moorish8idol
Contributor
There doesn’t seem to be much feedback on this location on this forum so I thought I would provide a trip report on my recent time at Layang Layang in Malaysian Borneo in case anyone was considering this location in the future.
I had read a number of disappointing reviews before going so I think I adjusted my expectations accordingly and as a result still really enjoyed my time there. The diving was, okay. The other dive group had a bit more luck than us and were wowed but I think that if you come here for pristine reef and big-animal diving, there are far less expensive and less remote places to travel to for a better diving experience. That being said, I don’t regret my time and still think it is a lovely resort.
My friend and I traveled to LL for a five day stay at the end of May. While this is still technically “hammerhead season” it is very much at the end of peak season. We were pleased to find out that only 18 divers were staying at the resort during this period (as opposed to 70 in the weeks and days leading up to that). The charter flight out of Kota Kinabalu is ridiculously early at 5:30 a.m. We were instructed (even after I asked them to reconsider) to be at the airport no later than 4:15 a.m. Knowing KKIA I thought this was silly and I was right. We were checked in and through security in about 5 minutes total and the plane did not begin boarding until 5:25 a.m. I think the days are gone when you are on a tiny puddle-jumper filling empty seats with dive gear. It is a commercial prop plane (MAS wings) with ample space.
The resort is tiny but we found it very cute and comfy. The rooms would be aptly described as “shabby chic” but they are quite spacious (much more room than you’d get on an LOB) and had working A/C and private ensuites with hot water. Toilets flush very slowly (ie you need to fill up the tank with a bucket if you need to flush more than once every half hour) and there are regular brown outs cutting off electricity (though usually not long enough for you to start to swelter). Rooms came with a mini-fridge which we found very useful. Having read online about the limited (and expensive) selection at the bar, we stocked up on bottles of wine in KK and had a place to keep them. You aren’t allowed to bring your own drinks to the café but we did enjoy them outside on the pool chairs and while watching the sunset a few nights. As mentioned there is a bar (the Hammerhead) which has a limited selection of drinks in a comfy lounge with AC and a big TV screen (people were in there watching movies most nights). There is also a pool and foosball table next to the pool - the pool itself was huge and lovely though the water was barely cooler than the outside temperatures. I had read complaints about it being dirty and having a broken filter but if that was the case, it was remedied before our arrival.
The resort claims they feed you five meals a day. They do offer a light breakfast before the first dive (cereal, toast, juice, coffee), a full breakfast upon return, lunch, tea and then dinner. I found the food to be really excellent and a nice combination of Asian and western options. Nothing like a wonderful noodle soup or congee for breakfast! There was always a small salad bar, fruit, lots of dessert options, 3 meat/fish dishes, rice, pasta and vegetables. On our last night, the staff set up one big long table right next to the runway and served us a typical Malay meal - a very nice end to the trip and memorable detail. The island is extremely remote (300 km out to sea) so their water source appears to be through reverse osmosis. The taste can be… not great. A mix of salty chlorine flavour. Not much you can do but I would advise people to bring crystal flavour packets or drops that you can add to the water to mask the taste. We would fill a bottle up with juice from breakfast and then add splashes to our water throughout the day and this did help.
