Advertisement
Published: July 20th 2006
Sipadan and Mabul
One of the "ten best dive spots in the world" according to the literature. Certainly some of the best diving I've done.
14 July
Heading to the oil rig
I met my dive buddy, Juliana, for the fourth time at the pick up point for the Seaquest drilling platform. This time we recognized each other. The previous two times on Mt Kinabalu and at the Karaoke bar we were familiar but it didn’t click into place.
A one hour high speed boat ride from Semporna took us to the island of …. and the converted drilling rig about 400m to the north.
The drilling rig, the only one of its type, according to the literature, stands 6-8m above the sea in 15-17m of water, depending on the tides (they have big tides here). There isn’t much of a reef under the platform, but they created several artificial reefs when the platform was moved to its current position by dumping all the drilling equipment that was no longer needed, along with a few tyres and other miscellany. Rather cleverly done, I thought, although the intention may not have been there originally.
The rig itself
is pretty impressive once you are on it. The main deck, roofed but otherwise open to the elements, is home to the diving equipment, fresh water showers, restaurant, lounge, and reception. The smooth but rusting deck gives a rather utilitarian impression rather than a homely one. One German guy and his daughter in particular were rather put out on arrival - they thought they were arriving in a tropical paradise but were greeted by decks of steel and industrial lifts.
The sun deck is better. The converted helipad is the fair-weather dinner and drinks deck, and offers the best view of the sea and island in the area. At USD3 a beer, however, it’s an expensive place to lounge. But the food was great and included in the price. Just as well - it was a 400m swim to the next restaurant.
Originally, I think Juliana and I were supposed to share a room, but with accommodation for over a hundred guests and only twenty-six when we arrived, it wasn’t necessary. Juliana never knew how lucky she was to get eight hours sleep a night!
Our cabins were basic and functional, with hot water showers, flushing western
toilets, air-conditioning, and power sockets; In other words, pure luxury. I spent almost no time there.
On arrival, we only had time to check in and have a coffee before our first dive which, not surprisingly, was off the drilling platform. It was the simplest dive prep I have ever done: simply gear up, step onto the electronic lifting platform, and be lowered eight metres to knee depth and plunge into the warm water.
We didn’t seem much coral, but there was a heap of marine life down there - flute fish, barracudas, all types of trigger fish, groupers, lion fish, nudibranches, eels, crocodile fish, scorpion fish, seahorses (supposedly; we didn’t see any), and spotted stingrays. It was one of the best dives I had done. A very important bonus was the Juliana was very good with her air, so a 55 minute dive was no problem - a bit of a contrast to my last dive in the Philippines when my buddy ran out of air in only 20 minutes!
Our second dive was on a reef at Mabul, which wasn’t nearly as good. I’d have rather done another couple of dives under the platform (my package
included unlimited dives off the platform).
Our night dive was cancelled due to strong currents (we were two days past full moon), which made for an expensive evening (refer to the price of beer earlier). Juliana wasn’t drinking much, but our other dive buddy was Ludwig the Swede who made a valiant effort at maintaining his countrymen’s reputation. The bar closed at 11:30 and served last drinks at midnight which had me scratching my head, but suited my gullet.
15 July 2006
Diving on Sipidan Island
We were up at 0630 for a light breakfast and 0730 departure to Sipadan, the best diving spot in this part of the world. An hour on a fast boat got nine of us there safely and one Singaporean woefully seasick. Poor fella. At least the fish got a good feed out of it.
Sipadan is a unique deepwater island that rises almost vertically from six hundred metres to form a reef that is surrounded by deep water. This mating of shallow water and deep water attracts a bunch of blue water fish and turtles. I saw more sharks and turtles in my fist dive there than I had seen
in my previous 400 dives. Not too bad!
Between dives we had morning tea on the island, making use of the abandoned resort facilities. On January 1, 2005, all resorts on the island were abandoned by order of the government, who set up a military base there. It’s definitely one of the best postings you could get in the army! It was quiet while we were there, by our dive master assured us that the military made full use of the karaoke machine left on the island.
Our second dive at barracuda point lived up to its name, with thousands of barracuda swimming around us and looking appropriately menacing. Sharks and turtles were a bit more reticent, but I was getting sick of them by the second dive anyway.
By the time we got back to the rig it was lunchtime, to be followed by another dive. It was just as well I was diving so much - there is only so much you can do on an oil rig. The games room comprised a table tennis table and pool table, while a karaoke machine next door was clearly meant to entertain the Asian contingent, which was
by far the largest. Fortunately, the machine never got turned on during my three day stay.
The afternoon dive was mediocre, and was followed by a night dive which, like most night dives, meant very few fish, a few eels, and getting mixed up with other dive groups looking at eels and the odd nudibranch. It was fun nevertheless, and we worked up an appetite for dinner, which was waiting for us back on the rig. We enjoyed another evening of expensive drinks on the sun deck.
16 July 2006
We were up a little earlier for a repeat of the previous day - boat ride to Sipadan, one member getting seasick, two dives, lots of sharks, lots of turtles, and back to the rig - but didn’t let that get in the way of our enjoyment; we had unlimited coffee on hand.
I managed to get one last dive in under the rig before lunch. This was the best non-Sipadan dive because the divemaster headed up early, leaving the rest of us to our own devices. I swam around the piles of discarded machinery with three Singaporeans with the small digital cameras which are de
rigueur for divers these days. It was a treat to take a few photos underwater since I didn’t have a housing for my camera and poor Juliana’s camera was destroyed on the first dive when the housing leaked. It was her first dive with a brand new camera. Ouch!
Back on the rig the weather had deteriorated and the sun which had blessed us for the past two days didn’t look like reappearing any time soon, so I shelved my plans to stay on the rig for another night and caught the boat back to Semporna.
I dropped into Uncle Chang’s dive office to leave a message for Mark, and on a whim, asked about work as an instructor. They offered me a job on the spot! It seems that their current instructor, also Australian, is a bit of a sleaze bag and is getting too many complaints from female customers. Maybe I'll be back after Vietnam.
I checked into Dragon Inn again and caught up with Mark for a beer in the evening.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.193s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 18; qc: 103; dbt: 0.1005s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb
Rick Dysinger
non-member comment
Let's meet up
I plan on being in Malaysia the week of the March 5th to the tenth with a wedding to go to on the ninth. Let's hook up.