plc
Registered
Is there any website where to see the weather in Sipadan or Mabul?
borneo divers mabul
- Thread starter bob.s
- Start date
Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
catbrown
Guest
At Singapore airport on way back to Australia from Pulau Sipadan Resort - last minute thing guys. Got to Bangkok airport didn't like the look of the weather in Andaman sea (sorry Sunshine) and ingratiated myself onto Kapalai and then Sipandan island. Quite an experience, large schools of fish and amazing macro life, water 28-thirty degress celsius (best change your computer over as they all know metric of course) , weather warm, hardly any wind. Rooms on Kapalai (one night) were large and well done even had a bath, heaven, and they are on walkways sitting over the reef gorgeous. Diving Sipadan you get at least three boat dives a day as part of your package and you can just pick up a tank and go with your buddy onto the beach and dive the 'drop off', minutes to the wall, 1200 metres down! Most dives around thirty metres and always somethind to see. I loved being on the island, something very romantic about it, also they have a turtle sancturary there and almost every night the turtles hatch , everyday they release them into the sea. A friend went snorkelling during one of the releases and witnessed the bumphead parrot fish take a couple whole as little sunset cocktails. YOu can walk around the island at a stroll in 25 mins..there is no internet, no television, no radio..didn't miss it at all.
best for me was the 5.thirty am dive at the drop off to watch the bumpheads gathering for their morning roll call. they get together say hello, seem to do a roll call and peel off on their daily food hunt INcredible creatures. This is one of the benefits of staying on the island. Bad news is they are due to pull down all the acommodation on the island and are not accepting bookings after jan 4th, the locals think this may be extended but for the sake of the island I hope they do - it is a little sad to see the huge turtles have to dig their holes between the chalets and I can't imagine all the little resorts and always eco minded, they have survival to consider as well. Downsides of this area - visibility is crap around 5-10 metres mind you I am spoilt and it may be ten times better than where you come from. other than that I was surprised about the lack of rules with the diving, dive masters with tihs resort on none of my 12 dives asked my for air reading or deco time, its very much up to you to look after yourself, I mean they don't leave you and they do care but there is certainly no overseeing as i am used to. i would reccomend going there with a buddy or making a friend very quickly. There are also a lot of Japanese divers, the majority of the ones where I was were extremely competent and advanced divers although ,I felt, very self involved, a different diving culture again. Also the amount of photographic equipment was overwhelming, and at times f...g annoying. It really is a different sort of dive.
That said the people and the service were just brilliant, warm friendly, accommodating, dealing with people from all over the world.There wa a group of Turkish divers there as well. Three hot meals a day, tea coffee, juice fruit in between, a beer or wine at night, no night life except seeing if you could stay awake past 9pm and watching the excellent videos on DVD done by scubazoo.
The crew set up your gear for every dive on the boat and set up even if you are just shore diving, I learnt to get in the boat with gear on for the first time and that was the most work I did, apart from getting up at 5am. 95% of the people I was with had all brought their own gear, Malaysian airlines even makes an allowance for dive gear, most of the rental gear I saw there was just allright
Borneo divers have a great reputation, their drop off point was right next to out resort...very busy!
I would say a worthwhile destination in an extraordinary location - not for non-divers.
Malaysian airlines flies to Kota Kinabalu and then onto Tawau - your hotel then arranges a minibus transfer to Simporna and then boat to the islands, this transfer takes a couple of hours at least. Do not overnight in Simporna or Tawau if you can avoid it, Kota Kinabalu has a pleasant enough airport hotel. Asia Airways also runs very cheap flights in this area
There is now a strong army and navy presence on Sipadan so that none of the events of 4 years ago can recur, if you were concerned.
Tried to start a new post with this but I'm at a terminal in Singapore airport and don't seem to be able to do it.
best for me was the 5.thirty am dive at the drop off to watch the bumpheads gathering for their morning roll call. they get together say hello, seem to do a roll call and peel off on their daily food hunt INcredible creatures. This is one of the benefits of staying on the island. Bad news is they are due to pull down all the acommodation on the island and are not accepting bookings after jan 4th, the locals think this may be extended but for the sake of the island I hope they do - it is a little sad to see the huge turtles have to dig their holes between the chalets and I can't imagine all the little resorts and always eco minded, they have survival to consider as well. Downsides of this area - visibility is crap around 5-10 metres mind you I am spoilt and it may be ten times better than where you come from. other than that I was surprised about the lack of rules with the diving, dive masters with tihs resort on none of my 12 dives asked my for air reading or deco time, its very much up to you to look after yourself, I mean they don't leave you and they do care but there is certainly no overseeing as i am used to. i would reccomend going there with a buddy or making a friend very quickly. There are also a lot of Japanese divers, the majority of the ones where I was were extremely competent and advanced divers although ,I felt, very self involved, a different diving culture again. Also the amount of photographic equipment was overwhelming, and at times f...g annoying. It really is a different sort of dive.
That said the people and the service were just brilliant, warm friendly, accommodating, dealing with people from all over the world.There wa a group of Turkish divers there as well. Three hot meals a day, tea coffee, juice fruit in between, a beer or wine at night, no night life except seeing if you could stay awake past 9pm and watching the excellent videos on DVD done by scubazoo.
