Sipadan - The Jewel of Malaysian Scuba Diving
Sometimes in life you just get lucky - in the middle of a global pandemic I happen to be living in Southeast Asia, in Malaysia to be more specific and home to one of the greatest scuba diving destinations on the face of the planet - Pulau Sipadan. Keen readers of the blog will know that we visited last October when the world was free of coronavirus, you could travel where and when you wanted. To be truthful, travelling from Kuala Lumpur in Peninsula Malaysia to Sabah in Borneo was not without complications - the travel conditions seemed to keep on changing and for a while we thought we wouldn’t be able to get there, but for once in 2020 luck was on our side! After registering online and filling out a health declaration we were able to make our way to KLIA2 and board a flight to Tawau in Sabah! We were again staying at the wonderful Sipadan-Kapalai Resort, which consists of beautiful villas that stand over the water around what can only be described as a sand bank rather than an island. The weather was getting worse whilst we were waiting for our boat ride out from Semporna and the trip to the resort was a little choppy!
The world famous barracuda tornado at Sipadan, Malaysia - August 2020
The beautiful Sipadan Kapalai Resort
Once we had arrived at the resort, no sooner had our luggage been off loaded than someone was helping to collect our dive gear and take it round to the dive centre while we went for lunch - a great way to start the trip. The drill was the same as before, after lunch we headed out for our orientation dive around the house reef. However, we were a bit delayed due to the weather and another group, the wonderful Big Ocean Dive group, a bit of a diving institution around KL and formerly known as Scuba Mike’s. A number of resorts or dive shops will claim to have a house reef but it usually turns out to be nothing very much or a whole lot of dead, broken coral from all of the boat traffic - at Sipadan Kapalai it is a different story completely. It has to be one of the best, if not the best house reef I have ever seen. So much life can be seen around it can be a bit bewildering. It was also nice to see a few familiar faces too, our guide from our trip last year, Glenn was there too and after both doing a double take we said our hellos, albeit at a distance as is the new norm these days.
Sunrise over Pulau Sipadan
The dive centre at Sipadan Kapalai has a system of putting your destination up on a whiteboard the day before so you know if you have to get up early for a Sipadan trip. We were in luck and our names were duly put up next to the boat headed to Sipadan the next morning; the only downside being after an early start to get the flight to Tawau that morning it would be a second early morning in a row!
The next morning we woke up really early to the sound of the wind and rain, this did not seem to be a promising start to the day. After grabbing my camera set up and a few bits we headed to the dive centre to be greeted by a warm cup of coffee - the boat was being loaded up and looking out to sea it didn’t seem too bad out there…
Banded sea snakes at the dive centre
After dodging some of the banded sea snakes that had crawled up onto the platform we jumped into the boat and were away, as soon as we left the shelter of Kapalai we realised that the sea was pretty rough - what should have taken about 25 minutes took over an hour. We eventually arrived at Sipadan and were the first boat there which was an encouraging sign at least, after registering we all geared up ready to back roll in at Barracuda Point. We caught a bit of luck as soon as we had submerged as we were greeted by a large school of bumphead parrotfish hanging out in the current which was a great omen for the rest of the dive. After a few minutes of watching them we moved on and were greeted by the famous tornado of barracuda the island is famous for. Having dived here a few times beforehand we had seen large schools of barracuda but this was the first time we had seen them in an almost perfect ball swirling around us - it was magical! We carried on and saw a number of whitetip reef sharks and a couple of turtles as well, the dive was a good one and more than made up for the bumpy journey an hour or so earlier. After the dive we moved up onto the island to await our breakfast, only to find out it would be delayed a little due to the boat carrying the food getting a little lost! Still it made for an extended surface interval and one of the other companies was kind enough to give us some coffee while we waited. Eventually breakfast arrived and we devoured it quickly ready for the second dive of the day at the drop off.
The drop off starts just off of the jetty at Sipadan and gets its name from the sheer wall that fall away beneath you to over 600m deep, not a dive to drop anything on! It’s another great dive, if not quite as spectacular as Barracuda Point, but it does have the turtle cave which is always cool to explore the entrance to. We followed this dive by going to South Point at the other end of the island in search of some larger fish and the huge school of jacks. We found the jacks immediately and spent a few minutes playing around and then moved on, the last time we dived here back in October we were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of a scalloped hammerhead. Unfortunately we didn’t see one this time, but we saw a number of turtles and reef sharks in place which is always awesome. Sipadan is such an amazing dive destination that you won’t be disappointed, you’ll always see a lot of cool stuff and in large numbers too. Most other places you dive, to see one shark or one turtle is the highlight of the day, here you see so many you lose count!
Thankfully after our three dives the journey back to Kapalai was a lot calmer and we got back in good time for lunch and a bit of time to chill out. One of the fish I have been wanting to see for a long time is the highly elusive but beautiful mandarin fish - they can be found at the Kapalai house reef but only come out around dusk for a few minutes. We asked the dive guides where we could find them and one of them kindly explained, my buddy and I along with another diver set off in search but with no luck. We still managed to see a lot, but couldn’t find the right spot to look for the mandarin fish and came back slightly disappointed.
