been having a bit of trouble with my ear the previous day or so, I could feel the eustachian tubes getting sore from all of the equalizing, & I had a bit of trouble off & on throughout the week with a reverse squeeze in my left ear. Some of you may remember that I actually perforated my left ear drum back in March of 2024 in the Philippines. You can read about that here. Well… It reopened…

After years of healing that included diving along the way, my left ear decided it wanted to go ahead & perforate again.

It was entirely unexpected & happened in only about 30 feet of water. I remember clearing my ear upon decent, which did so without issue, then having a horrible reverse squeeze when I happened back up a foot or so with passing current. When I went back down to try & relieve the reverse squeeze I was met with severe pain. My dive group was gathered around a decent sized Broadclub Cuttlefish at the time just under out entry point & I almost called the dive then & there. The pain was so bad that I started tearing up but then like nothing, it went away. So before I could even attempt to convey the “I’m out” message, it had dissipated. I thought I was in the clear until we started to ascend at the end of the dive & I could feel it/hear it. The little tiny bubbles slipping out of the tiny hole in my ear drum as the gas within expanded from the decrease in ambient pressure. Luckily I wear a diver’s earplug in that ear, so minimal saltwater got in, but it’s still incredibly uncomfortable.

The literal hole in my head aside, the dive was actually pretty good! I mentioned the Cuttlefish, we ended up also seeing a Dwarf Cuttlefish towards the end of the dive. The front half of the dive was actually a little light on things to see & Darin & his daughter ended up calling the dive about halfway through & left Deb & Roy & me to continue on. Once they’d left we found all of the good stuff of course. Clear Cleaner Shrimp, Sexy Shrimp, heaps of different kinds of nudibranchs, some doing fun things. A group of around 10 black lionfish, some of which were free swimming in the current. Itty bitty baby clownfish, a field of Garden Eels, a white stonefish, a juvenile black ribbon eel, & of course more turtles & the aforementioned bobtail cuttlefish. Deb also put it perfectly when she came up & said “wow, absolutely just drunk on coral” & she was correct, the colors on the coral at Little Okinawa were magnificent.

Naturally, with my bum drum, I didn’t go on anymore dives, though the rest of the folks did. I ended up spending the rest of the day oscillating reading poolside & editing video down on the jetty. At some point Evan got a massage & I made the incredibly stupid decision to try & get the water out of my ear with a bit of “Swimmer’s Ear” solution. Which, is you’re not aware, is a mixture of glycerin & alcohol. Oh, & I made the really stupid decision to equalize my ear while doing it so that the solution would get into the inner ear. I felt like someone was manually ripping my ear off of my head. You’re welcome for that macabre diversion by the way.

From there we eventually found our way down to the shop where we purchased the Blueberry varietal of Cream-O’s before heading to the bar for further editing, drinks, fries, & samosas.

Y’all. The Blueberry Cream-O’s. Exceptional. I know back in day six I said we’d talk about Cream-O’s further. Well the time has come.

The blueberry flavor is not like an Oreo. It maintains that shape & vibe, but it is a vanilla cookie with vanilla cream in the center & a nice little dollop of blueberry jam on the top. They are pang as the British say! I liked them so much that I ate an entire pack of them in one night. I then had to go back before we left & buy four sleeves of them to take home. Cannot recommend enough & some of the rest of our group was well on board with them also by the time we left.

As the evening let on more & more people filtered into the bar. At a certain point, so did the dive crew. They had the next day off for Eid, the end of Ramadan, & were celebrating a successful week of work with a bottle of scotch that Roy had procured.

When dinner was called we all drifted down & had our fill. Afterwards I told Evan that I wasn’t yet tired & we made our way back across the resort onto the jetty & returned to the bar.

I could tell we spoiled their fun a little bit. That wasn’t my intention at all & I understand that at the resort bar the guests’ wants & comforts come first. But as we walked down the jetty towards the bar we could hear it, karaoke.

We strolled in & sat down on the outer edge. We ordered our typical rum & coke & sat there. As soon as we were sat the staff stopped doing karaoke & resorted to doomscrolling or eating the food they’d had delivered. Ev & I felt bad so we got up to leave after finishing our drink so that they could get back to enjoying their night off. It was here, while we were waiting for the bartender to return to cash out, that we were met at the counter by Roy & his bottle of scotch. He graciously asked us to have a drink with him, which we agreed to, then before we could order our own drinks so as not to subtract from his hard earned scotch, he poured us two very large glasses filled with the brown liquid. He proceeded to shoot his while Evan & I sipped gingerly. It was here that I think the levity was able to creep back in & Karaoke resumed.

The guides kept apologizing profusely to us about the lower than average visibility we’d had over the week. They explained that the rainy season had lasted longer than it usually did & that they had gotten about twice as much rain as they typically do in a year, so all of the rivers were still washing out the silt from the mainland that had yet to settle in the ocean. We just kept reassuring them that it was okay & also, definitely wasn’t their fault or the resorts fault, that we still had a great time filled with great dives. We’d just need to come back a little later in the season next time.

Another tall rocks glass of scotch later for each of us & we were being propositioned to sing. I knew Evan wouldn’t do it so I accepted. The Malaysians then chose “Tennessee Whiskey” by Chris Stapleton as my song to sing because we were from Tennessee.

How is it that I always end up singing on dive trips? I’m not mad at it & am happy to have fun with it & all that jazz, it just always seems to happen.

After I finished Tennessee Whiskey I was asked to perform another before we left. Evan was sat at the bar getting drunker & drunker & the bottle of scotch just kept extending our way. He eventually looked at me & said “if you don’t sing so we can leave I’m going to pass out.” So I sang “Feeling Good” & we stumbled back down the jetty to our room to fall quickly asleep.

House Reef From Above by Evan Buddenbohn

End Of Day Seven

Day Eight

Our last day at the resort was very casual. We slept in a bit, got down to breakfast, sat around by the pool for a while, & basically just all around relaxed. In the early afternoon, about an hour or so after lunch, I, myself, got a massage! It, much like the rest of the day was very relaxed.

At some point we went around doing our due diligence; closing out tabs, handing out tips, stocking up on Blueberry Cream-O’s, gathering & packing up our dive gear (hanging out what needed drying still to dry), packing up our clothes, & preparing for our early morning departure the next day. Naturally I also spent much of the day editing videos & piecing together different things for this blog series.

Just before sunset we all gathered at the end of the jetty. The Duffins (Darin & the fam) are proper fans of a sunset cruise, especially as a way of closing out a stay & in all honesty, I dig it. It’s got a sense of chill style to it. Folks ordered drinks from the bar for the excursion then we gathered in one of the dive boats & were off.

The drive around the island was truly a cruise. A slow mosey which came in high contrast to the majority of the rides we’d had in the dive boats over the week. Then it didn’t matter that we were getting splattered against the waves, we were going to get wet anyway. Now we had on nicer clothing, phones, cameras, & the like.

We were joined on board by Roy & Tonny, additionally there was another boat of tourists that were following us around, taking in the amazing views & crystal waters that the island had to offer. We rounded the island, passing by each of the resorts, interacting with the locals along the way who had come up to sell us fish, crab, or lobster, before we wrapped around to the West side of Mabul to sit & watch the sunset.

Steven, one of the guys in our group, did something that I really enjoyed & I am definitely stealing for later trips. He brought a Polaroid Camera. He’d snap pictures, mostly of locals, then hand the photos directly to them. Each time was met with a bit of confusion, followed by an outburst of joy & it was such an endearingly human thing to see. I think we often forget how much photography used to be a physical media form. How many people, anywhere in the world, have a recent photograph of themselves that they can physically hold or display? I know we don’t have many. Most of us keep our stores of photos in digital spaces & never have something of ourselves or the people we care about that is tangible. What an amazing, yet simple, gift to offer up to the people who have welcomed you into their space & allowed you to exist & habitat their land & their waters for a week. He continued this around with the resort & dive staff as well.

The sunset over Borneo was breathtaking. The mountains of the island melted seamlessly into the thunderheads outlining the edge of them in a soft orange glow while the sty remained a soft blue. We sat there on the western edge for around thirty minutes, just taking in the sky & the village from an entirely new angle. It was such a lovely capstone to the trip.

Dinner was being served by the time that we arrived back at the dock. We made our way down as a group, had one last dinner together, then went off our separate ways to finish packing & any other preparation for the early morning & long travel day we had ahead of us.

End Of Day Eight

Day Nine

It was almost like we were headed to Sipadan again. We had been instructed to be up by 5 AM & have our bags packed & waiting outside of our rooms. Resort staff then came around with several massive wheelbarrow like carts, filled the to the brim with our belongings, & carted them down to the end of the jetty. Our time to be at the end of the jetty was 5:30 AM with an aimed departure time of 5:45, though we didn’t end up pushing off until right around 6.

Similar to how we got to the island, we were all loaded into a boat with rowed seating & all of our luggage was loaded into the back. The morning crossing was much less choppy than the week prior & we got to watch the sunrise over the Celebes Sea one last time.

Once we got back to Semporna, we were presented with a little take away breakfast. It consisted of some watermelon, a hard boiled egg, & a butter sandwich. We sat outside a closed Starbucks munching away on them until the bus was pulled around & we & our luggage were loaded up.

At this point it was just short of 7 AM & the more time we sat waiting to depart in the bus, the closer the Starbucks we’d been sat at was to opening. Finally right at 7 AM the driver got on & got ready to depart. He was halted by someone up front who asked if we had time to step back off & get a coffee from the recently unlocked Starbucks, he said that we did so we all went in & got coffees & pastries for the road. Ev & I are typically not Starbucks patrons but availability & lack of caffeination got the better of us & we indulged.

Back on the road with an Ube Muffin & an Ice Kacang Frappe we headed from Semporna back to the Tawau Airport. I read & napped along the way & we arrived at the airport just before 9 AM. We got all checked in & still had a bit of time before we needed to get through the small security station they had, so we all filed back into the line for Subway to get a bit of food for the plane ride back to Kuala Lumpur.

Once through security we found ourselves doing a lot of ‘hurry up & wait,’ moving from one seated section to another to another until finally it was time to board our 11:30 Air Asia flight back to the mainland.

Evan & I didn’t realize we had so much time between our arrival back in Kuala Lumpur & our departure to Singapore. About 2/3rds of the group were going on back to The States the evening of our arrival, another 1/3rd (minus us) was staying in Kuala Lumpur for a few more days, then we were going on to Singapore to spend a couple of days there.

We’d flirted with the idea of going to a lot of different places across Asia after finishing up our time in Borneo. I’m always of the mind that if I’m flying halfway around the world, I might as well make the most of it & see something or somewhere else while I’m over there. We’d floated the option of a full additional week in Japan or Thailand, leaning heavily into the idea of the former. We then thought well, if we’re not going to do a whole week, where would we like to spend a few days, & those options came up as Hong Kong, Shanghai, or Singapore. We did lean heavily on Japan as the choice at first, like I said, but decided against it when we realized we’d have to haul our big bags all over Japan, which it is not conducive to. We opted for the shorter time in Singapore where I had been, but Evan hadn’t.

So we bid the group goodbye, handing our hugs & good luck & made our way up to the ticketing counter to see if we could move to the earlier flight to Singapore since our flight into Malaysia had gotten in so much earlier than we’d anticipated. They were unfortunately entirely booked up, so we got to wait around for 6 hours for our evening flight out.

They went ahead & let us check our bags, which was nice, so that we didn’t have to haul them around the airport. With a ton of time to kill, we took the opportunity to hit up Din Tai Fung & get some dumplings.