The crew set up your gear for every dive on the boat and set up even if you are just shore diving, I learnt to get in the boat with gear on for the first time and that was the most work I did, apart from getting up at 5am. 95% of the people I was with had all brought their own gear, Malaysian airlines even makes an allowance for dive gear, most of the rental gear I saw there was just allright
Borneo divers have a great reputation, their drop off point was right next to out resort...very busy!
I would say a worthwhile destination in an extraordinary location - not for non-divers.
Malaysian airlines flies to Kota Kinabalu and then onto Tawau - your hotel then arranges a minibus transfer to Simporna and then boat to the islands, this transfer takes a couple of hours at least. Do not overnight in Simporna or Tawau if you can avoid it, Kota Kinabalu has a pleasant enough airport hotel. Asia Airways also runs very cheap flights in this area
There is now a strong army and navy presence on Sipadan so that none of the events of 4 years ago can recur, if you were concerned.
Tried to start a new post with this but I'm at a terminal in Singapore airport and don't seem to be able to do it.
Sun Tan Man
Registered
I agree about the Coral in Sipadan it isn't too abundent! But the amount of sea life is incredible. I was there in the end of August and the begining of September and the Vis was only 10 - 15 M. I found out when I got there that it wasn't the right time to be there and was told when was the right time was. Too bad that wasn't listed on the internet so I could of expected the visibility.(MARCH IS THE BEST TIME TO GO!!!)) I was kinda disappointed because of this but I did manage to take some really nice photos. I stayed near the end side of the Island at Sipadan Lodge. I was happy with the accomidations but the food was the same over and over and if you came late to the meal then there might not be enough of the fish or meat for you to get some. As for the diving the lodge has a boat to take you out 5 dives a day. After Sipadan I went on to Mabul and did the Muck diving. I wasn't so impressed with the muck but again the visability that day was about 3 M. Diving under the Oil rig was fun and actually alot to see from all the man made reefs that are there. On my way back from the trip I had a lay over in HK and seen that Sipadan was rated the top destination to dive on a program on Discovery Channel. Don't get me wrong I did have fun but the Vis and some of the currents were a little hectic! Next Stop Mexico / Belize in March
I also just got back from a trip to this area.
I stayed at Palau Sipadan Resort for 2 nights and at Kapalai for 3 nights. I dove at Sipadan most of the time but also dove at Kapalai and Mabul. I loved the diving in all of these locations for different reasons.
At Sipadan, the attraction was the wall off of the drop-off, the sharks, the incredible number of turtles, and amazing baraccuda storms off of Baraccuda point, just like the pictures. The resort was rustic but great - I only wished they'd had fresh water showers in the rooms. The water was filtered but not salt free. On shore the walks around the islands and the release of the baby turtles were highlights.
At Kapalai, the resort was great with fantastic sunrise, sunset views. The diving was fantastic for macro live and smaller fish. Incredible bio-diversity.
At Mabul, for one dive, we saw a variety of things that amazed. Like the giant frog fish about 30cm across! It was a very barren underwater area with no natural reefs, but the man made reefs had been populated with very interesting creatures.
I'd definately recommend diving here and hope to go again.
I stayed at Palau Sipadan Resort for 2 nights and at Kapalai for 3 nights. I dove at Sipadan most of the time but also dove at Kapalai and Mabul. I loved the diving in all of these locations for different reasons.
At Sipadan, the attraction was the wall off of the drop-off, the sharks, the incredible number of turtles, and amazing baraccuda storms off of Baraccuda point, just like the pictures. The resort was rustic but great - I only wished they'd had fresh water showers in the rooms. The water was filtered but not salt free. On shore the walks around the islands and the release of the baby turtles were highlights.
At Kapalai, the resort was great with fantastic sunrise, sunset views. The diving was fantastic for macro live and smaller fish. Incredible bio-diversity.
At Mabul, for one dive, we saw a variety of things that amazed. Like the giant frog fish about 30cm across! It was a very barren underwater area with no natural reefs, but the man made reefs had been populated with very interesting creatures.
I'd definately recommend diving here and hope to go again.
Bob.s I have same problem. I´m heading to Sabah for 1 mo dive journy and one of the yhem is going to be Mabul, what I´ve understood it´s better than Kaplai. I recieved an offer from Borneodivers but the price is pretty high and what I´ve been looking from the others the same dum thing. It seems that the non-diving suff standard is pretty nice but there isn´t any other options for those how only want to dive and for the rest the basic standard is enough. 
boxer:Bob.s I have same problem. I´m heading to Sabah for 1 mo dive journy and one of the yhem is going to be Mabul, what I´ve understood it´s better than Kaplai. I recieved an offer from Borneodivers but the price is pretty high and what I´ve been looking from the others the same dum thing. It seems that the non-diving suff standard is pretty nice but there isn´t any other options for those how only want to dive and for the rest the basic standard is enough.
I ended up staying a few days at Borneo divers and the rest of the time at Smart divers...Borneo was the least expensive and smart was about 40 dollars a day more for a private chalet with your own bathroom...I prefered smart divers over borneo divers...Borneo is very new and doesnt have much landscaping around it...while smart is surounded in palm trees and nice sandy pathways all thru the resort...if you just go
for the diving and dont care about atmosphere then go to Borneo...if you want a nice
place that feels more like a resort then try smart...both had wonderful people working there and the diving was fantastic!!
Similar threads
