Sipadan/Mabul 12 days enough?

[dirtfarmer]

I Want to dive Sipadan/Mabul.
Is 12 days enough to cover most the sites?
I love muck so I'll enjoy Mabul. And heck I'll take as many days at Sipadan as they can give me.

Anybody think that staying that many days that I might get more Sipadan permits?

 

[chlorpheniramine]

12 days is too long. I would dive 6-7 days at most, with 2 days at Sipadan sufficient. The barracudas, jacks and bumpheads are all at one site, with the other sites being very similar to one another. Be aware that muck dives may be less enjoyable than at other places as some resorts limit dive times to 45mins and have a very poor guide to diver ratio (1:8).

 

[MrsBBC]

Are you travelling on your own? I stayed on the rig for either 4 or 5 nights, and managed to get to Sipadan every day bar one, BOOM! that was at the end of August. Plus, the permit is for the whole day, not just 3 dives, so the centre should be able to get you 5 dives on Sipadan in one day, though they will charge you a lot more for the boat fuel to make a second trip. Second trip off the day is more expensive, but often less popular and therefore more exclusive, therefore you don't have to piss ass around waiting for the inexperienced divers to descend/reascend in current while you wait. My favourite Sipadan dive was one of these afternoon dives, where after finishing our dive we near bled our cylinders... (ok to about 20bar), in 3-5m of water inside a huge school of jacks, only 4 divers in the water.

Yes that's probably enough days, I think I totalled 9 days, but could have easily stayed longer. Play it by ear. There is plenty of cheaper accommodation on Mabul if you decide to stay longer.
With that many days you could complete your intro to cavern cert, and dive some of turtle tomb (not the tomb bit, but the entrance). That was my intention, and why I booked 9 days. But I couldn't find anyone that I was comfortable training with....

I can't comment on whether more days would mean more Sipadan or not. It could potentially mean less Sipadan as they know that you are there for longer and might prioritise trips for people who are there for fewer days.... Permits are a massive pain in the bum.

Nic

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Also visibility and suitability of specific dive sites at Sipadan seemed to change by the day/ hour when I was there, so I would say that the longer you are there, the more chance you would have of visiting everything that you want to and getting the most out of the sites.

I didn't have great visibility when I visited. One one dive I saw a leopard shark. I would have paid for 3 more days at Sipadan to see another one, it was beautiful and I had never seen one before, but *cough* I already had a few mins of deco, no buddy, etc lalala, and therefore had to watch it swim into the current below me and pray I saw another one *cough*

Guide to diver ratio is not always good, neither is the balance of experience within the group...
If you have a buddy the guides generally mumble something during the briefing about 'if you surface separately from the group' which the more experienced divers took as a green light to signal to the guide, 'we're going off on our own'

Nic

 

[The Wolf]

deleted comments.

 

[dirtfarmer]

MrsBBC, do you mind if you tell me who you dove with? Yes, I'm on my own, so single supplement costs are involved. And I really can't go
more expensive than Scuba Junkie. But if they have horrible guide to diver ratios,bad balance within the group, and limit bottom time to 45 min. ( I'm asking around with dive ops but always can't trust what they say. Maybe I'll consider going back to Bunaken/Lembeh. There I had 75-80 min dives.

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MrsBBC, sorry looks like you stayed on the rig. I can't imagine spending 10-12 days on the rig.

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Also in Bunaken/Lembeh I had 1:4 ratio and good mix in group

 

[Quero]

dirtfarmer, you may find 12 days are too many, even though you enjoy muck diving and will be happy to repeat some dive sites that you find especially nice. Most visitors stay for 5 nights or so. You could possibly do one week at Layang2 and one at Mabul. They are quite different. Or you could do a week of diving and explore Borneo for a week of non-diving activity. There's tons to do there that's well worth doing.

 

[MrsBBC]

I spent half my time on the rig and the other half at Uncle Chang's
What single supplement costs?
On the rig I stayed in a 4 person dorm... on my own.
Uncle Chang's, 3 or 4 person room, but it was full.
PM me if you would like any specific questions answered and I will try to be helpful

I don't like being negative about resorts in the boards unless I have to, especially as the rig was for the most part, excellent

Nic

 

[James R]

12 days is too long. I would dive 6-7 days at most, with 2 days at Sipadan sufficient. The barracudas, jacks and bumpheads are all at one site, with the other sites being very similar to one another. Be aware that muck dives may be less enjoyable than at other places as some resorts limit dive times to 45mins and have a very poor guide to diver ratio (1:8).

12 days may be too long for you, but maybe not for everyone. We stayed at Sipadan Water Village for 10 days, and I would have loved more time there. We dove many sites around Mabul, enjoyed many trips to Sipadan Island, as well as other islands in the area and under the rig a couple times. We never had a time limit on dives, with many of our dives being well over an hour. In fact only three dives during the trip were under 60min, one being a quick 35min checkout we had to do the first day of diving.

The ratio of DM to diver was probably 1:8 or so, but we were fine with that ratio. To be fair our boat had divers with a cumulative total of 15k or so dives I would bet, so we didn't need hand holding. That said, I still don't know how those guides find some of the stuff they do! It's amazing.

 

[Nics]

Have been there 5 years ago. We were diving with Borneo Divers and stayed at Arung Hayat at Mabul, a nice low budget homestay. Most of the time we were in groups of 4 divers with one (sometimes 2) divemasters or sometimes with 2 or 3 divers. There were never more than 8 divers on the boat. We had no problems with the permits what so ever, this was in december.

 

[Interceptor121]

Have been in kapalai for one week and with 4 dives per day unlimited dives from jetty you can click easily 24-30 dives in 6 days. Over this time went to sipadan twice and was sufficient
12 days I believe is too much we spent a few days at the orang tang sanctuary which made for a more interesting 10 days some pictures are on Flickr
Muck diving wise having been in dauin mabul or kapalai are nowhere near though pretty good they don't compare with the galore of flambo sea horses and ghost pipefish of dauin
One good thing ate instead frog fig at mabul old house reef that has also a great school of jacks