Sipadan Island Diving

"The Best Shore Dives in the World"

Pulau Sipadan - The jewel in the crown of diving in Malaysia and with good reason. Sipadan is a tiny oceanic island less than an hour from the mainland where rich currents bring food which brings fish, which brings bigger fish, which brings more and more fish, sharks and turtles. The dive sites are peppered around the island and none is more than a short speedboat ride away from the nearby dive resorts. And although they are all different they all offer one thing: lots to see!

The list of attractions is quite staggering and all the more exceptional as it involves plenty of big fish encounters - at Barracuda Point you can find yourself surrounded by a spiralling vortex of barracudas, so large that the sunlight is often clouded out. At South Point there are scores of reef sharks, large schools of passing trevally and herds of massive marauding bumphead parrotfish. This is one of the big fish capitals of the world.

It is easy to understand how Jacques Cousteau got so excited about diving at Sipadan when he visited and declared it an "untouched piece of art". Tourism has made it less than untouched but it remains a fabulous experience to find yourself diving here. It is often hard to believe that you are not diving in an enclosed environment such is the array of species and overwhelming biomass of the marine creatures that choose to live here.

Mabul Diving

Dive Sites and Muck in Mabul

Located some 25 minutes north of Sipadan Island, this island offers a different world of diving opportunities from most other diving locations. Here is a macro diving paradise where you will be able to find rare macroworld inhabitants hard to find at other dive sites.

Among the international diving community, the island's reputation as one of the world's best macro diving site is no secret. Muck diving in Mabul, a term used to describe limited visibility dives at shallow sites with usually sandy bottoms, is one of diving's new rages. It focuses on encounters with unusual little critters popularly known as macro-life. Muck diving is a world away from steep wall and coral reefs, with their almost limitless visibility and easy-to-spot reef and pelagic life. In other words, muck diving offers you the opportunity to flirt with the more bizarre and unusual life marine life to be found.

Needless to say, Mabul diving gives macro photographers some great opportunities to capture some extremely rare ecological species which have carved a niche for themselves in the underwater world around here. Look out for species like multicoloured nudibranches, ghost pipefish, devil scorpionfish, stonefish, mantis shrimps, mandarin fish, ribbon eels, snake eels, frogfish, seahorses and crocodile fish, all of which make these sites their home.

Kapalai Diving

Sandbank Macro Dive Sites

A few minutes speedboat ride from Sipadan is Kapalai, effectively a water village style resort perched atop a splendid reef that borders the rich and deep Celebes Sea. Although not far from Sipadan, Kapalai scuba diving itself is completely different. For a start guests can see from the structure down into the shallows where squid and needlefish dutifully provide the entertainment and mandarinfish can also be seen performing their mating dances just below the water's surface.

Kapalai is considered a macro-lovers paradise. This does not necessarily mean poor visibility as with so many critter-havens. Here rarities such as frogfish, blue-ringed octopus and the incredible flamboyant cuttlefish are the star attractions. Harlequin ghostpipefish, sea moths and mantis shrimp make up the supporting cast while the mandarinfish provide the love interest.

Most dives here are nice and gentle in warm, relatively shallow water, so are perfect for the less experienced, as well as yielding sufficient rewards for those with plenty of dives under their weightbelt. One of the most often dived places (due to its convenience) is straight off the jetty where leaf scorpionfish, crocodilefish, lionfish and all manner of shrimps and gobies add to the fun.

Diving in Kapalai is like being on a spacious, mosquito-free liveaboard that doesn't move. Gentle sea breezes cool the high quality chalets giving you a sense of freedom and comfort as well as proximity to amazing diving.