Sipadan trip report

[Zept]

I went to Sipadan. It was excellent.

Do I get a prize for the shortest trip report? No? Okay, here comes the rest. It’s a bit of a ramble that reflects my experience (I’ve only been diving for a year) and interests (fish)… if you have questions about other things, I’ll do my best to answer them.

 

[Zept]

The trip was organised by my LDS in Singapore. We flew Malaysia Airlines from Singapore to Kota Kinabula (2:15 hr), and then from KK to Tawau (40 min). Borneo Divers met us at the airport and took us by minibus to Semporna (1:30 hr) and then by speedboat to their resort on Sipadan (1 hr). Phew.

There were 13 divers in the group (unlucky for some…), plus an instructor. Most of the group left the island after three and a half days, but I stayed on for an extra two.

We did three boat dives a day, plus a variable number of shore dives. The boats take up to ten divers, plus a divemaster, and you gear up in the dive centre. Once you reach the dive site (5-10 mins), all you have to do is fall (okay, backroll) into the water and follow the current. Maximum dive time is 50 minutes, including a five-minute safety stop at 5m; minimum surface interval is an hour, although generally we had at least two. Water temperature was 29C, air temperature 30-32C, visibility up to 30m.

The resort is fairly basic, although it seemed luxurious compared to the places I usually stay… beds instead of bunks, hot and cold running water (most of the time), decent food. Best feature is the jetty, which extends to within a few metres of the Drop-off. You can hang over the end and see parrotfish, schools of batfish, lionfish, the resident barracuda and even the occasional shark.

(If you want temps or distances in old money, go here.)

 

[Zept]

Sipadan has two types of dive site: walls and points. The walls drop vertically from around 5m to anywhere from 600 to 1,200m. Around the points, the terrain has more slope to it and there are some flattish, sandy areas. The turtles prefer the walls, which have ledges and caves where they can crash out, and the white-tip reef sharks prefer the points, possibly because of the sand.

The most popular section of the wall is the Drop-off, directly off the resort. Has to be the world’s best orientation dive… you gear up, walk into the clear, calm water, put on your fins, swim about 15m, and then drop over the edge. There’s a hang line set up at 5m and a shelf at about 20m, which is comforting when you’re getting your head around the concept of a bottomless drop (okay, there is a bottom, but it’s 600m down and you’ll be well dead before you get there). Along to the right (wall on the right) is the entrance to the infamous Turtle Cavern.

Altogether I did five dives on the Drop-off, including two night dives. It’s a nice dive in the late afternoon, when the sun gets low enough to light up the soft corals from behind. It’s also great at night, when the orange cup corals are feeding and the bumphead parrotfish are settling in to their caves. Kind of freaky, though… shine your torch down, nothing. Out to the left, nothing. Dead ahead, still nothing. Shine your torch to the right… aha, wall. Definitely the darkest night dive I’ve done.

One night we dropped down to the mouth of the cavern and covered our lights. After a couple of minutes we saw a swarm of little lights, like very bright stars… flashlight fish. Very surreal experience. There’s definitely something odd about kneeling in the sand in the dark, with 20m of water over your head, watching a bunch of dancing lights. One of my buddies said she half expected them to spell out her name.

Hanging Gardens gets an honourable mention in the walls category, for its soft corals and general good value on the stuff-per-square-metre front. We saw lots of turtles, morays, scorpionfish, lionfish, a huge Napoleon wrasse, a herd of bumpheads chomping on the coral, a school of fusiliers swirling underneath us like a blue rainbow, lots of batfish and loads of different small fish. It was always an easy, enjoyable dive.

The top point, and probably the top dive site overall, is Barracuda Point. The main attractions are big fish and a big school of barracuda. For the fish, the main attraction is the current. One morning I had to fin flat out just to stay in place; the next morning I got smart and held on to a rock.

On our first two dives, we saw a few solitary barracuda, a school of 15-20 adults, and another school of about 100 juveniles. On our third dive we finally saw the big school, hanging in the current at about 15m. Slid through underneath them and then hung on to a rock on the upslope side of the school, a few metres away from several hundred sleek, silver, chomping machines. I was awed, but the local bannerfish weren’t as impressed… a couple of them kept darting in and nipping one of the barracuda’s fins. Seemed a remarkably unwise thing for a small fish to do.

Barracuda Point isn’t just about barracuda. On the day of the big school, we started the dive out in the blue with a grey reef shark. Came back to the reef, swam straight into the barracuda. When we tore ourselves away, we were right on top of the flat, sandy area where the garden eels hang out. Beyond them, there was a big school of silver jacks. Beyond them, on the top of the reef, the sun was shining brightly on a school of yellow goatfish, and then on a school of deep red bigeyes that were practically glowing. And along the way there was a clown triggerfish and a trumpetfish and a diagonal-banded sweetlips… it was like watching a highlights reel, but it all happened in real time. Normally I find it hard to compare dives, because there’s always something to like, but this one was special.

