"Hang around the Drop. There's plenty to see. But, touch nothing**," the dive master said.

Donning life vests, fins and snorkelling masks, my friend and I kicked out in crystal clear shallow waters towards the Drop. We were in Sipadan, an island in East Malaysia. Layers of coral reefs formed atop an extinct volcano over thousands of years to give us this famed island with its drop of some 600 meters above the seabed.

Too deep for sunrays to penetrate, the depth seemed a cold, gaping abyss. However, the walls that fell away were moving. Teeming with life. Swirling schools of trevallies gleamed silver as they caught and reflected light. Colourful angelfish and batfish glided among the corals waltzing in the direction of the tides. Wasn't that Nemo, pardon, the clown-fish flitting in and out of the sea anemone's tentacles? We looked out into the blue to be spellbound by a pair of hawksbill turtles. This surely was ballet.

Suddenly, my friend gestured frantically at me. I followed her manic pointing. There was no mistaking that dorsal fin, the glassy beady eyes and side to side undulation of the tail that propels the shark forward as it moved up the wall. Shark!

We kicked like crazy to get out of the water and spluttered our encounter to the dive master. Amidst good natured ribbing, we learnt we'd probably met a white-tip reef shark, plentiful in the corals of Sipadan. They were generally non aggressive unless one was silly enough to be caught in the midst of a feeding frenzy. We sheepishly admitted ours was just over a metre long.

By the way, I later learnt things look closer and bigger underwater. Meaner too, I'd add.    

**Footnote :  Uninformed sea tourism causes a lot of damage to the underwater world. Imagine, what took years to form can easily be broken off by a careless kick of the fin. What's beautiful to look at could also unleash poisonous toxins to the unwitting touch.

Image: Baby turtles released into the Celebes Sea off Sipadan 

Postscript added on 10 Oct 2023: Note: Thank you to those who have written to let me know you enjoy reading my column but daren't take a lesson because there are parts you don't really understand. I assure you we'll always speak at a level which suits you so that we can enjoy a casual conversation. Also, we can go through words and sentences that are difficult so that we learn together. Perhaps, they will be easy then and we'll always have something to talk about. No stress!