Borneo (Sabah) - Sipadan Island

After our time in KK we headed to Semporna and to the very highly regarded and sort after diving spot ‘Sipadan’. We decided that with Mike having fully recovered from his motorbike accident that we would do our advanced diving qualifications. We had found the cheapest dive company who was able to guarantee us at least one day diving at the island of Sipadan if we booked three days diving in total. Due to a limited number of daily permits lots of the dive companies insist on you booking 5 days diving to give you the same guarantee and even then you sometimes need to book weeks in advance! There was one other guy, a South African called Tom, doing the qualification with us and on the first day we were told unexpectedly ‘You’re going to Sipadan!’.  As we had decided to take the cheaper option and stay in Semporna rather than one of the closer islands we had over an hour’s speed boat journey each way to the diving spots. I’d like to say the journeys were fun but actually more often than not it rained and the sea was so choppy that after an hour of being catapulted from the plastic bench we felt seriously bruised to say the least!

With so much hype about diving in Sipadan we didn’t know what to expect and wondered if it could really be as good as everyone said… we were not to be disappointed! As we descended on our first dive we could see hundreds of schooling fish everywhere. We’ve seen lots of schooling fish on other dives but this time as well as the regular small fish there were hundreds of larger unicorn, surgeon and parrotfish everywhere with fish often 30cm or larger. The island of Sipadan is surrounded by very deep, cool water with a drop off of about 500m. These sorts of conditions support an enormous wealth of marine life that attract larger fish as well pelagic fish (the big predatory stuff like sharks that Sipadan is famous for).

On that first day we managed to complete 3 great dives at Sipadan. One site renowned for turtles was full of beautiful soft corals and towering barrel sponges. Everywhere we looked turtles popped up out of the corals. Some of the older green turtles were especially beautiful and huge, measuring about 1.5 metres plus. They were very docile and you could literally sit next to them as they dozed on the sea floor. On that dive we managed to count 12 turtles. There was also a giant barracuda, affectionately named Charlie by the locals, who was a permanent resident underneath one of the piers. Charlie was huge and actually pretty intimidating with big teeth sticking out at the front. We had had prior warning not to dangle any limbs too close to him if we wanted them to remain intact.

We were actually super lucky and managed to get two days at Sipadan and the second day was even better than the first. On arriving at the dive site we were told to get in the water quickly because there was a huge school of bumphead parrot fish beneath us. Doing as we were told we launched ourselves into the water to find 30+ massive parrotfish (up to a metre in length) chomping away on all the dead coral. As the parrotfish began to swim away they were replaced by a huge school of Jackfish. The school was so large that it completely engulfed us and we spent several minutes just watching them.

Then we descended further to hunt for sharks…luckily they were everywhere! There where white tip reef sharks and grey reef sharks and also a dogtooth tuna (not a shark… but still exciting). Throughout the dive we must have counted at least 10 sharks.

Swimming on we reached the famous barracuda point known for the swirling schools of hundreds of barracuda, which is actually what first put Sipadan on the world map as a famous dive site. Each barracuda was huge with large teeth. We spent 10 minutes sitting at barracuda point while they circled round us…. an exhilarating but daunting experience. With our air running low we decided to return to the boat. Peeking over a rock on the way back we just happened to spot a turtle cleaning station where 3 turtles were chilling out as they had their shells cleaned by various sea creatures …a perfect finish to an unbelievably awesome dive.

On top of the amazing diving we managed to jump all the hurdles required to gain our advanced diver certificates, in the process learning about fish ID and underwater photography amongst other things! Mike particularly enjoyed the photography aspect and has spent lots of time practising since… he’s the one responsible for all the underwater pictures in our blog!

Bumphead parrotfish