The irony of us going to Din Tai Fung in one of the best food cities in the world is not lost on me. Sure, we could go to a local spot that probably blows it out of the water at a fourth of the cost, & sure, I’m sure there was probably one such stall somewhere in the airport, but Din Tai Fung holds a special place in our hearts as occasional Los Angelinos & it’s based in Taiwan anyway.

We got a number of soup dumplings, shui mai, fried rice, & a bao or two. It was interesting having it in Malaysia because they didn’t serve pork due to Malaysia being predominantly Muslim. Pork is not halal, if you didn’t know. The real star of the show at Din Tai Fung though is their chocolate dumplings which come with a vanilla cream dipping sauce. They’re incredibly rich & altogether slap so hard.
After lunch we decided to walk around the mall attached that we’d walked through several days prior in the early morning hours while being escorted by Jasmine. It was majority food, but there were also quite a few clothing shops as well. We ended up in a pretty large grocery store at one point where we witnessed the universal International traveler experience.

A man had ask one of the workers at the shop for a specific item & the language barrier was barriering. So he pulled out his phone, typed in the ask, then extended the screen out towards the face of the man he was asking for help from. & there it was, the universal International traveler experience. Runs into a language barrier. Pulls out phone. Types in what they’re after in Google or Apple translate. Fully extends arm out towards other person with screen facing them. It happens in every country I’ve ever been in. I’m of course guilty of it too at times.

After a while we found ourselves tired of walking around & returned to ticketing to then return to the coffee. for another out of this world iced hazelnut latte. We sat there a bit, charging our devices, before we decided it was time to move on & make our way through security.

There’s not much else to this tale of Malaysia other than maybe the fact that we had to go through three different security checkpoints to get to our Scoot flight to Singapore. It departed Kuala Lumpur at about 7:30 in the evening & they had us sat aboard a dreamliner for an hour long flight south.

End Of Day Nine

End Of Part Two & Blog Series…..Kind Of….

April 4, 2026

Charlie Rogers

Travel Blog, Travel, Blog

Travel Blog: Malaysia- Part One: Dormant Volcanic Islands In The Stream

April 4, 2026

Charlie Rogers

Travel Blog, Travel, Blog

PART ONE:

Day One

Nashville, Tennessee

Our flight from Nashville to St. Paul, Minnesota left at 6 AM. That meant, since it was were going all the way through internationally on a single check-in, that we had to be at the airport when the ticketing counter for Delta opened at 3:30 AM. Which meant we had to leave the house around 3 AM just to be there in time. Thankfully we had the Delta Sky Club to wait in at BNA as well as a couple of solid hours of sleep at our backs to guide us along. We both slept the entire two hour flight to St. Paul, which helped as well.

Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota

We arrived in The Twin Cities early in the 8 o'clock hour. The reasoning for our excessively early departure was made in attempt of meeting up with the rest of the group from Midwest Aquatics along the way to Malaysia, so that we could all be in the same place at the same time for our Malaysian domestic flights. We did , in fact, succeed, & met the majority of the rest of the group that was coming from Kansas City here while in yet another Delta Sky Club.

Our flight over the Canadian Wilderness & the Arctic Circle to Seoul left around 11. Evan had graciously upgraded us on this fourteen hour flight to Delta One seats, something that neither of us had ever flown before. He did this for a couple of reasons. First, Evan has been recovering from a lower back injury for the last couple of months & still has a very hard time sitting for long periods of time. This allowed us to have a lay flat bed during our very long flight & prevented him from being worried about spending the duration of the flight in a middle seat unable to get up & stretch as needed. Second, the tickets for the Delta One spots ended up being cheaper than if we had upgraded to Economy Comfort or Premium Economy. So, thanks to him, we ended up getting to lay down & sleep majority of the way to Seoul.

We both opted for the Korean meals on the flight & ended up sleeping around half of the total time in the air. I was amazed as a 6’4” person that I could fit majority of me in the lay flat cabin! The only issue we ran into ended up being because of the lack of windows. The only upgrades available at our time of change were the middle cabins. Typically we fly on either side of the plane with a window view. Without said window view I became very motion sick on our decent into South Korea, to the point where I was locating the barf bags. Note to self for future upgrades I guess.

Seoul, South Korea

Our layover in Seoul was a pretty short one & it was about mid-afternoon by the time we arrived. I was honestly a little bummed when we arrived because I was looking forward to raiding their food court for some Korean bites, but the nausea from the flight took a bit to clear up & took my appetite with it. We departed for our six hour Korean Air flight to Kuala Lumpur shortly thereafter.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

It was around 10:30 PM when we landed in Kuala Lumpur. Once we had our bags & cleared immigration we were met by a woman named Jasmine. Jasmine was sent by Tune Hotel to collect us all. She took us through the airport to the bus that was waiting to take us & our belongings over to the hotel where we had a couple hours stay before our domestic flight the next morning.

Evan & I got to our hotel room, quickly went about switching over clothing for the morning, showering, recharging devices, & were out before our heads hit the pillow for our five hour nap in the middle of our travels.

End Of Day One

Day Two

Our wake up call the next day was around 5 AM for a 5:30 AM lobby call, where we would once again be met by Jasmine to help us navigate our layover. We packed up any remaining items from the ‘not too far away’ night before & descend the hotel to meet the rest of the crew for our return to the Kuala Lumpur Airport.

We managed to make it to the airport around 6 & were immediately glad to have Jasmine again. The airport proved to be a bit of a maze; entering in on one level, having to avoid barriers, ascend up three floors by elevator, then meander through the mall til we got up to ticketing. It is here that we met the rest of the folks from our group who had flown in a day or two prior to spend a couple of days in Kuala Lumpur prior to moving on with the rest of us.

In hindsight Evan & I kind of wished that we had done the same. Not because of the travel exhaustion, but because neither of us had done the research into Kuala Lumpur & realized just how massive & in-depth a city it is. Noted for next time. We did have the foresight to tack Singapore onto the end of our trip, though we would end up wishing that we had one day longer there than we did.

Evan & I were the second to be checked in for our massive group reservation & with a little bit of time to kill while others did the same, we sauntered over to The Coffee.. The Coffee. is a Japanese based coffee shop with a small shop near international ticketing at the Kuala Lumpur Airport. They honestly may have made one of the best Iced Hazelnut Lattes I’ve ever had. It had tiny little chocolate shavings at the bottom which ended up making it taste like a Ferrero Rocher!

Once everyone was all checked in, we bid goodbye to Jasmine & thanked her for all of her help.

By the time we got to our gate we had about an hour before boarding. We used this time to do some quick money conversion/withdrawal & to try grab yet another coffee, this time trying Malaysia’s famous White Coffee. In addition to the coffee Ev & I also split a Kaya Toast, which felt like a mandatory way to start a morning in Malaysia.

Something that we all as a group debated about was the popularity of the 7-Eleven in the airport. The shop had locals wrapped around the shop & out into the pathways with baskets loaded with goods. It was mostly bread, dry/canned goods, & the like, as 7-Elevens in Asia are more akin to a high end convenience store with a lot more of a grocery element than they have here in the states. My running hypothesis is that when you get out to more remote parts of the country that certain amenities naturally become harder to come by, so you do a bit of shopping in the 7-Eleven before you go.

Our flight aboard Air Asia was around 2 hours from Kuala Lumpur to Tawau, Sabah on the island of Borneo, which is the third largest island in the world. They clustered us all together in our seating assignment &, appropriately enough, gave us the plane that had the Sea Turtle & Coral wrap. I’m going to claim it was intentional. Upon our descent into Tawau you could see all of the Oil Palm Farms. They stretched endlessly across the land, their palms arranged meticulously in neat rows that were visible from thousands of feet up.

Tawau, Malaysia

When you land at the Tawau Airport, you once again have to go through Malaysian customs & immigration. The airport is mostly outdoors with several food & souvenir shops scattered around the concourse. We were all pretty hungry when we landed & weren’t sure we’d make lunch at the dive resort so we split up to get something quick to take on our hour & a half bus ride from Tawau to Semporna.

Soon to be friend & recent acquaintance, Erica & I decided we wanted to get ahead of the week & went for a local foods stall simply titled “Noodles.” Through the exchange of Google Translate they informed us that the only things on the menu that they were currently serving were the soups. We both opted for the Penang Curry Noodle Soup.

Oil Palm Farms. Photo Credit: Evan Buddenbohn

We ran into two problems here. First, the soup, though it smelled heavenly, came in a plastic bag with nothing but a little plastic box of the noodles & toppings to pour the broth into. Not exactly bus friendly. Additionally, even though we iterated it a couple of times through translation, the noodle box was loaded up with shrimp & that’s a problem when there’s a shellfish allergy involved. So, we both opted to go with the US staple the rest of the group had ended up with, Subway.

The drive across Sabah gave us much closer views of all of the oil palms. They were legitimately about 90% of the view as we headed East.

Once we got to Semporna we were ushered onto a boat. Our luggage was transported & stowed in the back & off we went on the 30 minute crossing from Semporna to the isle of Mabul.

Mabul, Malaysia

On our boat ride over we passed by a series of villages that were situated over the top of the shallows. Majority of the houses set disconnected from one another on high stilts & there had to be over a hundred of them. Some were in clusters ranging from dozens to a handful, some sat out in the water by themselves. They struck a curiosity in me. I had remembered reading at one point about groups of people who were adapting & evolving to live more aquatic lives. Turns out this was one of the groups of said individuals! They have been found to have larger spleens which allow them to hold their breaths for about 15 minutes & dive down to around 225 feet. They are known as the Bajau People & they are considered sea nomads!

Cat On The Jetty. Photo Credit: Evan Buddenbohn

We arrived at Borneo Divers Mabul Resort in the early afternoon. Turns out they had saved lunch for us & we were shown, first, to the dive shop to set up our gear, then down the jetty to the dining hall where we were greeted with cold towels, lemon iced tea, & lunch. While we ate they had us fill out our check-in forms, our diving waivers, & all of our information for the Sipadan Island Park license. Once all of that was concluded we were shown to our rooms where our bags were already waiting for us.

Evan & I were given a double full bed room on the second floor overlooking the pool. We got all of our luggage sorted out & our remaining dive gear prepped for the morning.

The rest of our day was pretty relaxed. We went down & sat by the pool for a couple of hours, swimming occasionally. We walked long the jetty to go look into the souvenir shop & scope out the bar, then in the evening we made our way to dinner before calling it an early night. Getting some much needed rest following our two days of travel.

End Of Day Two

Day Three

We both woke up pretty early. Part of that may have been the adjustments required for the time zone shift to the other side of the world, part of that may have been the Sunrise Call To Prayer. We had arrived in Malaysia, a primarily Muslim country in the final couple of days of Ramadan. It had been a while since I had been in a Muslim country, the last was Bosnia in the summer of 2012, & I had forgotten just how cinematically beautiful the call to prayer can be. I remember telling Evan that I’ve been spending too much time in the film work & I would easily picture the tripod shots of the foliage in the dark of the early morning, cut to the waves on the beach, a cat asleep under an overhead light, the lights on the dining hall illuminating, all set to the call to prayer that happened each morning as the sun began to rise.

We ate a light breakfast, which started service around 6:30 AM, then went back to the room to collect our things & head down the jetty for our first dive at 8 AM.

Once our entire group was gathered at the dock we were given our briefing, split into groups, & assigned to our dive guide for the week. Evan, Darin (the owner of Midwest Aquatics), his daughter, our friend Deb, & I were all put into a group with Roy who was the Dive Master of the resort. The crew had come in early to set up our tanks & brought out the dive gear we’d dropped off the afternoon before in totes. Mine came with a small visitor, one of the island cats, she was a stunning mixed calico & tabby & she would spend majority of the next week either following after me or in my lap.

