Sipadan

Hi,

I just came back from Sipadán on Celebes Explorer liveaboard.

To sumarize, diving is just impresive but anyone considering going there should have two things in mind:

1. The boat is the best way to dive there, but bring food and cleaning for the WC.

2. Diving in sipadán is limited, so whatever they tell you in advance about the posibility of diving the full week there, once you arrive will be transformed in 4 days diving at Sipadan, and the rest in other places not at the level.

Please, feel free to ask if you need further information.

Regards,

Sorry your boat had smelly heads (wc).

I, personally, enjoyed the diving at Mabul and Kapalai better than Sipidan. Although the vis at those spots didn't compare with Sipidan, I liked the critters better. I have grown to love "muck diving" especially well. After 37 years of diving, one enjoys something apart from the typical reef. Sipidan has fairly average reef biodiversity IMHO.

Sipadan is one place were there is no need to do a liveaboard. The resort we stayed in was great (Mabul Water Bungalows). Sipadan is 20 minutes and Mabul is 2 to 5 minutes.

I liked the variety. Some pelagics and turtles at Sipadan with good macro at Mabul and Kapalai.

I tend to agree with mchief...not that I've actually done a liveaboard at Sipadan, but I can't really see the advantage. We stayed at Kapalai and thought it was wonderful. One advantage was the unlimited shorediving and snorkelling at Kapalai. And we got two dives at Sipadan every day (over 10 days). I'm be interested to know why anyone would recommend a liveaboard?

I agree too. Liveaboards are great for getting to sites that you can't otherwise reach, but when you have a few clean, comfortable resorts just 20 minutes away, what is the point of staying on a boat, especially one with dirty toilets? I thought the accommodations at Kapalai were very nice and the house reef was excellent.

Again I agree. Doing a liveaboard around Sipadan would be like doing a liveaboard on the KBR house reef. There are a couple of nice land based resorts now and they are only 20mins away from Sipadan. It's not like there are hours of traveling involved.

I enjoyed my trip to Sipadan/Mabul a couple of years ago. The one thing I found really annoying was they enforced a 45 minutes dive time. That's reason enough for me to choose a different location.

Herb,

45min? you got to be kidding me !

45 minutes????? Who did that? I would stay away from that shop too. If it was some island-wide rule, I'd stay away from the island. Borneo Divers / Sipadan didn't have that rule when I was there.

I was staying at Borneo Divers on Mabul. Maybe they changed it after getting lots of complaints. At the time, I thought that was the rule for the island, not just Borneo divers.

Our longest dive actually on Sipadan itself was 77 mins of pure bliss...ahhhh the memories! 45 min diving is why I hate going to the caribbean!!

Cheers, Simon

I dunno. A liveaboard is nice for 6am dives for the hammers or the bumpheads . Plus you can do 5 dives on the same spot vs 3 from the resorts. Depends on what you like I guess.

I miss the days when I could do 5 days at each location.

I've dived with Borneo Diver late last year(around Oct), the service's OK and our Dive guide did a good job and treat our request wisely. Most of our dives were of around 50-60mins. But at the mean time I found that some DM there were simply not that pleasing(I've met a female DM that tend to be cool....or cruel to my group and lucky she just guided us for 1 day only.)

Hello,

I run several dive trips to Sipadan every year. IMHO, it's better to be land-based when diving in Sipadan since the three major dive places - Sipadan, Kapalai & Mabul are all about 45 minutes by speed boat from one another. Sipadan has only 2 or 3 worthy dive sites so usually the land-based operators will do 2-tank dives there in the morning and in the afternoon, one or two shallower muck dives around Kapalai or Mabul.

After years going there, I'd recommend Sipadan-Mabul Resort (SMART) for their service, accommodation and DM. Unfortunately, they are also the most expensive on Mabul. They run the Celebes Explorer liveaboard, which I would not recommend. An alternative is Kapalai Resort, on Kapalai island.

Hello Halimi,

Do you have any information or opinions regarding the Sipaden Water Village Resort?

Thanks...

I have not been to SWV in quite a few years but I have been there 7 times. My travel leader for those trips is the US rep for SWV so my group trips may well have gotten special treatment, but my experiences were always excellent. I've heard of time limits of 50 minutes but never experienced them myself.

Like some others, my preference is Mabul and Kapalai rather than Sipidan. I've done trips there without a single Sipidan dive.

Regarding Lembeh and liveaboards, I did that once with Todd and Herb. The liveaboard itself was awful but the bottom time was incredible. I believe Todd did a 135 minute dive on that trip. My last day was 3 dives and over 5 hours of bottom time. That's something a liveaboard offers.

Sad it sounds like the reef is in bad shape. When I was in Sipadan (about 13 or so years ago) it was amazing, the Borneo Divers house reef was probably the best beach dive I have ever been on (although at that time you could see the beginning of the bio runoff problem). We saw large schools of barracuda, sharks, and too many turtles to count.

i have to agree that land-based for sipadan is the better option.

i was at seaventures, that converted oil-rig. i figured i'd save some money and wake up in the morning to see nice rustic villages than to pay more to live on the islands and wake up to a smelly oil rig right in front of me.

seaventures was great with unlimited house reef dives, where you could find nudis by the buckets, crocodile fish, frog fish, and even pygmy seahorses. i did 2 dives a day at sipadan, followed by 1 boat dive at sipadan or mabul, and another rig dive.

there was a 45-minute dive time rule when i was there, but the guide explained that it was more for his safety because they're doing 3-4 dives a day to 30m, every day. he said it was ok for us to carry on diving and he'll just be on the surface watching out for us.

i was with a fairly experienced group of friends, and conditions were fantastic, so i thought that was pretty reasonable. i really don't envy their job that much.

I was in sipidan in january of this year. I had been there years ago in the film era. The area is now overcrowded with divers, the reefs showed wear and tear. Sharks are pretty much gone.The macro in mabul is nothing spectacular, or unique. Sipaden is mainly to see turtles, which are everywhere, baracuda point, and the bumphead parrotfish school. The trip to get to the resort is very long. From la ca we flew to singapore then to kotakinabalu then flew to tawau, then a 3 hour bus ride , then a hour boat ride. You can get to many better places with less travel. I did get to dive turtle cave, which was the highlight of the trip. I have some pics at my flickr site.wwwflickr.com/photos/vazuw