Dive shop: my overall recommendation would be to bring all of your own gear here. Their rental prices are OUTRAGEOUS (and were arbitrarily higher at the resort than advertised online at 60 ringgit for each piece of rental equipment each day - $20 per piece per day for shoddy equipment? Never seen a price even close to being this high anywhere) and the quality of the equipment is quite poor. Luckily we were not many people so could swap out defective gear but I can imagine in high season you could be in real trouble. For example, I rented regs and my first set had a huge leak. We were able to just switch them for proper regs but lots of the equipment looked to be in pretty poor repair. Throughout the 5 days I think almost everyone I dived with that was renting regs had pretty large leaks in their first stages as well. I carried on my luggage to Malaysia and foolishly didn’t bring my SMB as I figured a dive resort would have plenty. They had none. The shop also has no NITROX. Their reasons for not carrying it failed to convince me. When you are doing multiple dives per day on deep profiles I just don’t understand the why given the need to increase your bottom time to above 5 minutes when hunting for hammers at 40 m. Their reasons included "we are far from a hyperbaric chamber" and "sometimes our guides need to go deeper than 40 m" so no Nitrox. Again, these reasons didn't seem logical to me especially since I have dived in destinations with similar profiles and remoteness (the Brothers in Egypt, Socorro) and everyone was on Nitrox. Everyone at the resort is there for hammerheads and thus need to be very deep. Again, given the cost of the diving I really fail to see why this isn’t a NITROX-ONLY resort. As for the diving, it is decent. The sites are all 5-15 minute boat ride from the shop and the boat was always right there waiting for us when we surfaced. You keep your gear on the boat throughout your stay and it as pretty spacious for gearing up and getting off and on the boat. Diving conditions were pretty tame - we encountered little to no current, calm surface conditions and very warm water temps even at depth (28-30 degrees). I am always cold and frankly I was almost hot on most dives. However, the reef is not in great shape. We barely saw any reef sharks and while there are a nice variety of beautiful fish species you won’t see them in large numbers - my first thought jumping into Tubbataha was, "WOW this is a healthy reef (ie sharks galore)". My first thought jumping in at Layang Layang was "WOW this is not a healthy reef" (tumbleweeds and crickets in a lot of places). Overfishing has to be the only/main explanation for this, and also explains why several years ago divers saw the schools of hammers on most dives and now you are lucky to encounter even one hammer on one out of ten dives. It is really sad but unfortunately it seems inevitable when waters like this are not protected from commercial fishing. We did see a school of hammers out in the distant on one dive (the other dive group saw schools twice and much closer but it was implied they had exceeded the official maximum depth of 40 m) and had a very rare encounter with a thresher shark which was pretty neat. Otherwise we saw very little - no mantas, a handful of reef sharks (silvertip, white tip and grey reef) and a collection of reef fish and sea turtles. We were met by pods of spinner dolphins while on the boat several times. They appear to like to race the boat and get right in front of it as you are traveling. The world’s deepest post box is also at Layang Layang. Hanging around 39 m, you can buy a waterproof postcard at the gift shop and mail it on one of your dives. It’s a cute novelty, especially when there is little action elsewhere in the water. Our divemaster Shuk was lovely - great, detailed briefings and constant reminders about safety and respect for the marine life. He was stressed we didn’t see more hammers but totally out of his control. I was a bit disappointed to learn upon arrival that you can’t book extra hammer dives to try and increase your chances of seeing the sharks (they tell you about extra dives before but don’t explain the limitations). Since we were only 2 dive groups and there were lots of DMs sitting around doing nothing, I thought this was extra odd that we couldn’t pay to get in an extra early dive out, for example. You can do night dives off of the jetty or pay for an extra dive in the lagoon where there is nothing to see (as per the guides) though there is probably some macro to enjoy if that is your thing. The first day you only do 2 dives even though you could easily do 3 (you arrive at 6:30 a.m. so a 8:30 first dive wouldn’t be out of the question) and the last day you only do 1 even though with an early start you could probably safely get 2 dives (depending on how strict you are with no-fly times - you’d be well over 18 hours but somewhat under the 24 hour rule) - we had asked about this and were told it was a strict policy but I suspect they couldn’t bend on this because it turned out the dive guides were flying back with us for the end of the season and I could clearly understand why they would want to ensure they were over the 24 hour limit after 100 days straight of dives. Most of the dive guides and a lot of staff were on the charter flight out of Layang with us so I would expect June to be a very quiet month at the resort before it shuts down for the season. S
Conclusion: this is a cute place and probably best to visit just on the fringes of high season so you aren't in the water with dozens of divers at once. The staff were lovely and it was neat to be somewhere so remote and quiet. It is too bad the diving has apparently taken a turn for the worse/boring. The animals are rapidly being killed off in these waters. For the same or much less money I think you can do much better big animal diving in nearby places like Indonesia or the Philippines.
