I'm not asking much...but ??

Hi all,

I'm looking at a GOOD holiday...What I'm after is.

Big schools: Barracuda, Bass, Jacks etc...

Great viz

Interesting macro

Wrecks...

Beautiful girls: optional

I've been to Palau, Chuuk and Yap so I know they offer the above...

Anywhere else ??? Your expertise please...

Cheers all

Dive safe

DeanB

Sipadan, Mabul, Kapalai...

no wrecks though

Dean I agree 100% with MikeyV - Sipadan for sure.

We were there in May before heading to the Philippines - amazing place with a good balance between the big and small stuff. Beautiful reefs, big shoals of jacks, batfish and barracuda (although amazingly I missed the baracuda shoal somehow ?!?), sharks and turtles EVERYWHERE and on Kapalai and Mabul some great macro diving - pygmy's, ghost pipefish, mandarin fish, nudi's, frogfish and we even saw a blue ring (which didn't like my lights and attacked me twice - but hey that's another story!) . Vis was a bit patchy on occasions for great wide angle (15m) but it did clear for a couple of days to 25m+.

Our last dive before we left we just hung out at 5m on Hanging Garden for 90 mins - it was one of those truly special dives where you wouldn't want to be anywhere else in the world.

Other than that Indonesia somewhere? I'm looking into Komodo/Lembah/Bali/Raja Ampart at the moment for a possible trip in Nov, Dec or Jan. Diving looks outstanding over there, but I havn't seen anywhere yet that offers everything all in one cake like you get at Sipadan.

You could also consider the Red Sea. Ras Mohammed is spectacular at this time of year with huge shoals of baracuda jacks and snapper (Zoe's there at the moment with her mum), and the Southern Red Sea liveaboards are great in the Autumn for shark action.

Just some ideas mate

Cheers, Simon

sipadan mabul kapalai are great

or you could do a week at lembeh and a week diving bunaken

Cheers guys

I'll look into it.

Dive safe

DeanB

sipadan mabul kapalai are great

 

or you could do a week at lembeh and a week diving bunaken

What's Bunaken like Stew? Any big stuff there? That's one option I was thinking about - 1 week Lembeh and 1 week Bunaken.

Cheers, Simon

Stoney Cove

Solomon Islands

Cor

Stoney Cove...Why didn't i think of that <_<

If I choose to go to sipadan who do i go with as in travel company, where do i stay etc...I'm starting to get interested.

Dive safe

DeanB

mabul water bungalows if you want a bit of luxury

http://www.divetheworldmalaysia.com/dive-r...galows-main.htm

or you could try one of the other resorts on mabul..

there is kapalai, which is a resort built on stilts.

or there is also seaventures dive platform - no luxury accommodation but a lot cheaper than the others and an excellent house reef, great food, and not always as busy as the other resorts.

on the above you can find all of these accommodations.

its a great place to dive. you cant stay on sipadan, sipadan is now a non resort island. all of the operators offer a 2 dive package to sipadan in the morning and then a local dive( mabul, seaventures, kapalai ) in the afternoon. then of course they also offer unlimited house reef diving.

we stayed on the diveplatform and would not hesitate to go back and stay there.

stew

We stayed on Kapalai

Great resort, nice people, nice rooms, good guides (especially George) but awful food (if you don't eat seafood) - but 4 out of 5 aint bad!

We booked with 'Dive Worldwide', but we had a complicated trip with the hop onto the Philippines. Most of the big UK Diving Travel Agents offer Sipadan as a destination. If I went back I'd consider booking flights and accomodation independently, but it was a bit daunting looking at it when I'd never been as there were 3 flights just to get there: London - Kuala Lumpa, Kuala Lumpa - Kota Kinabala , Kota Kinabala - Tawau - then a 2 hour taxi ride to Sempora and then a 45 min boat ride out to Kapalai. It's worth the journey though.

We'd already be planning to go back there if there wasn't so many other places still on our 'to visit' list.

Cheers, Simon

with regards to bunaken, we didnt really see any big stuff. The viz was too bad. we had mad currents and crap viz but the corals were outstanding and it was beautiful. The big stuff must be there because we always saw dolphins and also pilot whales on the way over.

Stew

Cheers guys,

Bugger...i don't eat seafood...Just banana's then...

Dive safe

DeanB

Mustard stayed on that Seaventures platform.. he loves it there.

You might want to ask him about it

Coral Sea, Australia - although no wrecks. http://www.undersea.com.au/

PNG-Walindi

The seaventures platform looks , as we say here, 'Well smart'.

I'll look into this one, cheers Mike.

Dive safe

DeanB

Sorry Stew just remembered you mentioned this as well...getting old.