Dive Centre
The Malaysian managed dive centre offers three dive trips per day, equipment hire and PADI dive courses. Apart from nitrox diving they also offer technical diving and cave diving.
Dive Operation
There are three boat dives per day. On arrival in Mabul guests are allocated a boat for the entire time. The trips are done on fast speed boats with short rides to Sipadan (20 min), to Kapalai and Mabul (10 min). The dives are accompanied by Malaysian dive guides with excellent local knowledge. The briefings are conducted in English.
Guests at Mabul Water Bungalows have their own dive boats which depart from the resort jetty.
The time limit per dive is 45 minutes. Dives in Sidapan can (in rare cases) be shortened if there were too many divers on the day. In that case the dive may only take 35 minutes.
The dive trips start daily at 9am, 11:30am and 2:30pm. Sometimes they offer early morning dives in Sipadan. In between boat dives you can have additional dives at the Mabul jetty. Night dives are possible for additional cost. The dives at turtle cove in Sipadan are highly recommended. All dives are very professionally organised and must be booked early.
Dive Sites
Diving around Mabul and Kapalai is totally different from diving around Sipadan. All dive sites are rather shallow and coral growth is rather sparse. But the sites around Mabul and Kapalai are treasure troves for all kinds of macro rarities. Ghostpipefish, anglerfish, leafy scorpionfish, mandarin fish, ribbon eels, sea horses, plenty of different nudibranchs and other curious sea creature are often seen here.
Sipadan is the top of an underwater mountain, which reaches straight up from the depth of the Celebes Sea. On these dive sites you find superbly covered drops, great biodiversity and regular sightings of large fish. No dive is complete without a turtle and a white tip reef shark. Special attractions are a school of barracudas and of humphead parrot fish. Because of the exposed nature of the site, encounters with hammerheads and other large sharks are possible.
Sipadan Permit System (as of April 2010)
Due to the tremendous popularity of the Sipadan drop off, the Malaysian government was forced to introduce a permit system to safeguard the fragile underwater environment and limit the number of divers to 120 per day on this particular site. As a consequence, each dive center must compete for a total of 120 permits per day to dive the Sipadan reef walls. These permits are allocated only 24 hours prior to each new dive day.
As a result, agents and operators alike are unable to guarantee the number of dives at Sipadan Island to be allocated to any resort guest for the duration of their stay. Getting one of these permits seems to be based on luck as much as on the general booking situation in the region (an argument to schedule travel into the off-season), and we have indeed not noticed certain resorts being favoured over others. Resort managements do what they can to keep this system as fair as possible, and to give everyone a chance to visit the Sipadan dive sites at least once in a 3-4 night period. To make the most of this precious opportunity, day boats often schedule 4 dives per day in rather quick succession for those carrying the Sipadan permit.
