Southern Cross was heading the same way as us and we set a course for Semporna, the town nearest to Sipadan. On our way we heard Southern Cross talking on the radio to a French yacht called Sunrise. The skipper, Nic, had been anchored and a local approached in his boat, not saying anything, just watching closely. Nic looked down and saw he had automatic guns lying by his feet. We heard him tell Greg over the VHF that he would leave the area. He sounded remarkably cool about it. That’s the French for you. Here, on the north-east coast of Borneo, almost as far south as the Indonesian border, with the Celebes/Sulu Sea bringing fresh water, we were worlds away from the yellow murkiness of the Kinabatangan. The water was up to 200 metres deep and the most beautiful, iridescent blue. Unfortunately, Semporna was a dump of a town: dirty, smelly and busy. We wanted to get in and out as quickly as possible so that we could go to Sipadan. ‘You know you can’t go to Sipadan,’ a guy who owned a dive company, Scuba Junkies, told us.