Our first dive was to be at the house reef, a site they had designated as “Paradise 2.” Where “Paradise 1” was, I couldn’t tell you. We never saw it, but Paradise 2 was meant to be our checkout/reacclimatizing dive. Sipadan is strictly protected & they want to certify that the divers coming in have the skill set to be diving there without harm to the local ecosystem. Most of us with cameras opted to not bring them since they add an additional layer of maneuvering & proficiency & we wanted to test the waters, literally. Which sucks because at Paradise 2 we saw a Flamboyant Cuttlefish, a huge Sea Turtle sleeping under one of the sunken boats of the manmade reef, & one of the largest Giant Frogfish that I’ve ever seen.

Our surface interval came with the usual toast, tea, & coffee. Anything that needed tinkering with on anyone’s kit between dives one & two was handled & before we knew it we were off to dive number two, a boat dive around the south end of the island.

The second dive site was “Eel Gardens” I site that I was excited for, because of the local colonies of Garden Eels that live there. I am a massive lover of Garden Eels, they bring me such joy. Our boat consisted of the five of us who had been assigned to Roy, Roy (of course), & Erica (who you met yesterday) & Jennifer, who were with a private guide named Tonny. Jennifer had booked Erica a private guide for the trip as a gift for her completion of her Masters in Photography. Part of the thought here was also that Erica, who loves Macro Diving, would be free to take her time photographing & not be bunched up with a lot of other people.

The tide at Eel Gardens was definitely stronger than on the north side of the island. We were fighting it more than Evan has hoped but all in all, we saw some pretty interesting things. The fields of garden eels were there, though they are very hard to capture on video or photos because they’re incredibly shy & retreat into the sand as soon as you get about 10-15 feet from them. The visibility was also fairly low which made any footage I did have of them incredibly out of focus. The visibility will, unfortunately, be an issue all week, we’ll discuss it & the reasons behind it in part two, most likely.

Right as we got in at the site we found two turtles resting near the surface. In addition to the garden eels, the site was full of different kinds of Nudibranchs & Flatworms. There was a Stonefish, a Juvenile Emperor Angelfish, a tiny little Decorator Crab (I can’t find what kind for the life of me), a Torch Coral with a Gall Crab living inside, Bubble-Tip Anemones with Saddleback Clownfish, & schools of Black Triggerfish.

Lunch followed our second dive, back at the resort, with the plan to reconvene around 2:30 for the final dive of the day. When it became time for dive three only Jennifer & I ended up wanting to go back out. So we buddied up along with Roy & made our way to a wall dive called “Nudibranch Center.”

Jennifer & I did see quite a few nuidbranches here, though that ended up not being the central draw of what would probably end up being one of the best dives of the entire trip. As soon as we were in the water we found a rocky outcropping covered in Maxima Clams. Their electric blues & greens were outstanding against the rocks they were embedded in. Just over the edge we found a Orbiculate Batfish, followed by several Moray Eels (one of which was massive), a handful of Sexy Shrimp, even more turtles, Blue-Spotted Stingrays, schools of Anthias, a couple of Comb Jellyfish, a Lobster, & a rather large Day Octopus. We both agreed upon surfacing to tell no one about how amazing the dive was, then immediately spilled as soon as we got back to the dock to anyone who would listen.

I was met on the end of the jetty by Evan who had been sat in one of the lounge chairs reading. We headed back to the room to debrief & get changed for dinner but were stopped along the way by a dinosaur. In one of the beds behind one of the villas was an Asian Water Monitor Lizard basking in the sun. It had to be at least 4 feet from snout to the tip of its tail. It froze as we walked by, lowering its head to appear more like a log or a rock when I shifted around a tree to get a better look at it. Eventually I let it back to its sunbathing & went about my evening. Evan & I would play “spot the dinosaur” the rest of the week as it popped up almost daily in different locations around the resort.

*I’m going to insert a footnote here, because I have friends who, like me, are NERDS. I know monitor lizards aren’t dinosaurs. I know they’re more closely related to ancient reptiles, not of the lineage of dinosaurs. The moniker for the monitor was merely for laughs as it was massive. I also know that a footnote typically must appear at the foot of a page of text. Can we suspend our rigid rules for this small segment, please? Thank you.

Dinner was served around 6:30. It typically was rice, a chicken dish, a fish dish, two types of veggies, a seafood dish, & a western dish. There was always a soup of the day, fresh papaya & watermelon, & two types of desserts. Occasionally they also had barbecue or satay going outside.

Our night was an early one. Diving is exhausting, we were still adjusting to the time zone, & our departure time for the following morning was set to 6 AM because we were going over to Sipadan for the first time.

Bougainvillea. Photo Credit: Evan Buddenbohn

End Of Day Three

Day Four

Dive Boats At Sunrise. Photo Credit: Evan Buddenbohn

Another morning where the call to prayer beat the alarm clock. 5 AM, bright & early, we were both awakened by it & decided it best to go about our morning, preparing for the 6 AM boat call.

We first went down to the dining hall in search of something small or transportable to eat, but we came up dry. Evan had medication that required food to take but he had saved some cake from dinner before that allowed him to still ingest it in the chance that there wasn’t food available in the morning before we made our way to Sipadan.

Down at the docks everyone filtered in in small groups or duos, dreary eyed & seemingly a little reluctant, but we gathered our diving belongings & loaded up into our designated boats for the voyage across the open ocean to the island.

The trip from Mabul to Sipadan takes around 45 minutes. The crossing this morning was a choppy one & I think we were all grateful to be already in wetsuits once the splash from the waves began to pepper us in the back of the open sided boat.

I suppose that it is here where I should explain to you all a little about Sipadan & what makes it so special.

Sipadan is an inactive volcano that juts out of the ocean floor. The surrounding ocean measures around 2,000 feet in depth just off the steep slopes of the island. In 1933 it was declared a bird sanctuary (with many guests at the resort coming for that reason) & in 2004 it was declared a marine park. The island park only gives out 178 dive permits per day, requiring an Advanced Open Water level certification to dive there &, in addition to the park staff, employs a number of dive marshals who observe the visitors to the island & help maintain the protection of its ecosystem underwater. The main draw of diving Sipadan is its visibility, typically exceeding 100 feet (keyword typically), the schools of Bumphead Parrotfish that nest here at night/early morning, the schools of Barracuda & Jacks, giant Napoleon Wrasse, the over abundance of turtles, as well as the likelihood for Pelagic Species like sharks, manta rays, & even whales! The hunt for the bumpheads in the early morning was the reason for our 6 AM departure.

We landed on Sipadan just before 7 AM. We were shown to the park office where we each had to verify our identity & dive certification before we gathered to brief for the dive. The site we were to hit that morning was “Coral Gardens” the intention, again, to hunt for bumphead parrotfish. Once we were briefed we reloaded into the boats & off & around we went.

I now must now interject two story details that were previously omitted from the day prior & diving in general. They involve Evan.

Evan, to his credit, got into diving because I am very into diving. I gifted him a certification course one Christmas & he has now been around the world diving. Evan, to a degree, is not the most comfortable in water. I think that’s fair to say. Additionally, he has a very hard time in dives with large groups where people end up a little on top of one another to see the things we’re all trying to stop & see. He also tends to get into a bit of a panic when his air consumption hits half a tank & really doesn’t like current as he’s afraid it’ll sweep him out to sea. He is not a bad diver by any means, in fact I would argue he’s better than around half the divers that I’ve dove with over the years. His problem lies in the panic & anxiety. He gets down under the water, something might be off, & instead of listening to the advice of me or Darin or our dive guides to do something that would mitigate his fear, he leans towards calling the dive.

On our first dive at Paradise 2 he remained about 5-10 feet above the rest of the group, never coming down closer to view whatever we were looking at. That was a case of our entire group being bunched together though. On our second dive at Eel Gardens there was a light to moderate amount of current, but instead of coming down closer to the ocean floor, he remained up in it, fighting it. All of these were fixes that both Darin & I offered fixes for in the moment & following that were not heeded. Let those anecdotes be indicative of this next dive…

When we were being briefed for Coral Gardens Roy had informed us of three main things, the first being the current. Coral Gardens has a tendency to have pretty steep levels of surface, & potential overall, current. Second, since Coral Gardens has such steep surface current, it requires us to be ready to throw & go almost as soon as we arrive at the site & to then go down so as not to get swept one way or another. The last thing that he warned of was the potential depth. We would max out at a possible 80-100 feet in depth. So we all were in a bit of a rush getting ready on the boat.

Once in the water my dive housing for my phone, where I take video, started screaming at me that it had a leak, so I had to pop back up the maybe 5-10 feet I’d gone down, flag the boat back over, & pass them my case. I think it had just gotten splashed on the way over & had a water droplet or two inside tripping the moisture sensor, because the problem never happened again.

I met Evan down with the rest of the group at around 25-30 feet & immediately we all found ourselves railing against the current. At this point I turned to Evan & asked, through hand signaling, if he wanted to switch places with me. I was closer to the wall of the reef where the current was lighter & he was more out in the open. He said no. Not a minute later he’s giving me the “something is wrong” signal & pointing to his mask. He then spells out the word “burn” in sign language to me. I can visibly see the dish soap that was used to clean his mask & prevent fog on his mask. The gel of it is entirely still there. So I tell him to clear his mask. He does not. I tell him to do that a few more times, he never does. Then he gives me the signal for “go up.” He’s calling the dive.

Let me make two things very, very clear right now. I will never be upset with someone for calling a dive if they need to. It is always about safety & comfort over anything else, but a part of that safety & comfort includes self assessment & deciding during your dive briefing if the dive is something you are comfortable with or not. Additionally, if the things causing you discomfort are things that can be attempted to fix with the help of others, those prompts & suggestions should be tried first. So we flag down Darin & I tell him that we’re going back to the boat as he & the rest of the group continue along the reef.

We did our safety stop, I inflated my SMB (Surface Market Buoy), & we made our way to the surface. Once there he went into full panic that the boat wasn’t right there to pick us up & then then one was there they thought that they were the wrong boat for us, even though they were the correct one. We got back on board & I didn’t hear a word from him until the end of the surface interval.

I myself was naturally incredibly disappointed. We’d flown halfway around the world to dive this one site that we were only allowed four total dives at the entire time we were there & we’d just had to call one. Again, my issue with the whole thing was not that the dive was called. I’ve had to call dives myself for a number of reasons, my issue was that when all of the ‘this dive is not something you are going to enjoy’ flags were handed to him, he ignored them & went anyway & that he once again ignored those trying to help him calm back down & get collected when he anxiety kicked in. He had even acknowledged that he wasn’t comfortable with the sound of the dive after receiving the briefing & had gone in anyway.

Apparently the dive was a bust though. The visibility that’s typically over 100 feet was barely thirty. They only saw a singular bumphead & a Napoleon wrasse from a distance.

Our surface interval was at the covered shelters on Sipadan. It consisted of boiled eggs, fried noodles, fruit, toast, & cake along with coffee, tea, or juice. We returned back by the park office for our briefing & were met with our second site of the day, “South Point.”

South Point was also a wall dive, though, as the name implies, it was on the southern side of the island, the hope here being that the current & visibility would be better. They were as far as I could tell. The goal here was to search for Barracuda & Jacks, along with an abundance of turtles. Evan opted out of the second dive. He would not dive the remainder of the trip.

South Point was another sheer drop. My dive casing cooperated & I went down with Darin, his daughter, Deb, & Roy. We certainly saw a lot of turtles, probably about a dozen. They were either nesting in the reef, coming in to rest, or swimming just off the wall looking for spots to sleep. The amazing portion of the dive came near the end of it when we all suddenly heard a loud rumble that sounded like a stampede or thunder.

