Smart Divers Mabul
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 Service
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.
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 area
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.
