Sipadan is located at South Eastern Coast of Sabah, Malaysia and is judged by many to be among the top 5 diving locations in the world. It’s famous with swirling tornado formation of Barracuda, massive parrotfish schools, the sharks, abundance of turtles and thousand kind of exotic sea life or macro life.
Package Includes:
Accommodation:
05 Nights accommodation at Borneo Diver Mabul Resort or SMART Resort
Borneo Divers Mabul Dive Resort occupies a beautiful streach of white sandy beach. Easy access to the water provides for effortless shore and boat diving. Each Chalet consists of two rooms, which are constructed of beautiful hardwoods in a local style, ceiling fans and balmy tropical breezes provide ample cooling, but each chalet is also fully air conditioned for your comfort.
The Smart Divers resort is nestled in a coconut grove on the south-east side of the island overlooking the water and near-by Sipadan Island. It consists of 45 wooden duplex chalets with each room featuring two oversized single beds, a couch, shelves, ceiling fan, flyscreened windows, air-conditioning, a private en-suite offering free-flowing hot and cold fresh water and a front verandah.
Flight & Transfer:
Return air ticket Dubai / Kota Kinabalu / Tawau
Return ground transfers within airport / hotel – Semporna – Mabul Island by van coach and boat
Meal:
Daily Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner (excluding alcoholic, fruit juice and carbonated soft drinks)
Diving:
03 boat dives a day at either Mabul, Kapalai or Sipadan Island with professional Divemasters (Diving at Sipadan is subject to quota availability)
*Night Dive is extra cost of RM50.00 per dive with minimum of 03 paxs with professional divemaster
Unlimited house reef diving
Boat, Tank, weight and weight belt
Excludes:
Dive equipment (rental available)
Own expenses and visa fee (if applicable)
Enter permit to Sipadan Island cost RM40/day/pax
Sipadan Island
South Point - colourful abundant walls, sharks, turtles and schools of fish in big numbers and all the while the possibility of seeing something really exciting such as hammerheads or thresher sharks. Cruising along you won't be sure whether it is a better idea to poke around in the wall or keep an eye out for the bigger stuff. As with many of the other Sipadan sites, there is no hanging around in the blue doing a boring safety stop. Instead you will want the use of every breath of air in your tank as you spend the last few minutes hovering over coral gardens with as much colourful life and activity as anywhere.
Barracuda Point - One of the favourite dive sites here. Hordes of turtles, vast schools of jacks, bannerfish and snapper are merely bit part players on this site. A variety of sharks are also likely to be spotted but the real stars of this show are the eponymous barracuda. Find yourself in the eye of the hurricane that is the enormous vortex of barracuda here and you will be simply awestruck.
Turtle Cavern - This is a site not dived as much these days as it was before the closure of the resorts based on Sipadan Island itself, but it is well worth doing as it is unlike any of the other sites. Before approaching the cave entrance you may well be stunned to see a marauding horde of huge bumphead parrotfish charging past you as you sink down the wall. The cavern itself is large and intriguing. Turtle skeletons rest on the sea-bed - apparently having met their doom in the confusing passageways of the cavern. Don't worry - those passageways are much too small for you and this is an easy and interesting dive to add to the other excellent sites.
Mabul Island
Froggy Lair - Typically for Mabul, this site is full of wonderful critters and a keen pair of eyes can be treated to sights such as crocodilefish, an awesome variety of nudibranchs, garden eels, mantis shrimps and, as the name of the site suggests, lots of different species of frogfish in various colours and sizes. Photographers tend to love the line up of critters here and if you are lucky you may even spot the likes of a flamboyant cuttlefish and blue-ringed octopus.
Seaventure Platform
Mabul, Seaventures Platform: Flat sandy area on about 17m. This is an old oil platform that has been converted into a hotel owned by Seaventures Dive Resort. It stands on huge pillars. You dive underneath in 17m of water. An amazing dive site! There are several piles of metal rods, look close, and there are always several frogfish (yellow to red, black and gray) sitting on them. Inside the largest pile there is a huge moray eel. His head must have a diameter of about 15cm! Then we also found: ghost pipefish (Harlequin and sea grass), wasp fish, nudibranchs (Halgerda, Cromodoris etc.), stonefish, flying gurnard and close to the pillars always lots of batfish and flute fish.
Eel Garden
Located towards the southern end of Pulau Mabul. Eel Garden is one of the deeper dives around the area. Divers descend to a sandy flat between 20 to 25 metres sloping towards the open sea. Fining carefully and avoiding stirring up the silty bottom, divers can observe gobies seeking refuge in the tiny crevices and moray eels occupying larger holes. Looking towards the sandy patch, you will see what appear to be blades of long grass swaying with the current. These are the elusive garden eels (Heteroconger Hassi) living in colonies that quickly dart back into their burrows on approaching shadows or excessive movement in the water.
Ray Point
Also located on the southern tip of Pulau Mabul, this site slopes to about 30 metres at the sandy bottom. Currents sweeping through this point bring clear water and good visibility. Sea fans and soft corals that thrive in current areas are home to gobies, blennies, moray eels, butterfly fish, damselfish, parrotfish and stonefish (Synanceia Verrucosa).
Lobster Wall
Mabul, Lobster Wall: Wall, some small caverns. There are many nudibranchs, anemones, shrimps and in a small cave I even found a baby cowfish. Great night dives.
Kapalai Island
Mandarin Valley - Kapalai, Mandarin Valley: Slope to about 20 metres, hard corals then sand with small underwater mound. This dive site has its name from a dragonet that can be found there and that has a beautiful color like the clothes of the Chinese mandarins. It lives during the day under the spines of sea urchins. Go out to the small underwater mound - there were several leaf fish there last time. Leaf fish can shed their skin and in such a way adjust to the surrounding reef. I saw one, where some yellow ascidians were growing on his skin right over the eye. There is also a mushroom coral (Heliofungia a.) on the sand with some white anemone pipefish (Siokunichthys n.) living inside. Ray Channel - Kapalai, Ray Channel: This is a sandy channel with the reef on one side. The special fish, you find here and nowhere else in Mabul is the dragon fish (Pegasus). This small animal lives in pairs on sand and feeds on invertebrates. There are some leaf fish; a spiny devilfish lives close by and there is a small baby-angelfish.