It was a massive school of jacks, they came flying over the top of the reef, down the wall in the hundreds. They were swimming away from the Giant Trevally that were hunting them. Jacks are definitely not the smallest of fish either, so having hundreds of them swim within 5-10 feet of you at full speed is quite the experience.

We concluded the dive, returned to the park office to drop off the flag that showed we were permitted to be there, & made the trip back across the open water to Mabul.

Ev & I then spent around the next hour discussing what had happened. We talked about what upset either of us, how we could do better, what the next steps for him should be as a potential diver, & what the rest of the trip would look like for him. He agreed to sit through briefings with intent & assess how he felt about the potential of the dive following each one.

We then went down to lunch where we sat & talked with Darin, who is the dive shop owner/head instructor & has been diving his whole life. He offered Evan a bit of advice & also reaffirmed that he isn’t a bad diver by any means, he just needs to listen to briefings & those around him who are trying to help alleviate his anxiety underwater. He also suggested that the next time Evan was in Kansas City that he should just come to his 15 foot pool, kit up, & sit at the bottom of it for a while so he can get more comfortable being in the water.

Resort Pool. Photo Credit: Evan Buddenbohn

After lunch we went & hung out by the pool for a bit. Everyone had decided to pass on the afternoon dive because of the early morning that we’d had so the rest of the afternoon was ours to do whatever we wanted with. When we’d had enough of the sun I went & gathered my laptop & hard drive to go down the jetty & edit videos in the ocean breeze. Evan brought his laptop & edited photos in addition to doing a bit of work. At 4 PM, when it opened, we moved our party to the bar.

The bar at the resort is about halfway down the gangway to the jetty. It serves some pretty basic options; two or three kinds of beer, two or three kinds of wine, two rum options, a tequila, a scotch, a vodka, a gin, a whiskey, & that’s about it. You’re limited in your mixers to the canned beverages provided at the resort; coke, coke zero, sprite, tonic water, seltzer, & a flavored sparkling water. The bar also serves a little bit of food & by a little bit I mean french fries & samosas. Ev & I drank rum & coke zeros the whole time we were there, except for one evening that we will get into in part two…

A short bit after the bar opened, the rest of our group began to trickle in. First came Erica, Jennifer, her husband Dale, & their daughter. Thirty minutes later it was Darin & his daughter. About another thirty minutes later came Deb. Then again, like clockwork we had two or three other members of the party join us at the large U-shaped outdoor couches we’d claimed. We all were starting to get a little tired of the food in the dining hall, it was almost identical night after night, so we all went in on several plates of fries with samosas.

We were all expecting the larger Indian style samosas, but these were small, one or two bite sized, & wrapped in rice paper. They were honestly incredible. The fries were very good too & were served with mayo & sambal.

We did migrate down to actual dinner at some point, though I think we were all fairly full from our fried feast on the dock. I’m pretty sure it was also an early night all around because none of us had napped following our 5 AM wake up.

End Of Day Four

END OF PART ONE

March 14, 2026

Charlie Rogers

Blog, Travel, Travel Blog

Travel Blog: Pre-Malaysia

March 14, 2026

Charlie Rogers

Blog, Travel, Travel Blog

For the return readers out there, you probably know what this means already. If you’re new here, welcome, what we’re about to embark on together is a brand new travel series! These blogs tend to be my most popular every time that they come up. They’re also one of my favorite types of blogs to do because I get to share stories from the beautiful places that I’m blessed to see as well as the stories of so many around the world that I have the fortune of crossing paths with. I get to talk about food, wildlife, diving, exploring, & everything in between & I get to do so with anecdotes & pictures! That’s not why we’re here today though, unfortunately. We’ve got a little bit of time to wait, something that I have to keep telling myself as I’m writing this pre-departure. I wanted to go ahead & get us all set up for the next travel blog series out of the way so that we can dive (lol) on into it when they come around here in the next couple of weeks. I will have written this prior to our departure, but am planning to post in well into our trip being underway, so if you follow me on socials & are seeing me already doing the things by the time this comes out, you now know why!

The next trip I will be covering on her is Malaysia, specifically Borneo, Mabul, & Sipadan. We will also be covering a couple of days return to Singapore at the end of our time in this series! I’m insanely excited for all of it.

In this blog I want to fill you all in on the areas involved, as well as our plans for the trip in general, as well as give you a bit of insight as to why we are going to these specific locations. We’ll talk about the travel of it all & the journey to come! Let’s get to it, shall we?

Our journey starts this coming Thursday at which point we will leave Nashville very early in the morning to fly Delta to St. Paul, Minnesota where we will meet up with the rest of the people coming on the Malaysia part of this journey with us from Kansas City & Midwest Aquatics. From there we will all fly over the North Pole to Seoul, South Korea for a very quick layover before heading onward from there to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. We then are overnighting in Kuala Lumpur before continuing on the next morning to Tawau on the island of Borneo. From Tawau we will take a land transfer over to Semporna where we will board a boat & make the hour or so voyage by sea to Mabul where we will stay at Borneo Divers Mabul Resort for 7 nights. At the end of our seven days we’ll do it all in reverse but instead of flying out of Kuala Lumpur with the rest of the group, Evan & I will go the hour south to Singapore for three days before making our way back to The US.

One thing I feel a lot of people ask me when I tell them any sort of diving story or talk about any sort of diving travel is “why go that far?” Why not stop at Kuala Lumpur or Tawau, why the extra miles? The answer is usually the same; because these places are special. They are far away from commercial human influence for the most part & therefore the sea life is allowed to flourish & the traditions of the region are allowed to endure. I often think back to my trip to Indonesia where I traveled 42 total hours to get to the Lembeh Strait & in all honesty, I’d gladly do it again. These places are special & they deserve the attention & the time it takes to get there.

Sipadan is also exceedingly special. It is an island between Borneo & the Celebes Sea that has been designated by the Sabah government as a protected nature sanctuary. From Mabul, where we will staying, it is still about a thirty minute boat ride. Additionally the Sabah government only issues around 179 permits a day for divers & anyone going to dive the reserve is required to have an Advanced Open Water Scuba certification to go. This protects the reefs & the ecosystem of the island itself. We are only allowed two days of diving on Sipidan, the rest of the dives for the trip will take place around Mabul, another stunning island in its own right.

I have no idea what the extra curricular activities will include. If time & energy allows I’d like to dip into Kuala Lumpur on our overnight there, particularly because it boasts some of the best bars & restaurants in the world. Additionally we’ll have a day at the end of our trip where diving isn’t allowed because of our flight interval, but I have no idea what the activity that day will be. It truly could just be lounging around on the beach or poolside & that honestly sounds perfectly fine too.

Evan & I were initially going to go to Japan following our time in Malaysia, but we decided that tacking an extra week onto our trip & trying to lug dive gear around Japan sounded a bit too much, so we opted for three days in Singapore.

I haven’t been to Singapore since October of 2021, but Evan has never been. I’m excited to be back & let him experience it as well, I had an amazing time there the last time I came through!

Anyway, I think that’s all that I have for you all right now! I can’t wait to get going & begin sharing what is sure to be an amazing voyage around the world!

As Always, Much Love To You All,

-C

May 19, 2024

Charlie Rogers

Blog

Blog: Healing Doesn't Happen Overnight.

May 19, 2024

Charlie Rogers

Blog

About mid-March something happened while I was diving in the Philippines. If you’re an avid reader of my blogs you may already know to what I am alluding, but if you are not, worry not, I will fill you in as we go. I sustained a small, yet meaningful injury while out in Bohol that ended up altering the course of my trip as well as the weeks & months following it & for the last two months I’ve treated said injury like it was nothing, like it was healed or a thing in the past, which for all intents & medical purposes, it is. But I came to the realization this week that I don’t think I’ve psychologically healed from it.

Back in March I perforated my left ear drum. I’m not entirely sure if it was done while diving or when I had two o-rings pop on scuba tanks right next to the ear ear in question, but I am starting to feel it was a combination of the the two with the latter being the inceptive event.

I went to a doctor in the Philippines for the injury as well as two separate otolaryngologists here in The States that assured me that the hole was there initially & that it was sealed up & in the process of being healed. I noticed the injury going forward mostly within the first month of having it. Loud noises would cause it to buzz uncomfortably, almost like the feeling of a high pitched dental drill, but without the sound, & it also kept me awake at night. My eustachian tube would crackle & pop all throughout the night, adjusting to the pressure within & without the mending drum. Other than that, I had no physical pain or wonky discomfort & by all measures of medicine, I was healing.

I came to the realization earlier this week that I hadn’t had my ears underwater since being diagnosed with the perforation in the Philippines. Yes, I take showers & cleaned my ears, but I hadn’t taken a bath or gone swimming which for someone like me who craves the water & being submersed there in, is incredibly strange. I realized that for two whole months I hadn’t stuck my head underwater, which medically is probably wise since a perforation can take a total of 3-4 months to fully heal, but psychologically I found myself getting very anxious at the sheer thought of submerging my whole being back in water which is something that has never happened for me.

The body keeps score, whether we as people want to acknowledge that we’ve been through something traumatic or not, the body knows & often times the latent affects of that take a while to make their way up through the grey matter of our subconscious into the forefront of our thinking, conscious brain. For some of us that never happens & we end up living out lives unaware of the trauma that we are storing in certain parts of our body & the physical manifestations therefrom. The more I thought & thought about submersion, the more anxious it made me, & the more angry I found myself getting that I would be anxious over something I thought so trivial & stupid. I’ve been swimming as long as I can remember, bodies of water, especially oceans, are my calming, safe place, my retreat when I need to stop feeling like I’m drying out. To an extent that all felt kind of ripped away from me even though I knew there were ways of going forward in life had the perforation continued to exist. It didn’t take me long to decide that I needed to reclaim my strength & fortitude & try dealing with my trauma head on so that hopefully, it too will start to heal.

I guess the powers that be kind of forced my hand too as Evan & I had to have birds removed from our walls & the only way the retrieval crew could get to them was through the ceiling of our shower, which I have since patched with drywall & fixed. However, while our shower has been out of commission, I was forced to take baths to get clean.

I spent a relatively long time in the bath the other evening. Our tub is fairly large & allows for a person to lay down comfortably in it at least majority submerged, so I spent my time there preparing for the inevitability of having to dunk my whole head to get clean. When the time finally came & felt myself having to overly prepare for it mentally, like stepping into a cold shower or an ice bath. Once my head was finally under I found myself having to fight to regulate my heart rate.

I did this a process a few more times, each time trying my best to calmly navigate my way through it, osculating my head back & forth to make sure to get the water in my ear. At a certain point I got comfortable enough to set with it & fortunately, by the end of it, my ear didn't end up having it feel wonky or uncomfortable.

I found my anxiety continuing even after the conclusion of my bath. I sat in bed mentally checking to see if anything felt off physically with the ear or if I felt it had been a mistake to carry out my trial, but the more time I sat & thought about it, the more anxious I became. I decided to put it out of my mind for the night & see if the morning bore any different results from those of the evening.

Morning came & went & nothing came of the fears that still lived within me. I took another bath that evening & allowed myself to go through the trials of the ear drum once again, drying it thoroughly afterwards just to be safe & using medicated drops to make sure the moisture wouldn’t become trapped & result in an infection. Still I felt uneasy about it all.

I realized I was trying to rush my healing. I wanted to force & mold something delicate & tender with sheer brute force & will power & I had to realize that, as with all things, healing takes time, especially when it comes to healing the mind. I have to give myself & my body the space & patience they need to come back together on the same page, in a place where I am able to submerge without becoming anxious or fearful that my ear drum is going to just fly back open. Just like my body didn’t physically heal over night, my mind can't & shouldn’t be expected to do the same.

I’ll be alright, I know I will. I know there will come a time down the road where I won’t thing twice about fully entering the water & that is worth waiting for & it is worth putting in the effort to heal along the way.

