As I look across my pictures now, I am tempted to think "That was a pretty decent trip." On the other hand, I always say "the better the dive, the worse the pictures."
I went to Kapalai last week. Wanted to share my experience.
First of all, I recommend none of you ever fly Air Asia. Our return flight went Tawau to KL, then a tiger airways flight shortly after back to Singapore. Long story short, in what felt like a bait and switch type deal, Air Asia CANCELLED OUR FLIGHT. Would have been nice of them to at least tell customers that it was cancelled. Cancellations can happen to any airlines, but generally they attempt to find you another way to your destination. They could have simply re-routed us through KK, and still made it to KL in time to make our flight home, but they refused and demanded that we pay an additional 1000 ringgits to go that way. Not that there would be anything wrong with spending 10 hours in Tawau's airport, as they proposed, but we wanted to get out of there and as such paid the 1000. I feel scammed and won't be flying with them ever again.
On to the diving. Passage from Tawau's airport was quite seamless. We were picked up from the airport in the evening on time, and again on time and efficiently shuttled to Kapalai.
The clouds and rain were a bit ominous as we bumped along in a speedboat out to the resort:
But the clouds soon evaporated once we were on Kapalai:
The view from my room:
First dive was a couple of hours later on the house reef. I was a bit surprised to find my equipment all setup for me already when I arrived at the dive center. I applaud the efforts of the dive crew, but I like to do it myself. Into the water we went:
Some good sized fish right there on the artificial house reef:
And some smaller ones on the Mabul house reef:
My Favorite critter:
And even some pretty interesting night diving on house reefs:
I wasn't aware of the permit rules on Sipadan, so was a bit annoyed when we only made it there for 2 days out of a week. Still some interesting dives:
Overall, it had some good points and some bad points, but I don't see myself going back.
The Good:
Dive Crew: lots of them and they are there too take care of you. Even overzealous sometimes!
Food: was kept hot and available most of the day, and the manager was willing to accomodate if you asked. We even got a birthday cake for one of our dive buddies on short notice!
Sipadan: Though they tend to drop everybody at barracuda point, so its not common to see a lot of divers, you always see way more fish
Night Dives on House Reefs: Lots of stuff to see at night, big sleepy bumpheads, all kinds of shrimp, and a big greater barricuda named "franky" who lives under the dive dock.
Accomodation: Although we were one of the farthest houses, the concept was fabulous. Everywhere was an aquarium, complete with turtles who come to feed in your dock light at night. They make a sound roughly equivalent to Barney's "BUURRP" from the Simpsons, but you can't help but laugh if they wake you up.
The Bad:
Divemasters: This was industrial diving at its worst. Not one divemaster knew my name, despite spending a week there, we were referred to as Room 49 the whole time. We didn't get briefings unless we demanded, dives were abruptly ended at 45mins(like they couldn't wait to get this over with), and they disappeared immediately after, without a word on fish id or better diving tips. They had good eyes for macro, but ding'd the tank constantly, failing to signal what it was they saw. Imagine a big old guy swimming 20m back to be pointed a common nudibranch that he didn't care about nor could see very well. 1 DM out of 5 let us choose where we wanted to go, too bad we didn't know the sites enough to make an informed decision...
Dive management: The crew was great, hardworking and all, but those that managed them did so very poorly, and as such the place can become a mess, and scheduling was a big problem.
Kapalai/Mabul/Saimai reefs: all three of these areas had critters, but no big stuff, and had been all bombed out. Whats worse, is sometimes you hear bombs going off while diving!
Overall the trip was ok. I should note to all of you that our expectations may have become a bit high after the recent trip to the other side of Sabah. Sipadan itself was almost as good, but with permitting and all, we didn't make it there enough.
The resort was very nice, and we saw turtles most dives, so if tortugas are your thing and you don't mind paying the bill, Kapalai might work well for you.
I went to Kapalai last week. Wanted to share my experience.
First of all, I recommend none of you ever fly Air Asia. Our return flight went Tawau to KL, then a tiger airways flight shortly after back to Singapore. Long story short, in what felt like a bait and switch type deal, Air Asia CANCELLED OUR FLIGHT. Would have been nice of them to at least tell customers that it was cancelled. Cancellations can happen to any airlines, but generally they attempt to find you another way to your destination. They could have simply re-routed us through KK, and still made it to KL in time to make our flight home, but they refused and demanded that we pay an additional 1000 ringgits to go that way. Not that there would be anything wrong with spending 10 hours in Tawau's airport, as they proposed, but we wanted to get out of there and as such paid the 1000. I feel scammed and won't be flying with them ever again.
On to the diving. Passage from Tawau's airport was quite seamless. We were picked up from the airport in the evening on time, and again on time and efficiently shuttled to Kapalai.
The clouds and rain were a bit ominous as we bumped along in a speedboat out to the resort:
But the clouds soon evaporated once we were on Kapalai:
The view from my room:
First dive was a couple of hours later on the house reef. I was a bit surprised to find my equipment all setup for me already when I arrived at the dive center. I applaud the efforts of the dive crew, but I like to do it myself. Into the water we went:
Some good sized fish right there on the artificial house reef:
And some smaller ones on the Mabul house reef:
My Favorite critter:
And even some pretty interesting night diving on house reefs:
I wasn't aware of the permit rules on Sipadan, so was a bit annoyed when we only made it there for 2 days out of a week. Still some interesting dives:
Overall, it had some good points and some bad points, but I don't see myself going back.
The Good:
Dive Crew: lots of them and they are there too take care of you. Even overzealous sometimes!
Food: was kept hot and available most of the day, and the manager was willing to accomodate if you asked. We even got a birthday cake for one of our dive buddies on short notice!
Sipadan: Though they tend to drop everybody at barracuda point, so its not common to see a lot of divers, you always see way more fish
Night Dives on House Reefs: Lots of stuff to see at night, big sleepy bumpheads, all kinds of shrimp, and a big greater barricuda named "franky" who lives under the dive dock.
Accomodation: Although we were one of the farthest houses, the concept was fabulous. Everywhere was an aquarium, complete with turtles who come to feed in your dock light at night. They make a sound roughly equivalent to Barney's "BUURRP" from the Simpsons, but you can't help but laugh if they wake you up.
The Bad:
Divemasters: This was industrial diving at its worst. Not one divemaster knew my name, despite spending a week there, we were referred to as Room 49 the whole time. We didn't get briefings unless we demanded, dives were abruptly ended at 45mins(like they couldn't wait to get this over with), and they disappeared immediately after, without a word on fish id or better diving tips. They had good eyes for macro, but ding'd the tank constantly, failing to signal what it was they saw. Imagine a big old guy swimming 20m back to be pointed a common nudibranch that he didn't care about nor could see very well. 1 DM out of 5 let us choose where we wanted to go, too bad we didn't know the sites enough to make an informed decision...
Dive management: The crew was great, hardworking and all, but those that managed them did so very poorly, and as such the place can become a mess, and scheduling was a big problem.
Kapalai/Mabul/Saimai reefs: all three of these areas had critters, but no big stuff, and had been all bombed out. Whats worse, is sometimes you hear bombs going off while diving!
Overall the trip was ok. I should note to all of you that our expectations may have become a bit high after the recent trip to the other side of Sabah. Sipadan itself was almost as good, but with permitting and all, we didn't make it there enough.
The resort was very nice, and we saw turtles most dives, so if tortugas are your thing and you don't mind paying the bill, Kapalai might work well for you.
) and the boat captains were fantastic. The dives were between 45-60 mins (sometimes a little over) and we could ask for specific dive sites (Barracuda Point is ok, but not 3 times in row...).
