Dive Guide to Malaysian Borneo

Photo: No Dust

Divemaster Christina Koukkos shares her a the single preferred spots to get soppy in Malaysian Borneo, plus where to stay, what to eat, as well as how to get there.

How to get in

Area of interest: off a east seashore of Borneo, in a Celebes Sea

Photo: amrufm

Most scuba scuba divers fly in to Tawau, a closest airfield (a 90-minute drive) to Semporna, a charm-free Malaysian town upon Borneo proper. (Both AirAsia as well as Malaysian Airlines have cheap flights from Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, as well as alternative informal hubs.)

Semporna dive shops as well as hotels suggest ignored or free transfers from a airfield if youve requisitioned in advance. A reduction available choice is to take a open bus in to a town of Tawau (thereby starting 20km in a wrong direction) as well as switch to an additional open minivan to Semporna a outing which could take 4 hours or more.

Instead of this headache, if we havent requisitioned in allege we suggest charming a associate traveler in to splitting a cost of a taxi.

An alternate entry point is to fly to Kota Kinabalu, a capital of a Malaysian state of Sabah. This creates sense for travelers who initial wish to revisit an orangutan sanctuary, take a stream trip, stand Mount Kinabalu, or usually see a rest of Malaysian Borneo prior to diving.

Where to kit up

Semporna

Scuba Junkie organisation / Photo: Author

1. Scuba Junkie If we wish to do a PADI course, choose Scuba Junkie, which has dive shops in ! both Sem porna as well as Mabul. Its an efficient, professionally run operation with a mix of Western as well as Malaysian staff.

The instructors have been all incredibly knowledgeable, a classes have been small, march prices rival what chumps pay during a diver-factories upon Koh Tao (Thailand), as well as we actually learn how to dive.

If youre usually fun diving, a SJ divemasters have been a many appropriate in a history of a world. Really.

Disclosure: we worked as a Scuba Junkie divemaster for 6 months. Yes, Im somewhat biased. But we wouldnt have worked there if we didnt believe in them.

2. Sipadan Scuba Another well run dive shop, yet with considerably reduction celebrity than Scuba Junkie. Its greatest captivate is an Advanced Open Water PADI march which includes Sipadan dives.

Mabul

Mabul is an island of a stereotypical palm-fringed, white-sanded accumulation which happens to be shut in by fantastic macro diving.

Mabul-based dive shops have booking offices in Semporna, many of which have been situated along a strip nearby a Dragon Inn (see page 2). Also, as there have been no eccentric restaurants or hotels upon a island, scuba scuba divers upon Mabul generally dive as well as stay with a same company. Accommodation includes all meals.

Photo: Author

3. Scuba Junkies Mabul Beach Resort If your budget isnt hardcore backpacker, this is by far a many appropriate deal. The dive shop/resort is set upon a cleanest widen of beach upon a island. The rooms, including a two 4-bed dorms, have been elementary as well as elegant, each with a private balcony. The food is delicious, a staff is friendly, as well as Matt a bartender has a revolution of potent law cocktails upon a menu.

4. Big Johns As we competence expect, Big Johns is run by a vast Malaysian man ! called J ohn. Its a tiny shop, so it feels youre diving as well as staying with a local family. BJs offers backpacker accommodation, meals, as well as a cozy atmosphere. Members of a dive staff, mostly locals, all have eagle eyes. (Email: bigjohnlim@hotmail.com)

5. Borneo Divers Another well-run, midrange choice upon Mabul. Theres a swimming pool for resort guest as well as a beach club which sometimes rocks though is mostly dark as well as empty.

6. Sipadan.com A relative visitor which offers diving as well as budget accommodation. Ive listened great things, yet we never went diving with them. we can, however, testify to a fact which a staff is tons of fun during a bar.

7. Uncle Changs Ive listened a couple of stories from scuba scuba divers about vulnerable diving practices as well as equipment issues with Uncle Changs. But if we havent reserved a Sipadan permit in advance, youre many expected to have last-minute fitness here.

Where to get wet

Some dive shops run trips from Semporna, others from Mabul. You can get to many dive sites from possibly location, yet a the great idea to ask if youve got a special request.

Photo: JennyHuang

Sipadan

A 25-minute speedboat float from Mabul, Sipadan is a reef-ringed pinnacle situated upon a dilemma of a continental shelf. The embankment attracts colorful schools of fish, which in turn capture pelagics sharks as well as such which regularly stop by to feed or get cleaned.

Due to a distance from alternative islands as well as a status, since 2003, as a sea park, a embankment has escaped a dynamite fishing which broken alternative underwater habitats in a area. Its ceaselessly listed between a tip 10 diving destinations in a world.

Sabah Parks, which administers a island, limits a every d! ay numbe r of visitors (mostly divers) to 120. Its thus vital which we book your Sipadan diving 2-6 months in advance.

1. Barracuda Point My dive organisation as well as we deplane in to a teeming mass of surgeonfish. Following a wall, we slam in to a 7-meter-wide propagandize of bigeye trevally. we telepathically desire a trevallies to please move, a better to watch a grey embankment sharks eyeing us as they glide by. Ten mins in to a dive, we stop counting green turtles, an involved species, during 30.

Just prior to we take a right in to a channel in a reef, we dip down to 25 meters to watch 2-meter grey embankment sharks swarming in a ripping current. We rise as well as strike a channel. On a right, five white-tip sharks lounge upon a rubble bottom, where electric-blue cleanser wrasses pluck parasites from their bodies. To a left, a 1,000-strong flue cloud of chevron barracuda engulfs an additional dive group.