I hope you all have a fabulous weekend or whatever point of the week this blog finds you & remember to extend a little patience & grace your own way!

As Always, Much Love,

-C

March 23, 2024

Charlie Rogers

Travel, Travel Blog, Blog

Travel Blog: Bohol, Philippines- Part One: I Flew To The Other Side Of The World To Go Diving & All You're Getting Is One Singular Mention Of The Ocean In This First Blog

March 23, 2024

Charlie Rogers

Travel, Travel Blog, Blog

BOHOL, PHILIPPINES

Prologue

Hello Fellow Travelers,

Welcome back to one of my absolute favorite blog series that I do here at my beloved site; travel blogs! I know, for a large handful of you all, this is also your favorite series of mine & I think for good reason. This is often the blog that I get to share major passion of mine, travel, as well as a few subsequent others such as food, beverage, dive, & storytelling. Fortunately for all of us, this series will contain all of these aspects & more! So, if you’re along for the ride, buckle in, as the full scope of this trip & its embedded tales will take up a good three weeks worth of space on this blog! With all of that being said & everything else out of the way, let’s dive on in shall we?!

PART ONE:

Day One

Los Angeles, California

Evan & I landed in Los Angeles around 10 AM on March 7th. Our direct flight options for our arrival with Southwest Airlines were either the flight we chose or one that got in around 9:15 PM, which would have cut us far too close to our 10:35 PM departure with EVA Air for Taipei. This naturally left us with around 9 hours worth of time to burn before we had to check-in for the aforementioned flight. Initially our plan was to have our friend Jenna pick us up from LAX & drop us back later but upon looking into the amount of time it would force her into in commutes on our behalf we opted to rent a car for the day instead. Popping on over to Avis we snagged the rental I had booked the evening prior, a Tesla Model 3, of which Avis has an exclusive deal for the rental of. The really nice part about it was that we weren’t responsible for charging it upon its return which really helps save you a bit of cash, especially with LA gas prices being around $5 a gallon.

Jenna had planned to head over to Pasadena to catch our other friend Rory’s Barry’s Ass & Abs class. She’d suggested dropping our luggage with her in North Hollywood, then carpooling around together, but unfortunately the time it would have taken for such a measure would have forced us to miss Rory’s class. So we opted just to meet there instead. We made it to Pas with about ten minutes to spare & loaded our luggage into the locked trunk & loathsomely named “frunk” (front trunk) of the Tesla.

I think Evan has cursed us, either that or it’s all to do with the timing of when we travel seeing as he is off Wednesdays & Thursdays so we usually end up flying those days. Either way we seem to always do a “leg day” the day prior to large amounts of travel, I guess this time would be no different.

Barry’s has a lower focus class on Tuesdays & an ass & abs class on Thursdays, that usually ends up being the cause of his post-leg day flight woes. Even if we don’t end up at Barry’s we typically end up adhering to their schedule so that we don’t get thrown into a wonky “I’m too sore for this” situation should we decide to hit another of their classes during the week.

After class we were all desperately craving a coffee. Evan & I had wanted to venture into The Burlington Arcade in Pasadena for a while & the Pas Barry’s location just happened to be right within the same block or two, so that’s where our search began & ultimately ended.

The Mandarin Coffee Stand is nestled right in the middle of The Arcade. It is a teeny, tiny coffee shop that has a customer occupancy limit of four guests at a time. The are a local, Asian women owned & operated shop that specializes in Chinese style coffee. I got a latte known as the “Toasty” which consists of Rooibos, Cinnamon, Espresso, Brown Sugar, & Oat Milk. Not typically a fan of the milk of the oat, I tried it anyway at the recommendation of the barista & it was nothing short of bangin’! As we stood around the strip sipping our respective coffees we all decided the next necessary & logical step would be to find food.

If you were to dig into the notes app on either Evan or my phone you’d discover a shared note simply titled “Travel Visits.” In said note you will find lists upon lists of mostly restaurants & bars that we’ve written down over the years to try should we ever find ourselves in any of the locations listed therein. Despite our many years in LA the list for it seems to continue to grow & grow & so we both began to pilfer through in search of what would inevitably be that day’s lunch.

Many of the locations that we found were either evening only, too far from Pasadena, North Hollywood, or LAX, weren’t open that day, or weren’t a type of food we were all feeling, but at the end of our extensive filtering we ended up deciding on a deli in Westlake called Langer’s.

Langer’s Delicatessen-Restaurant was founded in 1947 & has been in the Langer family ever since. They are a member of the LA Times 101 Hall of Fame & have been a staple on the Michelin guide for many years. They are famous for their #19 Pastrami Sandwich which has been voted amongst the world’s best which is exactly what Evan & both ordered. The sandwich was excellent, sporting Pastrami on Rye with Coleslaw, Swiss Cheese & Russian Dressing. Jenna ordered a simple sliced Salami on a Hoagie it Provolone which was simple & delightful in its own way. After lunch we ended LA’s early afternoon traffic & made our way towards Jenna’s place in North Hollywood. Once we’d gotten to North Hollywood we pulled off into the CVS to grab a few provisions.

Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles
Photo Credit: Evan Michael

Anytime I fly overseas or on a flight that is longer than 4-5 hours I bring the cabin crew a sack of goodies just to say “thank you” & help ease their time on the job in even the slightest of ways. I typically pick up some family sized packs of chocolates, candies, & snacky things to give out. In addition to our care package we also picked up some Zzzquil for the flight, since it was an over nighter. After acquiring our items we continued onto Jenna’s to recharge for a bit; both for ourselves & our devices which had already made it through a morning of travel & a day of light exploration.

With our time in LA coming to an end & our need to head off to the airport approaching, we popped into a quick shower, refreshed deodorants & the like, & swapped over into our travel clothes before packing everything back up, bidding Jenna a fond farewell, & beginning the hour+ commute to the airport.

Once we’d dropped the car back at Avis we headed into LAX to check-in for our EVA Air flight to Taipei with continued service to Manilla. Once we got to Manilla we’d have to go through immigration & customs before rechecking our bags & continuing on. We met the rest of our group from Midwest Aquatics that were headed to Bohol at the check-in gate & after greetings & hugs we all headed through security.

The process was lighter than usual so we found ourselves incredibly early for our flight, so much so that the British Airways flight occupying our gate hadn’t even received their plane. We wandered around the international terminal before settling in on something to eat. After some truly mid fish tacos, I found a secluded corner in which to write two weeks ago’s blog & awaited the boarding process.

We boarded right on time & once we’d taken off, & eaten our in-flight meal, we took the Zzzquils & attempted to get some sleep.

End Of Day One

Day Two

Taipei, Taiwan

We arrived in Taipei around 5:15 AM, local time. I managed to sleep for about a half or so of the duration of the fourteen & a half hour flight, Evan managed about two thirds. That was when he wasn’t attempting to shut off our sleeping neighbor’s over head light.

We had booked ahead online & gotten ourselves the exit row. I’m a rather tall gent at 6’4” & definitely need the extra leg room that the exit row or premium economy provide, especially on airlines based out of parts of the world where people tend to be on the shorter side. I had the “window” (there was no window) & Evan had the middle. At the time of our booking the aisle seat was already occupied, we actually assumed that it was Deb, a member of our group. It wasn’t, it was a gentlemen we had no relation to. When you’re in the exit row all of the buttons for your seat are located on the arm rest to your left about thigh high. Strangely enough, in EVA Air Economy Class, the reading light for the aisle seat illuminates the middle seat. No joke. Like each of the other buttons illuminate each of their respective seats, except for the aisle which basically doubles up on the middle. Additionally, the man on the end’s button for his over head light seemed to be a little on the sensitive side & every time he shifted in his seat it lit up the light over Evan’s head. I legitimately thought it was his own light until I noticed him slyly reaching over, across the man’s lap, trying to tap his light button. In his words “I had no issue with the light itself, it was the heat that it generated that was keeping me awake.” When he finally got around to turning off the light the man shifted in his seat thirty seconds later, immediately reigniting Evan’s personal warming bulb. Later when he got up to use the restroom, Evan positioned the man’s blanked so as to block any accidental bumping of the button from occurring.

We had about a three-ish hour layover in Taipei & we’d arrived before any of the shops & restaurants had opened. So, we as a group, decided to stretch out collective legs & walk the length of the terminal. By the time we’d made it all the way down shops had begun to open. Several members of our group took special interest in the Sanrio shop but I had my eyes set on a bakery that was beginning their prep as we initially walked by. The bakery in question is called Mazu Village, it’s half wheel pies & half boba stand. The boba & wheels pies are presented in a combo format so Evan & I opted for the one that would let us each have one of each of the two flavors; Salted Custard & Salted Custard with Peanut Butter, & also gave us each a Taro Boba Tea. The rest of the group ended up with something similar & while the two of us had decided that we favored just the custard pie over the one with peanut butter, as we found it too rich, the others disagreed.

After our saccharine breakfast we sat around making calls for a bit. Evan called his family & I called my sister, whose birthday it still was in the states. At this point we’d crossed the international date line & were a half a day ahead of everyone back home. We waited around a bit longer before I went to a booth to buy some Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup which Evan & I split. I actually think one of the best parts of the soup was the Sauced Cabbage that came with it & the hyper sweet Cold Assam Tea. We wandered around the airport for a bit after we finished our food, flitting in & out of the assorted duty free shops before we descended to our gate to wait to board.

In the Taoyuan International Airport all of the gates are situated a level below the main parts of the concourse so you have to ascend a flight of stairs/take an elevator up when you arrive & descend the stairs/elevator when you plan to depart. It’s nice because it keeps the waiting areas separate from the hustle & bustle of the main terminal. The EVA Air Gods saw fit to grace us with the Sanrio plane for our trip from Taipei to Manila. I was actually surprised to see how many of us in the group were excited about that, but the plane was cute! Even once we’d boarded the plane was full of little Sanrio easter eggs such as the Hello Kitty air freshener holder in the lavatories.

We departed Taipei at around 9:10 AM local time & began our two hours & thirty minute flight across the Luzon Strait to the Philippines & Manila.

Manila

Our flight landed in Manila at 11:45 & we were immediately ushered off the plane to immigration. Evan somehow made it through the passport check without filling out the online application for a visa, the rest of us weren’t so lucky. We were all handed a QR code to scan & fill out a digital form before we could get our stamp. Pretty standard procedure, just thought it was odd Evan got through without it, he must just have one of those faces.

He did fill out his visa application retroactively as we sat waiting for our baggage to come through. Figured it was better to have it done & entered in, especially if it ended up being needed upon our departure. Once we all had our luggage collected we headed out to the transfer area where we booked the transfer shuttle to the local departures terminal & exchange USD for Filipino Peso.

The man running the shuttle kiosk at the international terminal told us that it would be about a forty-five minute wait before we would have a transfer & it wasn’t guaranteed that we would all fit, in which case they would have us wait an additional 30-45 minutes for the next shuttle. I’m not really sure how or why the transfer times on the shuttles are so long, especially since the walk time between the two terminals was only about 5-10 minutes. We all opted for that.

The walk was a bit of a system shock. Most of us changed into lighter clothing before hand, but coming from LA & then Taipei where the weather was sitting in the mid to upper 50s, the shift into the 80s felt like much more drastic a change. By the end of our walk to the other terminal we were all sweating. Each of us reapplied deodorant & proceeded to the Philippine Airlines ticketing counter where we were met with one of the more common annoyances when it comes to checking baggage internationally across different carriers; entirely different baggage rules. We made it work & got everything figured out without the need for any extra dollars being exchanged.

