Sipadan Concerns - safe to visit?

[murmur2k]

Hello all,
Myself and my girlfriend are visiting Borneo in 1 months time and would like to dive at the famous/infamous Palau Sipadan. Now I have read so many varying reports/articles about the safety out there but have ended up confused. We are pretty adamant about going but wanted to hear your opinions - is it totally stupid- I have read all the alerts etc.? Is it relatively safe? From what I hear the area of Sabah itself is dangerous but I have to travel around that area for the Orang Utans anyway. So if we are risking Sabah then why not go the extra for Sipadan?

Please help me decide!

Thanks for any advice!

Will

 

[Michael Schlink]

I'm not sure if this matters but we are/were planning a trip to Indo. but they are supposed to be having an election in July if the election goes OK we'll go ahead and go but as is often the case the countries in that area have quite a bit of turmoil surrounding their elections. I personally couldn't care less but I won't take my wife into an area if it's not going to be safe.

 

[Rickg]

murmur2k,

Welcome aboard. Been to Sipadan 3 times ('94, '00 and '01) and loved it each time. Try this URL for a lot of info concerning safety and Sipadan. The list just finished this thread the other day.

http://www.scubaboard.com/t62408.html

This should answer some of your questions and you may want to try the Scubaboard "search" function by typing in "Sipadan safety" or something similar and you will probably find more info.

Rickg

 

[stefo2]

Security around the islands has been improved after the kidnappings and there haven't been any incidents since.
I don't think anywhere in Sabah is dangerous compared to most Western European and North American countries/cities. You can always be unlucky to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, but that can happen anywhere.

 

[murmur2k]

Thanks for your imput guys - think we will go for it - don't want to miss out on what looks to be a amazing place. And with them closing down the resorts (for staying) by the end of the year - I have to go! Although terrorists may be looking to kidnap by the time it closes down too!

By the way I am only a PADI Open Water Certified diver - is it overkill for me going to sipadan? Will I miss loads?

 

[frogfish]

Thanks for your imput guys - think we will go for it - don't want to miss out on what looks to be a amazing place. And with them closing down the resorts (for staying) by the end of the year - I have to go! Although terrorists may be looking to kidnap by the time it closes down too!

By the way I am only a PADI Open Water Certified diver - is it overkill for me going to sipadan? Will I miss loads?

You should be fine but watch your depth (very easy to get deep along those beautiful walls) and do not follow blindly the dive guide - He will assume you know what you are doing; so please plan your dives carefully. To give you a flavour I had the following dive briefing in Sipadan "We go down to 40m and see if there is anything interesting - If so we'll go deeper" (the guy actually went down to 50m...)

 

[murmur2k]

You should be fine but watch your depth (very easy to get deep along those beautiful walls) and do not follow blindly the dive guide - He will assume you know what you are doing; so please plan your dives carefully. To give you a flavour I had the following dive briefing in Sipadan "We go down to 40m and see if there is anything interesting - If so we'll go deeper" (the guy actually went down to 50m...)

Thanks for the advice lol 50m! Thats insane, will look out for cowboys like that! I know it will be tempting to go deeper than 18m (Padi OWD limit) though - is it worth the risk I ask!?!?

Is it possible to hire cameras at Sipadan? Video cameras as well? Would be great.l

 

[stefo2]

I can confirm frogfish's experiences, and this does not only happen with "cowboy DMs" but seems to be the rule rather than the exception. I have not been on a single dive there where the DM actually stuck to the depth he mentioned in the "briefing" (if you want to call it that...), or even asked if everyone was o.k. with that depth, profile etc.
You should really make pretty clear what you and your buddy are prepared to do and what not, and if in doubt don't worry about deliberately "losing" the group. You can't really get lost on Sipadan dive sites as you will usually have the wall / slope clearly to one side.

As for whether it's worth going deeper than 18m - it sure is, there is loads to see down there, but it's not worth taking unnecessary risks, so don't do anything you don't feel comfortable with. I'm sure you will find plenty of beautiful things at shallower depth. My last dive there was at Coral Garden, I think (pretty common name for a dive site...), and we had said before the dive that we'd like to keep it shallow because we were flying out in slightly less that 24 hours and had done one deep dive that day already, so when the DM and the rest of the group disappeared in the blue below (not according to plan), we simple turned closer to the reef and did the most amazing dive at an average depth of about 13 metres - one of the best dives I've ever done.

 

[murmur2k]

Going deeper than 18m at our experience level what do we have to look out for? Is it just the same kinda thing? Decompression stops? - At what depth requires starting stops? Would have done my Advanced prior to going but no time or money!

 

[stefo2]

It's not the depth alone but time spent at depth. Your tables or your computer will tell you how long at which depth will still keep you within the NDL. At 40 metres you don't have much time before you go into deco.

The other thing that you will have to watch out for the deeper you go, is nitrogen narcosis, of course.

From your last questions it seems that you are quite inexperienced (but still, your OWC should have covered tables, NDL and narcosis!), so please, make sure that you plan your dives well and stick to your plans and stay well within the NDL. If you don't have your own computers, don't just trust the DM to keep you within safe limits, they may not, or you may be slightly deeper than them for a while without realising.

Many of the dive sites in Sipadan are bottomless, so really watch your depth, please.