 

[Zept]

I saw lots of new fish, including a harlequin ghost pipefish, a pair of banded pipefish, and some other type of pipefish that I couldn’t identify. Saw about half of the 60-odd butterflyfish in my fish book, without making any special effort. Three different types of lionfish, mostly at night. Several leaf scorpionfish (thanks to the DM… I’d rate my chances of spotting one at close to zero). A flutemouth changing colour, from white to brown. Schools of red-toothed triggerfish, clown triggerfish, titan triggerfish that showed no inclination to bite (?!). Wasn’t great for cephalopods or nudibranchs.

Sipadan is famous for its turtles, and we saw them everywhere, posing on the skyline, passing overhead with a batfish in tow, or sleeping in delicate black coral ‘trees’ (very incongruous). They’re completely unphased by divers… several times I looked round to find one passing right in front of me, on its way back to its ledge. We saw one rubbing its back on the underside of a barrel sponge, and another with a huge remora stuck to its side. On one dive we returned to the hang line to find a large female with her front flippers hooked over the rope, rubbing her stomach on a knot.

Also went on a guided walk one evening and saw a female squeezing out her eggs and covering up her nest. All the eggs are collected and reburied in a hatchery. Saw several batches of young turtles being released… they scramble down the beach and then swim off, flippering frantically. They can’t hold their breath for very long, but they’re desperate to be off… they look really funny going flip, flip, flip, up, breathe, down, flip, flip, flip, like little mechanical toys.

Sharks don’t really do it for me (all teeth and no swim bladder), but it was good to see some. On one dive I turned around to find a white tip swimming straight towards me. It veered off and went past a couple of metres away. Another time my buddy was trying to get a photograph and ended up chasing after a big one with his camera… would have been the perfect picture for ‘man bites shark’. The only time the white tips made me at all nervous was when I spotted a group of five circling over a patch of sand, and even then I was more intrigued than worried. I wasn’t as relaxed about the grey reef shark… it was one big, mean-looking, shark-like shark.

We also got close to several large schools of jacks. On one occasion the school was twisting in figure eights, like a giant mobius strip, and on another it was a wall of silver fish that parted around me. It was hard not to feel guilty about the one that appeared on the dinner table, even knowing that there were plenty more in the sea.

 

[Zept]

I did 18 dives in five days, including my first ever shore dives and my deepest ever dives. I also got mildly bent, which wasn’t so smart. It wasn’t really my fault… obviously I did something wrong, but I didn’t do anything profoundly stupid (you can read that part of the story here). I learnt a lot. It was excellent.

Zept

 

[animian2002]

:hi:

Hi Zept

I enjoyed reading ur Sipadan report just as much as I enjoyed reading Neve's Perhentian report. These places sure is the envy of all divers Am I right ???

Hope that u guys will continue "writing" these reports cos it let us have a clue what to expect when we are there

keep it up and happy diving

Ciao

 

[seabass]

If I start in KL, what is the approximate cost to go there for three days?

 

[Zept]

Seabass, are you including travelling time in your three days? From KL, it will take you an entire day to get to Sipadan. No diving on that day. Figure on a day and a half to get back, including off-gassing time. Normally people leave Sipadan after lunch, spend the night in Semporna or Tawau, and then fly the next morning. If you can only be away from KL for three days, it isn't worth it. If you can get away for six days, you'll get three and a half days of diving.

Best to e-mail Borneo Divers (or one of the other resorts) for prices, because I think we got a group rate. In total, including flights, I paid around USD1,500 for an eight-day trip with five and half days of diving.

Zept

 

[neve]

Wow Zept, excellent report there!! I read the whole thing twice and took notes of the better dive sites... Been planning to go but may have to wait til next year because I've exhausted (almost) all my annual leave *sigh*

The USD1,500 seems rather steep, though. I received mailers from Living Seas and Blue Wave selling trips to Sipadan for around SGD1,600 (approx. USD890), all inclusive. The package includes 15 dives over four days, but all in all it's a 7D6N trip. I'm wondering, what kind of 'extras' do Borneo Divers offer?

One more question: Is diving in Sipadan year-round or limited to a season?

Thanks again Zept for such an insightful write-up. This will come in handy when I go there (eventually)

 

[Zept]

Neve, there are certainly cheaper trips. One thing to check is whether you'll be staying on Sipadan, or on one of the neighbouring islands. For example, Sipadan Water Village Resort is actually on Mabul, about a half hour boat ride from Sipadan. There are quite strict restrictions covering day trips to Sipadan, but I'm not sure exactly how they work. Staying on the island, we were able to do unlimited dives. Borneo Divers isn't the only option... there are five resorts on the island.

Mabul is an interesting dive destination in its own right (I hear), but is quite different from Sipadan... better for macro, not as good for pelagics. It's on the other side of the deep channel that separates Sipadan from mainland Borneo and doesn't have the deep walls that make Sipadan so special.

There is a season for Sipadan... a DM I know went last Christmas and said they couldn't dive some of the sites because the sea was so rough. I think it gets hit by the northwest monsoon, so conditions are best in the middle of the year.

Zept