Gaya Island Animals | Diving Sabah? Dive Downbelow!

Kota Kinabalu’s Divers Spot 2nd Whale Shark in January

Friday, January 6th, 2012 @ 14:54 Gaya Island Animals, News, Tunku Abdul Rahman Park, Whale Sharks

Kota Kinabalu, Sabah: The island crew were still ooh-ing and aah-ing yesterday over the whale shark one of our boat captains spotted earlier this week when Instructor Wellson and his 2 guests resurfaced from their morning dive – all grins.

Our January IDC was in full swing, but Wellson couldn’t help (or contain) himself when his excitement boiled over and he exclaimed “we saw a whale shark!”.

A flurry of excitement ensued as Wellson and his 2 fun divers detailed the whale shark encounter they had on the doorstep of Downbelow’s PADI 5 Star IDC Dive Centre on Gaya Island, which is just a few fin flips away from Kota Kinabalu city.

Our Resident PADI Course Director and marine biologist, Richard, was inspired.

During the lunchtime surface interval he treated everyone to a whale shark short film, sharing snippets of his knowledge about these awesome creatures.

Inspired by the knowledge of whale sharks circling somewhere nearby in Downbelow’s vicinity, our fun divers returned for their 3rd dive.

Email us to go diving with us and who knows, maybe you too can spot a whale shark in Kota Kinabalu!

Angry Bird on Gaya Island, Kota Kinabalu

Tuesday, May 24th, 2011 @ 09:00 Gaya Island Animals, Learn to Dive in Kota Kinabalu

Gaya Island, Tunku Abdul Rahman Park: We had a feathered visitor of the rather large variety at the Gaya Island dive station on Friday the 13th.

Although beautiful, the owl didn’t look too friendly; in fact, the owl reminded a bit of the all too popular Angry Birds.

There is plenty of superstition, if you’re in to that kind of thing, to link to owls.

In some cultures they are revered and hailed as wise, but in other cultures they are feared, associated with witchcraft and death.

If you lean to the darker side of superstitions and you encounter an owl on Friday the 13th, you may well find youself on guard.

But bad omens be damned.

Ollie the Owl, as he was cleverly named, was in fact a friendly and most welcome visitor to our PADI 5 Star IDC Dive Centre on Gaya island last weekend.

One of the many curious wild animals that visits the dive station every now and then, Ollie the Owl spent quite some time around the centre and got ever closer and friendlier.

Eventually Richard had charmed the owl so much that he managed to get real close for some outstanding photos and a bit of a 1-on-1 chat session too.

You can check out more photos of Ollie the Owl in our Wild Animals of Gaya Island photo album, which is a collection of Ollie and all the other animals that have visited our dive station in recent months.

Of course, we still actually dive at the dive centre too, so if you want to learn to dive in Kota Kinabalu, do contact us.

Proboscis Monkeys on Gaya Island

Monday, April 11th, 2011 @ 10:26 Gaya Island Animals, News, Tunku Abdul Rahman Park

Gaya Island, Kota Kinabalu: Proboscis monkeys in the Tunku Abdul Rahman Marine Park!?

It seems a bit far fetched to think that the shy proboscis monkey could possibly inhabit the relatively small islands of a marine park, 10 minutes by boat from the shores of the busy city of Kota Kinabalu.

But over the years there have been some anecdotal evidence of exactly that.

We’ve heard of people who glimpsed what could have been a proboscis monkey in the islands’ jungles and the story of tourists seeing a group swimming between islands.

Even a tale of a boatsman who saved a nearly drowned proboscis monkey near one of the islands.

But to those who know proboscis monkeys, the islands and how busy the park is, you may as well be telling them you saw Big Foot or a yeti.

But this weekend past the myths were confirmed. The legend was grounded.

The tall tales became solid facts, when our island crew and guests at Downbelow’s PADI 5 Star IDC Dive Centre on Gaya island had a 1st hand proboscis monkey encounter.

Watching in awe our crew and guests saw a group of 4 proboscis monkeys make their way down from the thick of the Gaya island jungle to fairly near the dive centre where they sat around for a while.

Feeding on leaves they watched the divers watching them, the big male perhaps just checking that his territory wasn’t being infringed upon, reassuring himself of his dominance.

Richard, of course, managed to get his camera out in time to snap a few distant shots before the proboscis monkeys disappeared back into the Gaya island jungle. There’s a couple more shots on our Facebook page.

Although these critters are very shy, now would be a good time to book one of our Guided Jungle Trekking packages on Gaya island and try your luck.