I had read a number of disappointing reviews before going so I think I adjusted my expectations accordingly and as a result still really enjoyed my time there. The diving was, okay. The other dive group had a bit more luck than us and were wowed but I think that if you come here for pristine reef and big-animal diving, there are far less expensive and less remote places to travel to for a better diving experience. That being said, I don’t regret my time and still think it is a lovely resort.
My friend and I traveled to LL for a five day stay at the end of May. While this is still technically “hammerhead season” it is very much at the end of peak season. We were pleased to find out that only 18 divers were staying at the resort during this period (as opposed to 70 in the weeks and days leading up to that). The charter flight out of Kota Kinabalu is ridiculously early at 5:30 a.m. We were instructed (even after I asked them to reconsider) to be at the airport no later than 4:15 a.m. Knowing KKIA I thought this was silly and I was right. We were checked in and through security in about 5 minutes total and the plane did not begin boarding until 5:25 a.m. I think the days are gone when you are on a tiny puddle-jumper filling empty seats with dive gear. It is a commercial prop plane (MAS wings) with ample space.
The resort is tiny but we found it very cute and comfy. The rooms would be aptly described as “shabby chic” but they are quite spacious (much more room than you’d get on an LOB) and had working A/C and private ensuites with hot water. Toilets flush very slowly (ie you need to fill up the tank with a bucket if you need to flush more than once every half hour) and there are regular brown outs cutting off electricity (though usually not long enough for you to start to swelter). Rooms came with a mini-fridge which we found very useful. Having read online about the limited (and expensive) selection at the bar, we stocked up on bottles of wine in KK and had a place to keep them. You aren’t allowed to bring your own drinks to the café but we did enjoy them outside on the pool chairs and while watching the sunset a few nights. As mentioned there is a bar (the Hammerhead) which has a limited selection of drinks in a comfy lounge with AC and a big TV screen (people were in there watching movies most nights). There is also a pool and foosball table next to the pool - the pool itself was huge and lovely though the water was barely cooler than the outside temperatures. I had read complaints about it being dirty and having a broken filter but if that was the case, it was remedied before our arrival.
The resort claims they feed you five meals a day. They do offer a light breakfast before the first dive (cereal, toast, juice, coffee), a full breakfast upon return, lunch, tea and then dinner. I found the food to be really excellent and a nice combination of Asian and western options. Nothing like a wonderful noodle soup or congee for breakfast! There was always a small salad bar, fruit, lots of dessert options, 3 meat/fish dishes, rice, pasta and vegetables. On our last night, the staff set up one big long table right next to the runway and served us a typical Malay meal - a very nice end to the trip and memorable detail. The island is extremely remote (300 km out to sea) so their water source appears to be through reverse osmosis. The taste can be… not great. A mix of salty chlorine flavour. Not much you can do but I would advise people to bring crystal flavour packets or drops that you can add to the water to mask the taste. We would fill a bottle up with juice from breakfast and then add splashes to our water throughout the day and this did help.
