Sipadan via Mabul via Borneo…

We finally got to dive one of our dream sites – Sipadan. We couldn't stay on the island because the government required all structures off the island by end of 2004. The stated purpose was to conserve a balanced eco-system for Sipadan and its surroundings. Diving continued - divers were ferried in and out by dive and resort operators from the mainland and surrounding islands. However, the real reason for the prohibition came to light when on May 15, 2006, a barge carrying thousands of tons of building material breached on the island, destroying a significant portion of reef between the old pier and Barracuda Point, said to be about 372 sq meters. The purpose of the building supplies (mainly concrete and gravel) was apparently for a USD 1.3 million tourist facility and government officials ended up pointing fingers at each other - and Sipadan remains uninhabited except for the police stationed there.

So we stayed on a nearby island Mabul at the Sipadan Water Village. It was beautiful with wide open rooms and amazing azure blue sea everywhere you looked. The only drawback was poor David got food poisoning from the buffet one lunch and that afternoon when he popped up from diving, his lunch decided to pop up also! He was a real trooper and didn’t even miss a dive. We dove off Mabul- where muck diving is popular. Muck diving is essentially diving in an area where sediment can easily be stirred up so you can see nothing – not a great combination if you are diving in a large group with varied skills. We were lucky to be paired up primarily with two expert divers from Reno - and they showed us a thing or two! Also what you could see, macro diving was amazing. We saw almost microscopic porcelain crabs, orangutan crabs (David’s favorite), anemone shrimp, pygmy sea horses, baby lobsters, and numerous nudibranches! We took an incredible night dive where we saw mating mandarin fish – they only mate at sunset – and a baby octopus. However, the true highlight was the reason we went – diving Sipadan.

Sipadan is the only oceanic island in Malaysia, rising 2,000 feet from the seabed. It was formed by living corals growing on top of an extinct volcanic cone that took thousands of years to develop. It is located off the east coast of Sabah, Malaysia's eastern most state, and lies on the north-eastern corner of Borneo, the world's third largest island and is in the Celebes Sea. Sipadan is located at the heart of the Indo-Pacific basin, the centre of one of the richest marine habitats in the world. More than 3,000 species of fish and hundreds of coral species have been classified in this ecosystem. A mysterious turtle tomb lies underneath the column of the island, formed by an underwater limestone cave with a labyrinth of tunnels and chambers that contain many skeletal remains of turtles because they got disoriented and drowned (we did not do that dive!) Jacques Cousteau raved about the diversity of marine life and his films are widely dispersed so that most people in the diving world have not only heard about Sipadan - but also want to dive it! Every time we have talked about diving here- we get asked if we've been to Sipadan yet!

We personally saw many reef sharks, schools of barracuda (I was told to hide my rings as they like bling), numerous turtles swimming and nesting, trevally, huge spiraling schools of jack and bat fish so they darkened the sun… it was truly an experience of a lifetime!

Sipadan photos: http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?mode=fromshare&Uc=hggnkpd.afu2qc7x&Uy=-q6onk2&Ux=1

Mabul muck/macro photos http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?mode=fromshare&Uc=hggnkpd.bio36r8d&Uy=-8mh9u5&Ux=1

Photos above water: http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?mode=fromshare&Uc=hggnkpd.4b4s5uxp&Uy=-eqg46p&Ux=1