By the time we made it through security we only had about an hour to an hour & a half left over in what was our four hour layover. We camped the bags & we went out exploring in waves to see what the airport terminal had to offer. Two party members came back with some rather tantalizing looking Boba Tea & Evan & me, & two others set out to find & claim our own.

Once the teas were acquired we returned to our gate & waited to board. Around 3 PM we all started lining up to board & before long we were off on our way to the island of Bohol.

Bohol

Bohol-Panglao International Airport is a bit on the smaller size, boasting around five or six gates in total. We arrived after our brief hour & a half flight just before 5 PM where we descended the escalator to the single baggage carousel, collected our belongings, & were greeted by the Magic Oceans transfer crew with water bottled & some bomb ass banana chips. We all climbed into the two vans they’d provided, with out luggage occupying a third vehicle, & off we went towards Anda.

The drive to the dive resort was a long one, not going to lie. We’re talking like two & a half to three hours long. After being in planes for a total of 22 hours off & on & laying over, I think all of us were ready to be done & there. The benefit of these far out locations & trips is that once you’re there, you’re there for a while! They also certainly drive different in the Philippines than we do here in the states. For starters there’s no speed limits, at least not in Bohol, unless designated by a work or school zone. They also don’t necessarily abide by the lanes. Evan & I got sat on the front bench of the van & I think we both regretted it as there were many times that each of us was slamming down our foot on the imaginary brake that we each wish we had. At the end of the day though the driver DID deliver us safely to Magic Oceans, even though I though we were going to hit dogs or those going out on the then Saturday evening who were walking along the side of the road.

I did manage to sleep the last hour & some change in the car, mostly because I had to pee & it seemed the only solution to avoiding that issue. We arrived in the darkness to Magic Ocean where we were all guided to the dining area for dinner, which was in full swing. Dinner at Magic Oceans is served family style with an exquisite chef preparing an appetizer course, a main course with around five dishes, & a dessert. I made it about halfway through the trip before I realized that I’d forgotten to write down the nightly menus so unfortunately they will be absent from this series despite their amazing quality in nature & the chef who prepared them’s lovely singing voice (we’ll get to that in later installments).

Once we were all situated with food, Evelyn, the resort manager gave us a quick briefing regarding our rooms & the plan for the morning in which we planned to start our diving. Once she had finished we were each escorted privately to our rooms where our luggage awaited us & promptly showered & went to bed so as to be ready & refreshed for the adventures that awaited us the following day!…but not before I went out the door of our room to the sandy overlook where I sat listening to the rush of the ocean for a few minutes.

…see, I mentioned it, once…& yes, that did happen, seriously. There were Dwarf Zebra Hermit Crabs in the sand fighting over a scrap of food. Evan even took a picture of me headed there! (See Below)

Path Outside Our Room At Magic Oceans
Photo Credit: Evan Michael

End Of Day Two

END OF PART ONE

Part Two

June 10, 2023

Charlie Rogers

Blog, Story

Blog: World Oceans Day 2023

June 10, 2023

Charlie Rogers

Blog, Story

Hiya!

Just incase you missed it, or the title of this post, Thursday of this week was World Oceans Day, a global celebration of that which covers 71% of our planet’s surface. For many the ocean is a bit of an illusive thing that we only come face to face with on vacations or when we’re driving along the coast, for others it’s a part of their daily lives. Whatever amount of time that you perceive the oceans play in your daily life, the impact that our oceans have on our daily lives is as immense & deep reaching as the bodies of water themselves. If you were unaware, the ocean produces between 50-80% of the total planetary oxygen, most of with comes from algae & phytoplankton. Additionally, the temperates & currents of the oceans have a massive impact on the weather we receive on land. The sad part is that we are killing our oceans, at a rapidly accelerating, & it will most definitely end with the extinction of us as a species along with the countless unique & beautiful species that dwell in the depths.

But the soapbox was not why I chose to write today’s blog about World Oceans Day, instead I really wanted to take the time to share a few stories from my experience in the big blue since 2022’s World Oceans Day. I know a few of these stories will be repeats of those already detailed in my travel blogs, but I know not all who find their way here have read those & those of you who have may have forgotten the stories there in, so please indulge me as I regale you with them now!

I suppose it is worth noting that I have always been a great lover of the ocean; it is a place that has both fascinated me, grounded me, & calmed me. The ocean is the place that I feel the most at home. I got my dive certification in May of 2021 & it has been my often pricy addiction ever since. These stories use this place of great love for me as their home place. Enjoy.

Fiji, July 2022, Sharks

The story I often get asked to tell the most happened in Fiji, where I went shark diving. I’ve never understood the infatuation with my shark story though I am also someone who has never found themselves afraid of them but this is the story my father requests I tell any time that I’m amongst friends, family, or newly forged acquaintances.

One of the main draws of diving the Beqa Lagoon in Fiji is the shark dive. For decades fishermen from Siwa would cross the lagoon going West to fish in the open waters that lie just beyond. On their way back across the lagoon they would clean the catch & return that which was undesirable to them to the sea. This chumming of the water naturally attracted sharks. At a certain point the Fijian government caught wind of the practice & decided to monetize this phenomenon while at the same time doing their bit for shark conservation. The Fijian government started to purchase the chum from the fishermen which they collected in bins & hauled back out to the site which they have now designated as a marine reserve. The authorities allow two boats of divers three or four times a week to come & watch them feed the sharks.

Within the pass where the sharks reside there was been built an arena. Literally called “The Arena,” it sits at one of the widest points of the passage where there has been constructed a three foot tall wall made of reef rubble. Divers line up around the edge of The Arena, behind the wall, & kneel in waiting. The way they feed the sharks is actually borderline hilarious. A member of the national park dangles a yellow rubbish bin about ten feet above the sharks & takes it over to a mooring spot where it is secured to the center of The Arena about fifteen feet above the bottom. When I was there they only had enough chum for one feeding on a two tank dive so the first dive they just marionette-d the bin around, taunting the sharks with the food they were still about an hour & a half away from getting.

Remember how I mentioned not being afraid of sharks? Well, that doesn’t mean that I don’t respect & understand that they are not beautiful, misunderstood creatures who are still capable of taking my arm off & then some. I knew that the longer I stayed on the boat at the dive site the more anxious I would become about getting into these shark inhabited depths, so I designated myself first one off the boat. Once I was in the lagoon & on the line I looked down & immediately caught a glimpse of a six foot bull shark circling the reef about thirty feet down. Once the whole group was in the water we descended where we were met by the same bull shark, only this time at a distance of around four or five feet away, swimming along beside us.

As I mentioned above, they didn’t empty out the chum bucket until our second dive at which time the sharks naturally frenzy. At one point one of the sharks decided the bin wasn’t dispensing fast enough & took it upon themself to enter the bin in an attempt to grab as much food as sharkly possible. The shark got a little stuck & after a lot of wriggling finally freed itself with several fish heads jutting out of its jaws. The shark then took off from the frenzy but was unable to make it out before another shark noticed its collection. The second shark chases the first right in the direction of my face. From where I was situated, pinned between the end of the wall of The Arena & the reef wall my options were limited on how to get out of their way. Fortunately one of the guides was positioned not too far from me & was able to nudge the sharks away with a large ring attached to a pole.

Before we left the dive site Elaine & I were ushered over to a small crack by the guide who had been sneaking food to a moray. The eel came out, wrapped around him, then returned to its hole where it stuck about half of its body out. We each offered it a scratch before it gently returned home.

Fiji, July 2022, Drifting

One afternoon we set out on a drift dive. The plan for the dive was to enter down current, drift along, & get picket up pretty far down the reef wall. About fifteen minutes into our dive the ocean had other plans & we ran smack into a wall of current.

Normally a little current is fine, but this was the level of current where you find yourself kicking with everything you’ve got to go little to no where. So our guide gave us the signal to double back & hope that the captain of the boat would catch on to our dilemma.

When we surfaced we all pulled out our SMBs (an inflatable, six foot tall beacon that sticks out of the water) & began to make as much noise as possible. We did this for about thirty minute, all the way slowly drifting farther & farther from the reef. Luckily the captain took notice to the lack of divers where he ended up & circled back to find us.

In the midst of all of this happening Jodie, the dive guide, began to tell us a story about this elderly couple she was guiding a few years back who she was stuck out at sea with for about forty-five minutes to an hour before the captain found them. She said that she was in full panic mode while the couple was having the time of their lives, taking picture, laughing, etc.

The crazy part about this whole endeavor was that none of us felt panicked by it. We were all chatting, making jokes, planning our very long swim back to shore. None of us, at least outwardly, seemed worried & the sentiment continued even when we were headed back & on shore!

Had we have stayed where the current hit us we most likely would have been swept out to sea even farther than we ended up. Now I dive with a mile radius whistle & a satellite phone enabled watch.

Indonesia, October 2022, Butterflyfish

At a site called Angel’s Window in the Lembeh Strait there exists a 100 foot rock tower that sits smack dab between the mouth of the strait & the open ocean. This rock has many caves & swim throughs as well as a flourishing reef. During the second half of our dive we rounded the edge of the rock & were met by a large school of butterflyfish who immediately came & schooled around us.

I suppose it’s worth noting to those of you who don’t dive that damselfish are a rather aggressive lot of fish, they come careening off of the reef & attack you, which feels like little more than just a stern poke wherever they hit. These damsels often attack the largest member of a group first, which in this case, & every other case, is usually me. Back to the butterflyfish.

So we’re surrounded by this school of butterflyfish. I was immediately both utterly confused & over the moon with excitement. As we got closer to the reef I was once again the victim of a feral damselfish attack only this time I had a posse. My posse dipped immediately. As soon as the damselfish came off the reef the butterflies went in. You see the butterflyfish, my new found homies, were just using us as a diversion to get the damselfish off to the reef so that they could swoop in & eat the eggs the damselfish was protecting. I was fascinated by what was happening & watched it as long as I could.

Puri, our guide, indicated that it was time to move on & seeing the ‘but, but’ in my eyes over leaving the spectacle that was happening he wrote “they will follow us” on his board & showed it to me. Trusting in Puri I left the butterflies only to turn around & find the exact occurrence Puri had predicted happening! The entire school of butterflyfish were following us, when a damsel would spring off the wall, they would slide in to eat the eggs. This continued for the duration of the dive until we got to a point where the current became too strong for them.

June 18, 2021

Charlie Rogers

Blog, Travel, Travel Blog

Travel Blog: Maui-Part Three-Food For Thought

June 18, 2021

Charlie Rogers

Blog, Travel, Travel Blog

Previously On

…

PART ONE

PART TWO

Now, back to our regularly scheduled content!

SECTION TWO: MAUI CONTINUED

DAY FIVE

In case you were unaware, Maui is home to a very popular local restaurant, Mama’s Fish House, which is located on the north shore in Paia. I have very fond memories of going to Mama’s as a twelve year old lad & was understandably invested in going back this trip. However, COVID regulations being what they are in the state of Hawai’i at that moment, Mama’s wasn’t taking any walk-ins & their reservation list was booked out until August. I had called a few days prior to Sunday to see if there were any random cancellations but had, until that point, no luck. I was advised by the receptionist to try & call or “walk-in’ right as the restaurant opened at 11 for their lunch seating.

Sunday rolls around, Evan & I pack up the car with all the things we figured we’d need throughout our day & we headed up Paia. We arrived at the gate of Mama’s around 10:40 & pulled into a spot. Within a few minutes a line of cars had already began to form behind us. I made the call a few minutes before 11 to see if by any miraculous chance something had opened up & BAM!!! SUPERPOWER STRIKES AGAIN!!!! They had a table available at 11:20. Feeling rather hungover from the previous evening & needing to burn some time, we went back down the street to Choice Health Bar where I grabbed a Tropical Beets pressed juice & a Noni shot, a local ‘cure all” that I will definitely agree with them, is an acquired taste.

