November 24, 2025
Other activities we did in UEPI included hiking in rainforest, kayaking, snorkeling and diving. Our scuba lessons were spectacular this time!! Jill and Grant Kelly, the 75 year old founder's of Uepi were our personal teachers. Grant did the classroom review with us and fitted us with our gear. Jill taught us all the water skills and was with me the whole time! These lessons were exactly what I hoped for! Super informative, calm and totally hands on - I never felt unsafe or overwhelmed and really enjoyed the whole experience.
Below is video from our 3rd dive where Bosco was practicing dolphin swim moves with Molly ( school teacher at Uepi and his dive buddy), Ben was reviewing some skill with Joe (his dive master) and I was practicing my control at balance, just kneeling on fin tips, while my dive master Jill filmed the whole thing. Also shown are some pretty fish, clam & coral videos. And video of Spinner Dolphins who greeted us as we were coming into dock, after a snorkel, one of the days.
MALAYSIA , on BORNEO ISLAND made palm seed oil their biggest export back in 1966 and was the top global exporter until 2008, when Indonesia surpassed them. Sadly, the resulting tropical deforestation has created major habitat losses and population declines for the Borneon Orangutans, Pygmy Elephants and Proboscis Monkeys . Many of us on the ship took tours to see these amazing creatures and I wanted to share some of their amazing photos too.
BORNEO ISLAND is a fascinating place, that I had honestly only heard of from the reality tv show Survivor. I'm still learning so much, but I had no idea it is the largest island in Asia and 3rd largest island in the World! It is a mini continent, with 3 different Countries sharing the island's land mass ( Indonesia 73%, Malaysia 26% and Brunei 1% ). We are only going to 2 ports in Malaysia now, one in each of the states of Sarawak and Sabah . Below is a video that highlights and explains thing well.
The Port of Singapore is massive and thus deserving of it's own post!