Dive shop: my overall recommendation would be to bring all of your own gear here. Their rental prices are OUTRAGEOUS (and were arbitrarily higher at the resort than advertised online at 60 ringgit for each piece of rental equipment each day - $20 per piece per day for shoddy equipment? Never seen a price even close to being this high anywhere) and the quality of the equipment is quite poor. Luckily we were not many people so could swap out defective gear but I can imagine in high season you could be in real trouble. For example, I rented regs and my first set had a huge leak. We were able to just switch them for proper regs but lots of the equipment looked to be in pretty poor repair. Throughout the 5 days I think almost everyone I dived with that was renting regs had pretty large leaks in their first stages as well. I carried on my luggage to Malaysia and foolishly didn’t bring my SMB as I figured a dive resort would have plenty. They had none. The shop also has no NITROX. Their reasons for not carrying it failed to convince me. When you are doing multiple dives per day on deep profiles I just don’t understand the why given the need to increase your bottom time to above 5 minutes when hunting for hammers at 40 m. Their reasons included "we are far from a hyperbaric chamber" and "sometimes our guides need to go deeper than 40 m" so no Nitrox. Again, these reasons didn't seem logical to me especially since I have dived in destinations with similar profiles and remoteness (the Brothers in Egypt, Socorro) and everyone was on Nitrox. Everyone at the resort is there for hammerheads and thus need to be very deep. Again, given the cost of the diving I really fail to see why this isn’t a NITROX-ONLY resort. As for the diving, it is decent. The sites are all 5-15 minute boat ride from the shop and the boat was always right there waiting for us when we surfaced. You keep your gear on the boat throughout your stay and it as pretty spacious for gearing up and getting off and on the boat. Diving conditions were pretty tame - we encountered little to no current, calm surface conditions and very warm water temps even at depth (28-30 degrees). I am always cold and frankly I was almost hot on most dives. However, the reef is not in great shape. We barely saw any reef sharks and while there are a nice variety of beautiful fish species you won’t see them in large numbers - my first thought jumping into Tubbataha was, "WOW this is a healthy reef (ie sharks galore)". My first thought jumping in at Layang Layang was "WOW this is not a healthy reef" (tumbleweeds and crickets in a lot of places). Overfishing has to be the only/main explanation for this, and also explains why several years ago divers saw the schools of hammers on most dives and now you are lucky to encounter even one hammer on one out of ten dives. It is really sad but unfortunately it seems inevitable when waters like this are not protected from commercial fishing. We did see a school of hammers out in the distant on one dive (the other dive group saw schools twice and much closer but it was implied they had exceeded the official maximum depth of 40 m) and had a very rare encounter with a thresher shark which was pretty neat. Otherwise we saw very little - no mantas, a handful of reef sharks (silvertip, white tip and grey reef) and a collection of reef fish and sea turtles. We were met by pods of spinner dolphins while on the boat several times. They appear to like to race the boat and get right in front of it as you are traveling. The world’s deepest post box is also at Layang Layang. Hanging around 39 m, you can buy a waterproof postcard at the gift shop and mail it on one of your dives. It’s a cute novelty, especially when there is little action elsewhere in the water. Our divemaster Shuk was lovely - great, detailed briefings and constant reminders about safety and respect for the marine life. He was stressed we didn’t see more hammers but totally out of his control. I was a bit disappointed to learn upon arrival that you can’t book extra hammer dives to try and increase your chances of seeing the sharks (they tell you about extra dives before but don’t explain the limitations). Since we were only 2 dive groups and there were lots of DMs sitting around doing nothing, I thought this was extra odd that we couldn’t pay to get in an extra early dive out, for example. You can do night dives off of the jetty or pay for an extra dive in the lagoon where there is nothing to see (as per the guides) though there is probably some macro to enjoy if that is your thing. The first day you only do 2 dives even though you could easily do 3 (you arrive at 6:30 a.m. so a 8:30 first dive wouldn’t be out of the question) and the last day you only do 1 even though with an early start you could probably safely get 2 dives (depending on how strict you are with no-fly times - you’d be well over 18 hours but somewhat under the 24 hour rule) - we had asked about this and were told it was a strict policy but I suspect they couldn’t bend on this because it turned out the dive guides were flying back with us for the end of the season and I could clearly understand why they would want to ensure they were over the 24 hour limit after 100 days straight of dives. Most of the dive guides and a lot of staff were on the charter flight out of Layang with us so I would expect June to be a very quiet month at the resort before it shuts down for the season. S
Conclusion: this is a cute place and probably best to visit just on the fringes of high season so you aren't in the water with dozens of divers at once. The staff were lovely and it was neat to be somewhere so remote and quiet. It is too bad the diving has apparently taken a turn for the worse/boring. The animals are rapidly being killed off in these waters. For the same or much less money I think you can do much better big animal diving in nearby places like Indonesia or the Philippines.
