Sipadan Dive Trip, Lunar New Year 2004

Seven members of the HKUC set off recently to dive in Sipadan, Malaysia. We’d decided to stay on the island itself, having made enquiries about staying on nearby Mabul island and been told that, due to restrictions on the number of dive boats and visitors entering the area, we’d be limited to just one dive a day on Sipadan. We preferred to form part of the quota of divers allowed to stay on 'that untouched piece of art', as Jacques Cousteau once described the tiny island.

Though it is certainly no longer 'untouched' it still offers a fantastic diving experience. Some say that no other spot on the surface of this planet has more marine life than Sipadan. The oceanic island rises as a pristine coral mount from the floor of the Suluwesi Sea to give incredible 600 metre wall dives, just 15 metres from the shore. More than 3000 species of fish and hundreds of coral species have been classified in this rich ecosystem. It is accessible from Hong Kong via direct flights to Kota Kinabalu. From here you need to take an internal flight to Tawau. The dive resorts usually arrange a bus transfer from Tawau to Semporna and from here it is a short, but exhilarating, speedboat ride to your final destination.

We booked through Pro-Dive (HK) Ltd. and stayed at the Abdillah Sipadan Paradise Resort, which has friendly staff, plentiful food and comfortable, though basic, rooms. We soon got into the diving routine - up at 6am for a sunrise dive (needless to say we didn't always make it). After a hearty breakfast another dive at 8.30am, followed by a snack (just to keep us going, you understand) and another dive at around 11am. Lunch was a leisurely affair, and there was usually some time to lie in a hammock before heaving ourselves away from the beach for the afternoon dive. Followed by cake, pancakes or fried bananas. Or doughnuts. Well, we had to keep our strength up for the sunset dive, which was always on the house reef. Occasionally we valiantly volunteered for a night dive, but mostly we collapsed after an enormous dinner and drank rum and played scrabble. (If you like a tipple - take your own booze, as the resort only runs to cans of Carlsberg).

So, what did we see? Well, some of the photos here give you an idea, but don't do the place justice. Sipadan is well-known for its unusually large numbers of green and hawksbill turtles which gather there to mate and nest. We generally saw half a dozen on every dive, and at sites like Barracuda Point and Hanging Gardens there were groups of schooling barracuda and big-eye trevally swimming in spectacular tornado-like formations. On one dive I stopped counting the white tip sharks at seventeen. There was always a chance of seeing bigger pelagics on a Sipadan dive (seeing five hammerheads on a sunrise dive at 35 metres was a real highlight) but the great beauty of the area is that divers can also head to Kapilai and Mabul island for some 'muck' diving. The visibility is not as good as Sipadan's but the macro life is amazing; we saw several huge frogfish, leaf scorpionfish, mantis shrimps, garden eels, fire gobies, and various pipefish. We were constantly coming across crocodilefish. We searched high and low in the nooks and crannies for mandarinfish and were rewarded not only with two of the spectacularly beautiful creatures, but with a ghost pipefish to boot.

Some of our group had been to Sipadan several years before and were wary of returning, having heard rumours of coral damage and fewer fish and turtles. Undoubtedly, some areas of the reef have been harmed and the quality of diving overall has probably declined. The sheer number of divers (some of them careless or thoughtless) and scale of human activity has certainly affected the marine life. Ten years ago it would not have been unusual to see twenty turtles on a dive, but the numbers seemed to be down to single figures during our trip. That's the bad news. The good news is that the Malaysian government is taking steps to restrict diving to manageable numbers. Ten years ago, I saw about twenty other divers at each site. This time, we always seemed to be the only group.

If the resorts and the government can continue to work together with responsible divers, perhaps there is a future for Sipadan after all…