A whitecap reef shark at South Point, Sipadan
The next day we were diving around Kapalai and Mabul islands which meant a later start and chance for a slight lie in and breakfast before we started to dive. The weather hadn’t really improved from the day before and we found out that the boat heading out to Sipadan that morning had to delay its departure by an hour or so to let the sea calm down a bit. We got to the dive centre to find our equipment all set up on the boat ready for us and that we were heading over to the Seaventures dive rig at Mabul. This dive site, as I have probably previously explained is not the prettiest, but has so much life it is impossible not to love it. We were able to spot a number of different nudibranchs, crocodile fish, hermit crabs and lots of other creatures too - I was in a happy place with my camera with so many macro subjects to shoot I was disappointed when it was time to surface and end the dive. I guess all good things must come to an end. The days second dive was at Mabul again but this time at Paradise 2, to our dismay the visibility was really bad and the current really picked up mid dive so that no one really enjoyed it much; with the vis being so bad everyone was concentrating on sticking together and not getting lost. In light of this the guide decided that the third dive of the day would be closer to home around Kapalai at a site called the cleaning station, the current was certainly much more manageable here, the visibility considerably better and were greeted by a few nudibranchs to end the guided dives.
After a rest and afternoon tea, my buddy and I decided we were going to go in search of the fabled mandarinfish again and duly geared up - we spoke to the guides again who explained where we had gone wrong the previous day and jumped in at the house reef. As we were swimming over to the site another guide who was conducting a check out dive took pitty on us and led us to the exact spot where we waited patiently for the tiny fish to appear. After about five minutes we hit the jackpot and a small, brightly coloured fish started to poke its head out of the rocks and swim around. We were mesmerised by the show, I managed to snap a few shots of the little guy before after about 15 minutes he seemed to have disappeared, but we didn’t really care, we had seen what we came for and it was a great feeling to have seen it. We had a little swim around the rest of the house reef after and came back to the dive centre to rinse off and go for dinner - what a great end to the day!
Jackfish at South Point, Sipadan
Our third day of diving was again around Mabul and Kapalai, but luckily the weather had eased and we now had clear blue skies and glassy water. We kitted up and headed over to Mabul, but this time to the opposite side to the previous day. Personally I was really pleased about this as the sites we went to, Ribbon Valley and Eel Garden are fantastic for macro - lots of Nudis, Shrimp and other cool critters to really get into! After three great dives, along with our guide Glen we headed back to back to the dive centre. One thing that we did notice was that the water was incredibly warm, which may sound great, but you sadly you can clearly see the effect its having on the corals in the area. We saw several examples of bleached anemones which was so sad, at first glance they look hauntingly beautiful but it takes a few seconds for the realisation to kick in - we can only hope that they don’t permanently get bleached and return to their former glory soon.
Once back at the dive centre we decided that we would go for a last dive in the evening and check out the mandarin fish once again - we managed to locate the spot without any problems and knelt down ready to watch the show and right on cue the brightly coloured little fish popped out of the rocks and proceeded to dance around for about ten minutes bewitching us yet again. It was a great way to end another great days diving. After cleaning off we headed off for dinner and an early night as tomorrow morning we were making another trip to Sipadan!
Chromodoris lochi nudibranch at Pulau Mabul
What a difference a few days makes, a couple of days ago when we got up to go to Sipadan it was howling a gale and raining, this time it was perfectly still with perfectly calm waters - we were able to get over to Sipadan in just 25 minutes. After registering we jumped in at Barracuda Point, unfortunately this time no school of Bumphead Parrotfish but we drifting along the wall and saw schooling barracuda and the usual array of reef sharks and turtles. The second dive of the day was round at South Point, Glen our guide was directing the boat around to try and find the resident school of jackfish, a number of other boats were in the vicinity but no-one could find them - the other groups all decided to jump in regardless but Glen was insistent that he find the jacks, after about 10 minutes of searching he spotted them and we all jumped in. It was certainly worth making the extra effort to find them, we were the only group there and had them all to ourselves which was fantastic. After 15 minutes we moved off and drifted along the wall keeping a watchful eye out into the blue just in case….No luck again but lots of whitetip reef sharks, grey reef sharks and turtles which kept us occupied. Another great dive and all thanks to Glen for his perseverance. The last dive of the day and also of the trip was from the Drop Off drifting towards Barracuda Point, it was great to drift along and chill out whilst watching the show, at the end of the dive a school of batfish greeted us before we came up to the surface. I love diving at Sipadan, so much variety, colour and life. I really hope that it remains like this, the Malaysian authorities should be commended for limiting the number of divers each day and also closing it for the entire month of November to help it recover. Long may this continue.
After getting back to the resort we washed our gear and left it to dry, grabbed some lunch, a couple of cold beers and proceeded to chill out in the sunshine. A turtle was playing around in the shallows and kept on coming up for air, although we weren’t in the water it was great to watch, another fantastic end to a fantastic day - this place keeps on serving them up!
Hopefully this post will inspire you to visit Kapalai, an amazing resort with great guides and awesome diving. So awesome in fact we have booked to come back again this October!
We stayed at the wonderful Pulau Sipadan (Kapalai) Resort for six days, five nights - with this package you get two guaranteed days diving at Sipadan and the days in-between you get to visit Mabul, Kapalai and have unlimited diving at the house reef (unguided). To get their from KL you can fly via Air Asia from KLIA2 to Tawau where the resort will pick you up before transferring to Semporna and the 45min boat ride to the resort. Can’t recommend this place highly enough and in light of the current international travel restriction they are offering discounted stays to all residents of Malaysia.
