The other day I was invited to interview a family of sea gypsies. As I set out with my translator, I marvelled at what life must be like for them. I had romanced their story…in part the old man pictured above…reminded me of a wise old fisherman with many great tales to tell.

Sadly, after interviewing him, I realized how tough life is for him and how poor, uneducated and hungry they are. They are a people without a country who spend their lives with the sea in search of food each day. Given the challenges they face on a daily basis, they are happy for their story to be told.

I would describe the people of Mabul Island as generous, friendly, and welcoming. Each day I walk through the village and am greeted with a smile. If I could I would like to live here permanently…after all its an ocean view.

Every day I consider myself very fortunate to wake up on this beautiful island. I dive three times a day …and have been alternating between taking photographs with SEA and SEA Underwater Housing for the Nikon D200 and the SEA and SEA Housing for the Sony TRV950 video camera. The equipment is great!!!!! and the marine life is exhilarating to document. Above I am filming a school of jacks at 5:30 in the morning as the reef awakes and the hunt of the trevally and white-tip reef sharks begins.

Wow!!!! Its fun to swim with the sea turtles. Here in Sipadan island I am fortunate to see them every day.

Its amazing the diversity of colors and patterns on all these different nudibranch. Each color combination is beautiful in its own way. I was also fortunate to see one laying eggs (vertical picture on the right).

The fist thrill of photographing the pigmy seahose is finding him and the second was photographing him. This tiny animal (about the half size of your pinky nail) is perfectly camouflaged to match the sea fan he lives in.

As I was photographing another animal… I noticed this featherduster opening and closing. I thought it was so beautiful and often overlooked.

He swam right too me…like a character from Starwars…I think he was as curious as I was of him. Surprisingly a very good swimmer

On an early morning dive we were fortunate to encounter a large school of Jacks swimming along the wall of the Reef of Sipadan