Report from Sipadan and Seaventures

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Thanks Under,

I've seen a lot of posts that say Borneo is good, but cruising on Tripadvisor showed some pretty bad shots of the bathrooms and they got about a 50/50 rating for good and poor. I'm still in a toss up for SMART or Borneo, I was leaning to the rig but I would like to do my house reef diving in less than 60', preferably around the 30' mark to max bottom time.

Terry
 
Thanks Under,

I've seen a lot of posts that say Borneo is good, but cruising on Tripadvisor showed some pretty bad shots of the bathrooms and they got about a 50/50 rating for good and poor. I'm still in a toss up for SMART or Borneo, I was leaning to the rig but I would like to do my house reef diving in less than 60', preferably around the 30' mark to max bottom time.

Terry

It's improved a lot from the last stay I had at Borneo Divers. They have upgraded the rooms and the chalets and I was impressed. Free Wifi and massages now out on the deck.

Food however still needs some imagination and improvement. Its' the same dull menu/buffet choices.

I am struggling to understand why resorts find it so bloody hard to do ala-carte menus. It's not like they have to cater for 1000 divers all at once.
 
Hi hoot72

Thanks for the info I'm trying to setup flights from BKK to Tawau so that we will be heading out to the island first trip of the day. It cetainly takes some scheduling.

Cheers,
 
Im looking to go there for a week next month . I will be heading to Lembeh afterwards so no worries about small stuff but turtles can be boring... How bad will the vis. during this time? bad enough i should check out somewhere else?

As for who to use I am torn between Scuba Junkies and Seaventures . SJ is cheaper ($700ish for the week) but that is because they offer only one dive day at sipidan, infact the sipidan day costs around $200! with Seaventures it is around $900 for the week but I could get those extra dives under the rig and if they have permits for sipidan I would get to do more dives at sipidan. Do you think it will be hard to get more than 1 day at sipidan? it is the slow season?

Any Help is greatly appreciated!!

I have only 2 months and want to do as much good diving for as cheap as possible (can be a challenge at times)
 
Hi Oren,
My experience was that while I was at Seaventures, I could have gone every day to Sipadan. I think this was because there were fewer divers than permits some days and on the other days, people wanted to do something else. I ended up going to Sipadan 5 days out of six.
Viz was great at Sipadan in October, absolutely no complaints there. It actually spoiled us a bit as we were kinda comparing that viz to what you get at Mabul and under the rig.. and there is no comparison. However, you don't need the great viz for the smaller stuff. Now, to put it into perspective, it was about 40 feet or so, so it wasn't the pea soup that you get in some places. On one dive there were folks cleaning up some of the artificial reefs and they were stirring up a lot of stuff. I think of it as backscatter material.
I think SJ is in Semporno, not on Mabul, right. If so, I would definitely do Seaventures. It's a long boat ride to Mabul from Semporna and longer to Sipadan. You will get a lot more diving at Seaventures /Mabul than from Semporna.
 
SJ has a new operation (opened up last year) located on Mabul right between Borneo Divers and SWV, looks like a long house.

Currently I am in Mabul right now, Borneo Divers has less than their 14 permits diving Sipadan i had to BEG to dive Mabul today, they wanted me to go to Sipadan for the 3rd straight day in a row.
From what I have seen the last days, SJ has a full boat going everyday to Sipadan which probably means more divers than permits and North Borneo/Seaventures has a not so full boat, they look like they're similar with BD's situation as for permits, ie. more than they'd need right now.

btw, Uncle Chang is currently building new bungalows on the village side of Mabul, it could also be a budget option for you, Oren, as well as Billabong or Sipadan.com there are something like 10 homestays on Mabul currently (which by the way means the wreckage of this great place : there are WAY TOO MANY divers on Mabul right now, the macro stuff is getting scarcer, it's not even possible to find a ghostpipefish or a frogfish anymore!).
 
Scuba Junkies has been open for several years on Mabul.

Their boat to Sipadan leaves early in the AM to do four dives, and all divers have a permit.

Have a nice day.
 
Ok change of plans have to go to lembeh till the 29th. Now if i want to do a week in Sipidan and dive Sipidan as much as possible you think it will be bad if I book the week of 1st -8th which is during Chinese New Years? Otherwise thinking head to the Philippines for 3 weeks then Sipidan on my way back? What would you guys do?

I think I will be going Seaventure route as I am on a tight budget and SJ charges too much for Sipidan considering Seaventures only charges extra for the permit. That is if there is room for me. That overall is my biggest fear is getting there and there are too many people and I cant dive Sipidan as much as possible.

Thanks again.
 

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