Wonderful Sipadan

I just came back from Sipadan recently, having spent a long 6 days diving in Mabul, Kapalai and Sipadan Island living in Uncle Chang Backpacker Lodge. As it was my first time living in a guesthouse, I felt a little uneasy at first, as accommodation is very basic, no air conditional, no hot water, and shared bathroom. The room is small, beds are narrow, beside the beds, there is nothing else in the room. They are no hooks on the walls as well so hanging clothes in the room is out of the question. However, I had no problem sleeping though after a day of 3 or 4 dives. Nevertheless, I enjoyed my stayed there. I met many foreigners coming from Germany, France, Ireland, Poland, Sweden, South Africa, Japan, China, and Australia. In fact my group was the only Malaysian staying at the guesthouse.


Sipadan Island


We flew from KLIA to Tawau, from there continued our journey by car to Semporna, the gateway to Sipadan. We spent the night at Dragon Inn floating resort, a nice resort built on stilts over the water in Semporna. We left for Uncle Chang Backpacker Lodge the next morning at Mabul Island. Semporna offers an interesting fish market, just outside of Dragon Inn, where you could find all kind of fish, fresh from the fishing boat. They have sharks, sting rays, tuna, jack, and many others. They are cheap as well, for instance, a tuna would cost you about RM3 only.

How can I describe the diving at Sipadan? Well, put it this way, after diving almost all the islands in west Malaysia, Sipadan is the best I've ever seen. Even diving at the same spot (barracuda point) 3 times in a row, I still get excited about every dive. The wall at drop off is fantastic, and mind you, it drops to 600m deep. And visibility is more than 50m. Marine life I saw in just my first day of diving, 10 to 20 white tip sharks, at least fifty giant sea turtles (both green and hawks bill), some very big school of jacks (with 1 gigantic mother jack) swirl in and around me, it was unbelievable, big school of giant bump head parrot fish, napoleon, unicorn fish, at least 5 to 6 different species of trigger fish, starfish, a swirling school of barracuda spiraling in the sunlight, squirrel fish, puffers, leaf fish, school of Moorish idols, gorgonians sea fan, school of fusiliers, goat fish, school of bat fish, school of banner fish, various species of grouper, damsel, angle fish, butterfly fish, surgeon fish, nudibranch, hawkfish, pairs of fire goby, sweet lips, tuna, octopus, moray eel and many others that I could not recognized. That was what I seen by the end of the first day of diving.

I love diving in Sipadan. Just wondering will I ever dive in any of the west Malaysia Island after this trip. The diving is just plain wonderful and with the totally laid back and relaxed environment, am thinking of retiring there one day.

Beside Sipadan, I dive in Mabul and Kapalai also. The underwater environment is quite different from that of Sipadan, at time it could be quite murky, probably due to the sandy bottom. There are a few wrecks (fishing boat) and artificial reefs. I see some of the more unusual creatures like cuttlefish, eels, batfish, nudibranch, frog fish, pipe fish, razor fish, ghost pipe fish, octopus, trumpetfish, crocodile fish, pinnate bat fish and etc.