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Finding (the real) Nemo

Geordie Greig

Wednesday, 12th March 2008

Geordie Greig travels to an obscure Malaysian island to fulfil a child’s dream

Snorkels on and we were off. Baby sharks came and went. The sea was not the tranquil turquoise glass surface seen in our brochure. The waves were briskly choppy but my daughter Octavia, aged seven, was undeterred. As the Japanese lay like corpses on the floor of the makeshift café, with a shark’s jaw hanging from the ceiling and the sound of rain drumming on the tin roof, Octavia pleaded with me to head towards the reef with Yus, a 22-year-old Malay diver, as our guide. Richard from Hammersmith had gone with the real men to do some real diving. Incongruously, our hotel had given us a 24-hour butler called Deborah from Paris, with mermaid-gold hair and a diamond-pierced belly button, who swapped her butler’s uniform for a bikini to accompany us. Sea cucumbers? Pah. Baby sharks? Who cares. We were not to be deterred. We had one goal.

And finally there he was. Wiggling and whirling and waving among the coral: Nemo in all his iridescent orange glory. Jasper, nine, and Monica, seven, were too scared by the waves but Octavia and I hit gold. We met Nemo. Not, however, without a price. My sea legs are embarrassingly feeble and as soon as I put on a mask and breathing tube in the sea I feel like death. I am so nauseous and enfeebled that if even lightly pressed, I would give away every state or even marital secret. But when you are 100 yards out and accompanying a young child with a dream you have to make some semblance of being a macho dad — well, all right then, one that at least was trying. ‘Please don’t throw up dad,’ she shouted. We both kept going and Nemo made one little girl very happy.

So back to our hotel. Another 90-minute crossing of the South China Sea. Everyone slept. As we stepped on to the shore back at Tanjong Jara, one of Malaysia’s best spa resorts (with top treatment, so the brochure goes, for strengthening post-pregnancy vagina muscles), it was time for what it does best, being spoiled by their amazing hot-and-cold running staff and basking in the glow of having hit gold — cartoon gold.