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Published: August 17th 2008
Back in Kota Kinabalu after a week diving in Sipadan/Mabul/Kapalai....
This destination had been on my wish list for a while...hard not to...the area has everything to offer from macro diving to some of the best shore dives in the world. Hard to resist any longer...so Sipadan here we come! One more flight (from KK) and a long and chaotic boat transfer (45mn) and we finally reached the Mabul Sipadan Resort. Had spent quite a while looking at the different options (no liveaboards in this area) and this seemed to be the best option...and indeed, we were not disappointed! The resort has been entirely thought of keeping in mind that 90%!o(MISSING)f the guests are divers, and every details has been taken care of...from the dive planning (I truly pity the manager in charge of dealing with this part..), to the food, space to store/ dry our diving gears, technical support including with personal photography/ video equipment & the dive master/ instructors (all of them locals, with an amazing knowledge of the area but also always ready to share some more about their culture/heritage...etc)...a paradise in paradise...
For the one who don’t dive (does happen...still...), the resort is set
along a white silky sand beach & crystal clear water.... kayak/ swimming pool are as well available although I didn’t give them a try! (too busy diving...)
As soon as we were arrived, we were getting ready for our first dive! All about optimization :-) Water camera all set for some great muck diving!
Got to meet as well our dive buddies, with who we will be doing all the dives during that week.
At first, we were a bit surprised by the overall attitude of the guests (not exactly the usual friendly diver profile). Guess the fact that quite a lot of them were in family or 40+ Italian couples didn’t help ...but the Dutch family we dived with ended up being very friendly and we got to meet 4 Australians that absolutely made our stay a great one! Thanks guys for all the fun, love it! and glad to have found new friends to share a glass of wine at night!! hahahaha (although after three dives, would not have gone for more than 2 glasses...)
The following days were spent, well… diving during day time, and chatting while enjoying some great wine & looking at
the pictures at night! The three main dive areas included Mabul, Kapalai and Sipadan and we got a fair taste of all of them!
MABUL This is one of the world renowned site for muck diving and indeed, I was glad to have my underwater camera!! Plenty of
turtles, scorpion fish, alligator fish, tropical fish from every color of the rainbow, great diversity of colorful nudibranch, blue ribbon eel, leaf fish, pigmy sea horse, stone fish, humphead pipe fish, trigger fish AND amazing frogfish !! So happy about that last one, indeed, out of 120 dives, I only had the chance to see one in Richelieu Rock Thailand...and here in Mabul, got to see two giant frog fish (one yellow and one purple/ blue) perfectly blending with the corals on which they were standing.
Some of the best dive sites included Seaaventure platform, Paradise II, Ray point, Eel garden & Lobster Reef.
KAPALAI Although Kapalai is supposed to offer great diving sites, cant say that those were my favorite dives...ok, guess, we were not lucky,
Indeed, only did two dives there and in both cases, there was some really strong current/ poor visibility,
not exactly the best case scenario for macro diving...
Add to this that we managed to loose the group during our first dive at Kapalai (Mandarin Valley)...going down really slowly so that Nathalie could equalized properly (this was before she discovered the best kept secret for the one who have problems with their ears while going down...coming to that one later...ehehe) and when we turned around the group was gone! Did wait few minutes and went up slightly but couldn’t see past 5 meters...ok, guess that will be the two of us! So diving we went... Did see nice puffer fish/ tropical fish/murene and nudibranch but the main highlight was a
white ray that swim by us (still no idea which specie this one was...) The end of the dive...well...we managed to be seen by an other dive boat (always have your safety sausage with you...does help!) and safely brought back to our boat...
The second one (Gurnard Ground), well, really rough sea/ strong current to start with, not much things interesting except for the
two ship wreck...some might find this boring, but I am always happy to discover wrecks during a dive...can’t help it but once I got the
green light from the dive instructor, would go in immediately to explore it...Love it! Ok...well, there was not much to see, but always like the sensation of reaching a place where most divers don’t go, and take my time to explore it...
SIPADAN Pulau Sipadan got to be one of the most famous dive destinations in the world, within the top five for some, but most importantly this is a preserved area of outstanding above and underwater beauty.
The island was closed to tourists in 2004 (no overnight stay) and the bird watcher replaced by the military...Highly disputed between Indonesia and Malaysia, Similan is officially declared Malaysian territory in 2002. Since then, lots of efforts have been geared toward protecting this fragile eco system (with the major step being the removal of all resorts & implementation of one strict check point entrance)
The week prior we arrived in Mabul, the local regulations got even stricter...with only 120 divers allowed to dive per day and they truly mean it!
This is for all the resorts AND the day trips from Semporna...This regulation is actually not new, but before most resorts would split the access to Sipadan between divers (some
going there at 6am while other would depart at noon), thus allowing three times more divers to access those sites...
To dive Sipadan you now need to get lucky (really lucky) and preferably stay in either Mabul or Kapalai as most operators from Semporna don’t have access anymore to those dive sites. You would indeed go for it every 2 to 3 days and hope that the military at the check point will provide the group with an authorization to dive...if not, well, back to Mabul or Kapalai!
And lucky we really got...as we managed to spend two days, four dives there! with twice the barracuda point (the most famous dive site in Similan) and the turtle cave (separate blog to come on this one)
Barracuda Point One of the best dive I ever done....and funny enough, did it twice, but felt like those were two different dives...
Along the wall on the low side... This wall is truly amazing and goes down to more than 600 meters! Covered by corals & sponges, where huge school of fish swim by, it is
the diver paradise at his best! The first dive of the day being the deepest one, we
Giant Bumphead Parrotfish
that one got REALLY close!! went to about 30 meters for that one, and you could actually feel the endless bottom...pitch dark as you look down & medium current to add some adrenaline.
Massive Bumphead parrot fish as we went down, white tip & grey reef sharks and lots of turtles everywhere you look!! It was indeed quite funny as at the sight of the first one, everyone got really excited but we all stopped counting after the 20th turtle we were seeing during the same dive! Swimming along one of them was something I would never forget...
Diving by the top of the wall & exploring the barracuda point plateau: “same same but different" as Chinese people would say... and indeed, that was an other amazing dive during which I didn’t feel like I was exploring for the second time the same dive site except maybe for the fact that this was an other out of this world dive!!
Absolutely huge school of jack fish followed by an even more
impressive school of chevron barracudas !! As you look up, you could barely see the sun anymore...Waouh!
and then, as we gently dive toward the main plateau, lots and lots of sharks (white
tip & grey reef), mostly sleeping and hard to disturb (managed to get really closed and hook myself up to fully observe them while making minimal noise (after all, those are my favorite ones! ok...with turtles too...)
Midreef : less current, lots of corals and again turtles and sharks everywhere! Great blue spotted ray too!
Finally, the
turtle cave diving offered a unique, out of this world experience...Went for that one with Marisa and David THE technical dive instructor in the whole area and guess none of us really wanted to come up as we spent 86mn under water....(two tanks)
Last night in Mabul, and heading to Kota Kinabalu for more adventure! Great new friends, amazing holiday with Nathalie & lots of souvenirs...Thanks to Rahman, David and Mabul Sipadan resort!!!
and yes...loving 2008, really got to be the best year since a long time!! Living life to the full...can’t help it!
😊 😊
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CatBrook
....
My next stop:)
So here I am in Thailand, doing a bit of diving and wondering where to go next.....thanks for answering that question for me! The diving sounds amazing and awesome pictures to go with it...loving the enthusiasm too!!