Juiced up & nearing the time of our newly minted reservation we headed back to Mama’s, immediately found a parking spot up front (superpower), & were shown down to the lower host stand. After around five minutes staring at the collection of autographed photos they have by the restaurants entrance we were shown to our table.

The vibe of the fish house was exactly as I remember it; deep Koa accents with open breezeways set nestled in the side of a hill, bay front, just off a grove of palm trees. We sat, order a little bit of the hair of the dog, & enjoyed the warm sea breeze sweeping through the venue.

At the recommendation of the waitress we ordered the Macadamia Nut Crab Cakes & the Toko (Hawaiian Octopus) for an appetizer. The crab cakes were up there as some of the best I’ve ever had, as was the octopus! For our main course we split the Mama’s Curry & their daily special of Mahi Mahi. We’d had three separate people in the restaurant rave about the curry & boy, were they right! The fish was so fresh & so perfectly prepared, it practically melted in your mouth. Dessert was espresso & a Polynesian Black Pearl, Mama’s signature dessert. The black pearl is a Passionfruit Mousse topped with Chocolate Ganache with a Cookie Shell & Passionfruit Drizzle! I’d had it before & I had never forgotten just how incredible it is!

We wrapped up at Mama’s around 12:30/1 & were absolutely stuffed, the problem with that being that we had another dinner reservation at Merriman’s at 4:30. While doing my initial restaurant research for Maui I’d stumbled upon Merriman’s & had managed to snag their very last reservation for the foreseeable future. Say it with me folks, superpower. So hoping to burn through a few calories, aid the digestion process, & having just made it through the 24 hours elevation limit following my dives, we went up to ‘Iao Valley to hike!

We were under the impression ‘Iao was a longer hike than it was but it was stunning nevertheless. The drive up to ‘Iao was very reminiscent of the Road to Hana in the sense that you go from one ecological biome to another in almost the blink of an eye. You go from Hawaiian hill country to lush rainforest. It was raining up in ‘Iao but we didn’t mind. In all honesty we were pretty hot & sweating from sitting down at Mama’s. We basically did the hike in 15 minutes then spent the next 45-ish just wandering around the park, going down to the river, contemplating swimming, trailblazing, etc.

Having a little extra time between our hike our & early dinner we decided to go back & change as we’d gotten a little muddier than we’d initially anticipated. We cleaned off & got back in nicer clothes before we climbed back into the car & went up Lahaina way.

Dinner at Merriman’s was set right on the edge of a cliff overlooking the north shore to the backdrop of a wedding happening just below us. It was served grand prix style so we got to pick from a few options in each category; appetizer, entree, dessert (naturally). Evan & I once again split everything we ordered getting Ahi Poke & once again, Octopus. Evan favored Merriman’s octopus, I think I favored the Mama’s one, both were exceptional though. Our entrees were Shrimp & Scallops as well as a Macadamia Nut encrusted Mahi Mahi. Dessert was Passionfruit Pot De Creme & a Flourless Chocolate Cake. I wish we’d gone into dinner a little more hungry but I don’t think either of us regret getting to do both restaurants even if they were bumped a little close time wise to one another.

We went back to Kihei & ended up once again sat at the bar at Nalu’s before calling it an early evening. I had a dive that departed from Lahaina at 6:45 AM the next day & we were going to need to leave our condo around 5:45/6 to get there.

END DAY FIVE

DAY SIX

As I stated above, Monday started with an early morning. We left the VRBO at between 5:45/6 AM & went back up the coast to Lahaina. My check-in at Lahaina Divers was at 6:45 at their shop. I checked-in, grabbed a wetsuit, collected the rest of my gear & walked through old town Lahaina from the shop to the harbor. Aboard the ship I was shown to my BCD & tanks for the dive before we did one last check & headed off to Lanai. Evan went on his way to explore Lahaina, landing somewhere with a chocolate croissant on a beach.

The dive Monday was to the Cathedrals of Lanai, a series of lava tubes off the southern coast of the island of Lanai. Our first dive spot was Cathedral One, a lava tube with a large stone in the middle they refer to as “the alter.” I was paired with a dude from Colorado but the total population of our dive group was 8-10 people. I think I decided at this early point in my dive experience that it might just be worth it to pay the extra bit of cash to have a private dive guide or at least to get a smaller dive group. The amount of times I got kicked in the face, run into, etc was alarmingly high. That’s not to say I didn’t have fun, I had a blast, truly. It was just a lesson learned at 40 feet below the surface.

At the first cathedral we swam upon a series of rare crabs, several sharks lounging in a cave, & a massive porcupine puffer, not to mention the breathtaking, pun intended, cathedral itself. We exhausted our tanks, returned to the boat, & went off to our second dive location.

Our second tank of the trip was reserved for Sergeant Major, a dive they can only do when the current conditions are right. The site is named as such due to the large quantities of Sergeant Majors, a striped yellow & grey damselfish, that school there. The main draw to Sergeant Major’s lava fingers however is the presence of the Javanese Eel. A Javanese Eel, otherwise known as the Giant Moray, is just that. Giant. They can reach up to three meters in length & weigh up to sixty-six pounds. Did we find the eel? We sure did. Was it magnificent? It definitely was!

At Sergeant Major I felt the pressure of the close quarters especially when it came to getting the whole group to see the fauna of interest. In one such occasion I did my best to get out of the way of a less than observant fellow diver & ended up with a three inch gash across my thigh from a run in with a stony coral.

I don’t mean to sound down trodden on the dive, it was a blast & truly an amazing experience. I honestly can’t wait to dive the cathedrals again & my dive guide was awesome! I’ll just definitely be doing so in a smaller group.

After our dive was finished we all boarded the boat & headed back to Lahaina. Evan met me at the dive shop where I picked up a t-shirt & a sticker then we headed down the coast towards Leoda’s to get a post dive pie or two.

At Leoda’s we got one of their Famous Banana Cream Pies & a Pineapple Macadamia Nut Pie. As much as a banana cream pie fan as I am, I think the pineapple one was my favorite! In addition to the pies we went to the small local convenience shop next door & grabbed a few pieces of Spam Musabi.

Once we’d returned to Kihei I went down for a nap after feeling sapped from the morning. Pretty sure we returned to Nalu’s yet again that night. We’d made friends with the bartender/manager, Sue, & were going there to hang out with her & exchange stories.

END DAY SIX

DAY SEVEN

Our last day in Maui.

Our flight out wasn’t until around midnight & I’d asked our lovely VRBO host for an extension on our checkout time since we had nowhere to go until then. She graciously gave us the entirety of the day!

We slept in a tad as we knew the day & night ahead of us was going to be a long one, especially with that red eye flight out. After waking up a bit later than usual we set out to grab one last snorkel before we had to say goodbye to Hawai’i. We ventured down to Wailea to Makena Landing & got to snorkeling amongst the divers. Was I fairly jealous of the fact they could stay down while I had to come up for air constantly, yes, but I enjoyed myself nonetheless even seeing two separate turtles & almost running into one!

After our morning swim we headed back to start cleaning the apartment we’d called home for the past week. Since our host had extended our time for free we decided to make it as easy as possible on her & cleaned majority of the place ourself, including laundry. Once we were satisfied, we packed our stuff into the car & headed off to get one last shave ice from Ululani’s.

I got the same flavor as before, the guava, mango, passionfruit mix with macadamia nut ice cream but instead of a second POG I got a Thai Tea with Sweetened Condensed Milk on it! Shaved ice in hand we went down the road to return Evan’s snorkel gear & bid the Maui Dive team one last fond farewell.

We’d been invited by Sue to come sit at Nalu’s with our bags until it was time to catch the shuttle from the rental service to the airport. So that’s exactly what we did! I wasn’t mad about that decision at all, especially since I wanted to grab one last bowl of poke before we left. Sat at the bar of Nalu’s we met a couple from Fort Collins who were on the last leg of their trip too. We sat exchanging drinks & stories until I received an urgent call from the shuttle service saying they needed us to get on the earlier shuttle to the airport. I honestly didn’t know it was an option but the driver disclosed that we could also just drop the car at the parking lot across from the terminal & they would come pick it up in the morning. We opted for that option & sat at the bar for another hour or so.

After many a hug & sad goodbye we drove to the airport dropping the car exactly where the rental company had asked. The airport looked like a ghost town, especially compared to the week before. We breezed through the livestock/produce check, check-in, & security & made it to our gate with an hour to spare.

END DAY SEVEN

END SECTION TWO: MAUI

SECTION THREE: KANSAS TO NASHVILLE

We’d received a comp upgrade on our seats & were each put in the exit row. I guess no one else thought to try & do the same because the exit row, on both sides, was completely empty. So, we took advantage of that! I took the left side of the plane, Evan the right, & we had our very own economy class lay flat beds!

Getting surprisingly more rest than expected & landing in Phoenix, we got to our gate & took an additional nap followed by another nap on the flight from Phoenix to Kansas City. We picked up dinner on the way back to my parents & met my sister & her family there for dinner.

The next morning, before heading back to Nashville we met my sister & niece at Snooze AM Eatery for breakfast before swinging back by my parents, picking up the dogs, & heading back home to Nashville.

END SECTION THREE

END BLOG

EPILOGUE

I hope you enjoyed my stories, I hope I was able to capture even the slightest bit of majesty & magic that Maui has to offer & transport you there for even the briefest moment in time. Maui is an other worldly place full of immense beauty, personality, love, & culture. It is a place all its own & if you let it, it’ll readily make you feel welcomed & right at home. Much like any place I travel I have found that the people are truly what makes them special. This world is a colorful tapestry of life experience, trials & tribulations, & all of us are searching for the same things, identity & home.

Maui was already a special place in my heart but now it has cemented itself there. I’ve found myself over the last few weeks having a very hard time leaving it behind not to mention how much its sabotaged my sleep schedule. I urge anyone to find a way to Hawai’i but if you go, do so with respect. These islands are someone else’s lands, someone else’s home, someone else’s traditions & they are worth celebrating. Treat the land with respect, treat the people with respect, & do your best to leave it as you found it for those who come after. Yes, Hawai’i is beaches & ocean but it is so, so, so much more than that. It is a thriving culture & community that deserved to be preserved & passed down from generation to generation. Mahalo Maui for an unforgettable week. I’m grateful for the lessons you taught me, the friends I made, & the amazing opportunities you laid in my path. I can’t wait to see you again & I truly hope it is sooner rather than later.

-C

June 11, 2021

Charlie Rogers

Blog, Travel Blog, Travel

Travel Blog: Maui-Part Two-Divers, Dinings, & Drives

June 11, 2021

Charlie Rogers

Blog, Travel Blog, Travel

SECTION TWO: MAUI CONTINUED

Welcome back!

If you're a returning guest to this blog series on my Maui escapades, thank you for reading! If you’re not caught up to this point give this a read first! We will be including themes, characters, locations, etc from the previous blog post so go read it here!

Hmmm, where’d we leave off, where’d we leave off? OH! Right! Back from the Road to Hana, sleep at a decent hour, end of day two, end of part one!

DAY THREE

Something I didn’t expect to play out the way it did while in the mid-pacific was my sleep schedule. I was waking up at 5:45/6 AM & I was ready for bed before 9/10 PM, contrary to the mainland where I am a night owl through & through. Seeing how I had been blessed(?) with new sleep schedule I woke around 6:15 on Friday to a text from my soon to be scuba instructor, Kerstin, stating she’d had a cancellation & she was curious if we could move our open water dives up to 8-ish instead of our original set time of Noon. I let her know that we had to drop off our temporary rental car but I’d happily meet her at Maui Dive Shop as soon as we were done with that, which was literally right down the street.