We follow a channel to a end, where we glance an eagle ray whizzing past. As we rise to do a reserve stop, we get buzzed by a turtle heading to a surface for air. A robbery horde of bumphead parrotfish thunders along a tip of a reef, gorging upon coral.

All my scuba scuba divers have been grinning behind their regulators. Theyre all low upon air. No a single wants to leave. This is what Sipadan is all about.

Photo: wwarby

2. South Point we deplane slowly, counting turtles. Theres customarily a class gathering during a tip of a reef, upon a rotating schedule. Some days a unicornfish. Some days a surgeonfish. Or bumpheads. Or snapper.

Keeping a wall upon a left, we search a rock as well as coral for moray eels, nudibranches, as well as hunker shrimpbut my business usually have eyes for a passing sharks. As a mountainous country starts to protrusion out from a reef, we leave a wall to float! over a white-tips during a cleaning hire below, during 50 meters. If theres a clever current, grey reefs hurry past.

We approach a dilemma of a reef, where a clever stream could sweep us out in to a blue. Instead, we cut opposite a channel to see yet some-more white-tips during yet an additional cleaning station. As a organisation takes pictures, we keep an eye out in a blue, hoping were propitious sufficient to mark a passing manta ray or hammerhead shark or (Ive heard) even a thresher.

We rise to do a reserve stop over a coral grassed area which is a tip of a reef. Baby white-tips fall asleep underneath list coral, while green turtles blemish themselves upon tip of it. A titan triggerfish, safeguarding a turf, tries to take a bite out of my fin. And face.

Mabul

The guidebooks tout Sipadan. Fair enough. But Mabul as well as alternative area islands have been between a many appropriate dive destinations in a universe to see macrolife sea class which have been small, odd, incredibly cool, as well as mostly overlooked.

Photo: JennyHuang

3. Awas Awas a word equates to danger in Malaysian. Awas a dive site equates to Holy shit is which a sea moth? in divespeak.

This is a silt dive no pretty coral here. But a sand, rubble, as well as sea weed have for a macro scuba scuba divers dream.

Ive found flying gurnards as well as fingered dragonets flitting opposite a sand; a delicate ghostpipefish, we do a many appropriate sense of sea grass, floating wherever a stream takes it; stone fish, routinely masters of disguise, hoppity-hopping opposite a sand; blue-ringed octopus as well as flamboyant cuttlefish, flashing their colors to warn of their venomous stings; schools of pharaoh cuttlefish mating or laying eggs or fighting; a napoleon lizard eel, a head stranded up from a silt similar to a droughty tree st! ump; gre en turtles a distance of spaceships flopped out in a center of a sand.

And afterwards there have been a crustaceans: skeleton shrimp, anemone cleanser shrimp, porcelain crab, arrowhead crab, boxer crabI could go on. But we wont.

4. Artificial Reef This enormous dive site is stoical of dozens of artificial structures which have been sunk in a silt off a northeast dilemma of Mabul. There have been a couple of tiny wrecks, though a many interesting sea life is captivated to a wooden boxes a little as large as a country chapel, a little as tiny as a lobster trap.

Its not odd to mark ten or some-more frogfish relatively rare, deviously camouflaged, splendidly ungainly creatures. A swimming frogfish is similar to Fat Albert dancing ballet. Also, theres a resident propagandize of jacks (bigeye trevally) thats bigger than a the single during Sipadan. Plus root scorpionfish, nudibranchs, ornate ghostpipefish Again, we could go on.

5. Eel Garden A coral embankment which slopes down to a sandy bottom during around 20 meters. When we was working, a span of speckled eagle rays had taken up chateau here. Such superb creatures. But even if a rays have been gone, there have been regularly a eels: grassed area eels as well as ribbon eels as well as hulk moray eels as well as white-mouthed morays as well as white-eyed morays as well as spot-faced morays.

This is additionally where a diver once found a frogfish a distance of an infants pinky nail. You competence not think thats intensely cool, though we do.

Photo: leafbug

Other Islands

Theres plenty some-more diving in a area, a little of which can usually be reached upon day trips from Semporna.

6. Siamil First Beach
Like a rest of a Scuba Junkie dive staff, we would desire as well as beg as well as finagle as well a! s bemoan during whoever was we do a schedule for a mark upon a once-weekly vessel to Siamil. The island is a one-hour speedboat float from Mabul, so to dive here we had to wake up early as well as come behind late. we didnt care, because we longed for to dive First Beach as mostly as possible.

Like Awas in Mabul, First Beach is sand, sea grass, as well as rubble. But theres even some-more singular as well as funny shit here: sea moths, a different class of blue-ringed octopus, zebra crab, wonderpus (which I, alas, didnt see), as well as tons more.

This divings not for everyone we have to adore tiny, weird, singular things though if youre in to macro, this will be your a the single preferred spot.

7. Kapalai House Reef
Kapalai is not so many an island as a submerged silt club with a resort built upon tip as well as ringed by a coral reef.

Like Artificial Reef during Mabul, House Reef Kapalai has a couple of wrecks as well as a little fallen structures where we can find hulk grouper as well as alternative sea creatures. But a many action is upon a coral reef, where theres tiny hunker shrimp, hulk moray eels, frogfish, octopus, root scorpionfish, as well as many more.