Evan & I stopped to grab a liquid, caffeinated breakfast of coffee before we went to return the rental. As I said above the rental service was literally down the road from the dive shop, we’re talking 1,500-ish feet, so we dropped off the car & walked from there to Maui Dive. I was actually under the impression that we’d be diving off the beach across from the dive shop, Evan planned to spend the day sunbathing there while Kerstin & I were submerged. I was wrong. (It happens from time to time). The issue with this was that our dive site was in Wailea at Ulua Beach (4.3 miles south) & we were required to have our own transportation there. Our second rental car, the one we didn’t think we’d have but my superpower came through for, also wasn’t going to be available to pick up until 9 but apparently that was perfect for Kerstin’s schedule! We then perused the shop, buying up souvenirs & changing into swim gear in their restroom before walking the 900 feet back over to the new rental agency.

The car they had ready for us was a beat up 2011 Nissan Sentra & I mean beat up. I only mention the state of the car because they did. The woman who showed us to the car & did the “walk around” with us she flat out said to us “don’t worry about dinging it up a little, this car is on the verge of retirement from us. Just as long as you don’t drive it back in with the bumper dragging in the road we’ll be fine!” The car did two things really well & those two things were exactly what I wanted it to do. It drove & it had functioning air conditioning. From there we made our way down to Wailea towards my 9:30 AM rendezvous with the ocean.

The funny thing is that upon our arrival at Ulua I immediately found a parking spot only about two hundred feet from the beach. I pulled out my phone when the car was stationary to find a text from Kerstin saying that parking at Ulua is always a nightmare & that I may have to park up farther away & walk a bit. Didn’t happen.

We were getting out of the car, collecting our belongings for the mid-morning, & were immediately met by Kerstin, fresh off her walk from the upper parking down to the beach. She & I plopped down our gear in the park uphill from the water, parked under the shade of a tree in the soft Bermuda grass & began reviewing all the aspects of SCUBA as well as our dive plan. Evan took the remainder of our stuff & went down to begin his beach lay. After going over the dive details, exchanging stories, & assembling our equipment we walked down to the beach.
I knew I’d be immediately hooked on SCUBA, I could feel it in my gut, but I never would have guessed the extent & speed at which those emotions would come rushing in, but destiny is often serendipitous & the paths we walk in life often ripple & rhyme throughout our years. Through the state of wonder & overwhelming peace I found living a brief moment beneath the surf I couldn’t escape the feeling of familiarity. I had been here before, I just knew it. I had seen this place but was it in a dream or in another lifetime or what? It wasn’t until our departure from the water that the realization clicked for me.

We’re going to take a cute little detour here & rewind the clock back to 12 year old me, so 17 years ago…wow…Anywho. My first time in Maui was with my family at that age, the company my father worked with at the time was having a conference there & we all got to go! Our flight for that trip got into Maui really late from what I can recall & we ended getting to bed around midnight. I remember being awoken by my dad around 6 in the morning & being rather upset about that. He told me to put on a swimsuit & grab my goggles & I sleepily followed him down to the beach. We went swimming & I was once again immediately overcome with deep peace. That beach was Ulua. The first swim I ever did in Maui, the swim that helped solidify my love for the ocean was at Ulua Beach. Like I said. Ripples.

After a morning filled with diving we disassembled the gear, put it back in the dive truck & Kerstin & I went our separate ways for the day. I was so hungry at that point I could have eaten my arm so Evan & I decided to go try a highly recommended bento box food truck called Kitoko. The best way I can describe Kitoko is if bento boxes were done in a Michelin Star fashion. We once again followed the recommendations of the chef & order an Ahi Reuben & their daily special of Surf & Turf which consisted of the Pastrami Ahi, Seared Venison, & Marlin Sausages. All of it was incredible & was presented in the most beautiful way. Their fresh made seaweed focaccia bread is truly to die for.

After the savory delights of Kitoko my sweet tooth kicked in & I knew it was time to finally dive into Hawaiian Shave Ice so we headed over to Ululani’s. Ululani’s is a popular Maui/Hawaiian chain, having six location on Maui alone & despite the line, it lives up to the hype! I order two smalls, feeling a tad indecisive as well as wanted to get something I knew I’d like & try something new. I got P.O.G. (Passionfruit, Orange, Guava) & a second of “Sunset Beach” (Mango, Passionfruit, Guava) with Macadamia Nut Ice Cream underneath at the recommendation of the cashier. She was right, of course, & the Sunset Beach was easily my favorite of the two, which is saying a lot since the P.O.G. slapped too!

From the Ululani’s in North Kihei we continued on around the island to Lahaina. We wanted to find a snorkel spot, since apparently we hadn’t spent enough time in the water that day, & ended up at Honolua Bay.

To get to Honolua Bay you have to park your car along the side of the road & hike down a 100 meter trail that leads through the jungle to the ocean. The path is stunning & is in fact a burial ground for the Hawaiian people. There are signs all over stating to not veer off the path or do anything to disrupt the many unmarked graves that fill the grove. The trail also meanders along a stream that empties into the bay itself.

The beach of the bay is very rocky; large & small boulders all the way into the water, you kind of have to ease your way in. When you get in you’ll need to either swim out a ways or dive down a little to escape the ethereal effect the mixing of the fresh & saltwater have on the surface of the water. The snorkeling here is outstanding though, protected on both sides by cliffs, the water doesn’t have too strong of a current & is fairly clear.

Once the sun started setting we got out, got dressed, trekked back up to the car & headed back to Lahaina for dinner, stopping to take a few photos of the chickens feeding on the papaya that had fallen in the grove.

We’d been told by multiple people to try & eat at Star Noodle in Lahaina, unfortunately, like most of the restaurants on Maui during our stay, they were requiring reservations & were booked up for the next two weeks. So, naturally, we got a table on the water, right at sunset! (Superpower!)

At Star we once again, noticing a trend here?, let the wait staff order for us. Our waitress picked out Tempura Shrimp, Garlic Noodles, Pork Steam Buns, & their Chicken Wings. All of those items were great but I especially loved the shrimp & the wings! We also didn’t skimp on dessert ordering their daily selection of ice cream; matcha pistachio, strawberry lychee, & thai coffee. The strawberry & the matcha were the best!

Towards the end of our dinner the Luau next door began, the dancers of whom used the side of the restaurant as their “backstage area” before they would go on. It sounded like a blast but just hearing the music from it was enough. With warmed hearts & full bellies we returned to Kihei for an early bedtime, we had ourselves a very early morning the next day!

END DAY THREE

DAY FOUR

We woke up on Saturday at 5:15 AM. Groggily we collected our SCUBA/Snorkel gear & headed down to the entrance of the complex we were staying in. We were picked up at 5:45 in a guide van by Celeste, one of the other guides for the day ahead. We picked up two other parties of divers before heading to Maalaea Harbor.

We were greeted by Kerstin as we got off the van, who instructed us to pick up our wetsuits & board the boat that waited just off the slip for us. I stored my dry gear, set up my regulator & BCD (buoyancy control device) & off we went to Molokini Crater for a morning of diving!

There were three other groups of divers aboard the boat with us diving but Kerstin & I were the last into the water seeing how I was still only two dives in to my certification. Evan stayed behind near the boat & snorkeled with some of the other guests!

I’d never done a boat dive before, (naturally), but there was something about it that was exhilarating! You’re above the water & suddenly there’s a whole other world that opens up below you that you hadn’t seen before & it’s yours to explore. Kerstin & I set off on our dive around the crater finding wave after wave of schooling fish. I even made friends with a friendly little male blue throat triggerfish who came right up the me & hung around til I offered him scritches & he returned to the reef below.

Our next dive site was Turtle Town, back off the west coast of Maui. Evan once again snorkeled while Kerstin & I were once again the last divers off the boat. As the name suggested we saw turtles but there were also a few large passthroughs, an octopus or two, as well as a a very large number of frogfish. I had footage of all of these things, or so I thought…my GoPro didn't turn on…

When we emerged from the water I was congratulated by the entirety of the boat on becoming the newest member of the club & we headed back up the coast to the harbor.

We didn’t get back to our condo until about 1:30 or 2 PM at which point both Evan & I were beat. We took a nap before going out around 3:30 or 4 to run a few errands.

We snagged coffee, a few more groceries, & stopped at Yee’s Orchard & Fruit Stand before the hunger set in & we decide to head over to Nalu’s, a place recommended by Kerstin for dinner.

I ordered the best dang Poke I’d ever had & Evan ordered a Bulgogi Burger. By the time we’d gotten here & gotten through the line to order it was already around 6:30 or 7 PM so the sunlight was rapidly fading. We decided to move from our table, set right in front of the stage where a local artist had began to play & up to the bar where we were introduced to Ruthie, a local woman who’d lived on the island for sixty years & was meeting a friend of hers there for dinner. We sat & chatted, shared rounds of drinks, talked about pets & life & before we knew it it was closing time & I was slightly intoxicated, flirting with a bar back.

Our place was right down the street from Nalu’s so we walked back home unprepared for the hangover to follow the next day.

END DAY FOUR

There’s still much more of this adventure to be told, I hope you’ll come back again next week when we’ll talk more SCUBA, more hikes, more luck, & much more food!

Until Next Week,

May 29, 2021

Charlie Rogers

Blog

Blog: But Like...Bro, Where Have You Been?

May 29, 2021

Charlie Rogers

Blog

Hi!

Did you miss me? I sure hope you did haha.

Soooooo, I’m going to cut right to the chase on this one, make it a little easier on all of us. Rip off the figurative bandage….all of this sounds very dramatic, it’s really not. I’ve been two places. I’m going to start with the second primarily because it was definitely the more fun of the two by a million & a half miles. As I’m sure many of you saw all over my social media accounts, I was in Maui! Yes, it was as amazing & yes, I’m ready to sell everything & move there tomorrow. On the other hand, the first place that I was……not so fun. I was sick, like “hacking up my lungs in bed for two weeks straight” sick. Like “completely lost my voice, barely slept cuz I was coughing all night” sick. Like “had to go back to the doctor a week after my initial diagnosis to get a new diagnosis” sick. Like…well…you get the point…

I will spare you the gruesome details regarding the color, shade, volume, & consistency of the gunk I was having to evacuate from my lungs as well as the lengthy states of lethargy it induced & instead will leave the “sickness” portion of this blog at this. We still have no idea the root cause of my phlegmy ailment, however it did appear to be bacterial, opposite of the initial diagnosis I received from doctor #1. They ended up treating me with doxycycline, an antibiotic sometimes used to treat bronchitis, malaria, & other more deeply set, non-sinus, bacterial infections. And while I am better, immensely so in fact, I still am in recovery mode for it, especially where my voice is concerned.

On the other glorious, beautiful, & immaculate hand was Maui. I don’t want to say too much about Maui here & now, simply because I’m saving it for later blogs, there’s a lot to tell there! So for this section of the blog I’m going to leave it at the following. To all the wonderful folks I met along the way this last week, thank you for making my trip such a vibrant & comforting experience. I am so happy to have met each & every one of you & for the often lengthy gestures of hospitality you each showed me in your own unique ways. You truly made me feel right at home.

I know this blog post isn’t as long winded as I normally am; I didn’t anticipate it being so, especially since I got back into town Thursday night, late. I just wanted to come on here to give you all a little information into my sudden disappearance & tell you that moving forward for the foreseeable future, blogs are back! Next week’s will definitely be about Maui, the following may also be. It’ll be full of pictures & videos & stories & all the wonderful things our modern brains crave, so stay tuned for that! In the interim, I look forward to interacting with you all over socials & hope you know just how excited I am to share my magical experiences with you all!

I hope you have the greatest of weeks!

-C