Under the Sea in Sipadan

Since Tom got his open water certificate a few weeks back, he was anxious to dive and, since we were in Sabah, why not dive at one of the worlds top dive spots, Sipadan? Sipadan is an island which is part of the Semporna Archipelago that rises 600m above the seabed with steep walls and only a small portion of the top that sticks out from the ocean. The column is covered with coral that has grown over thousands of years on top of volcanic rock where today snorkellers can enjoy the top of the reef and divers go down to explore the sides, referred to as a "wall dive". It is a protected marine park which makes it a top spot to see sea life.

Tom.

Me.

Sipadan Island

You can see the edge of the 600m wall

As you may know, I'm not a fan of being in the ocean. I don't get excited about snorkeling or really want to be near fish, God forbid they get close enough to touch me!!! But snorkelling at Sipadan was a completely different story. I have never experienced a magical world where at every turn there is another type of fish or another turtle either swimming up for air, sleeping or hanging out at a "cleaning station". It was literally like being in an aquarium! (I am a bit embarassed to say I took over 800 pictures in two days of snorkelling... but I just couldn't help myself!)

Giant clam.

School of angelfish.

Lionfish.

Unicorn fish.

School of triggerfish & unicorn fish.

The most eerie feeling was snorkelling 5m above the reef to then find that I had drifted out over the 600m underwater drop off and was now looking down into the deep blue abyss. That's like floating above the edge of the Grand Wall at the Chief in Squamish!

The highliights for me were:

1) Swimming with so many turtles!

Cleaning station.

It actually got to the point where our guide would point at one and we were like "oh, it's just a turtle"!

2) The school of hundreds, if not thousands, of Jackfish. This was the largest school of fish we saw and when I first saw it it looked like a wall of fish. My first thought was "they must be in a net"!

And what's in the middle of a school of Jacks? There always seamed to be a Grand Trevally, which is about 1m long. These fish were not small!

3) The school of about thirty Bumphead Parrotfish. These guys are about 1m long and have really big teeth; they bump their heads in the coral to break it, then chomp away on it. I could even hear them chomping!

4) The white tip reef sharks! I was really nervous to see one but when I did I realized how small they actually are so I was ok.

5) An eel!

Since our camera is only waterproof down to 12m, Tom was unfortunately not able to get some photos of some of the things he saw like nudibranch, scorpion fish, rock fish, peacock mantis shrimp, and on one occasion, a huge school of barracuda referred to as a "barracuda tornado". The tornado was circling directly below our boat and he saw it as he was doing his 5m safety stop before surfacing to get back on to the boat.

He had some pretty memorable encounters as well. One of which was an incident with a Titan triggerfish, which are very territorial when they are nesting and attack fish, snorkellers and divers alike. On one occassion Tom and his group unknowingly swam over a nest, the fish swam out and first attacked Tom by biting his fin so hard that he said he kept looking back to see if he was hitting the coral! It then left Tom and attacked his fellow diver. It first went for her mask but she put her arm up to shield herself so it bit her forearm, then it attacked her again and bit her hip! She was wearing a two piece wetsuit (top and shorts) and luckily the overlap of these two pieces was at her hip which gave her extra padding, regardless though she still came away with a huge welt!

On another dive, Tom encountered cuttlefish. The coolest things about them is that as they swim over surfaces they change colours! As they swam over sand, they would turn white, and over rock, they turn a splotchy brown colour. The colour pattern would shift and change instantly as they swam by. What an experience!

Can you spot BOTH cuttlefish?

Because I was snorkelling with the diving group, I was able to take some cool photos of Tom :)

Checking gear.

James Bond style back roll entry.

The diving group was about 15m-18m below me.

Turtle swimming through their bubbles.

And me playing in their bubbles!

Snorkelling around while waiting for the boat to pick us up.

The tricky part about going to Sipadan is that you need a permit. The resorts only receive a few permits a day and with our package we were garanteed one day at Sipadan, which includes three trips out to different dive sites. Lucky for us though, we were at the resort one week before the big rush of tourists so they had a few extra permits available and we ended up going twice!!!

Finally I got the luxury promised to me months ago as I struggled through some seriously gross bathrooms and questionable hotels: Sipadan-Mabul Dive Resort was my (ok, our) backpacking escape. I was able to pull all my clothes out of my pack, fold neatly and store in a dresser drawer for a whole six days where we moved into our own little standalone chalet.

Home away from home :)

The resort is located on Mabul island, about a thirty minute boat ride from Sipadan and an hour boat ride from Semporna. Mabul island has many resorts and two villages but it's so small that you can walk around the whole island in an hour.

Local village on the island.

The resort we were at had two parts: the main resort and then the water bungalows (a bit out of our price range) where there was a jetty that we could snorkel from as well. The resort had built an artificial reef where sea life has now taken over and we were able to see some great things here too!

Can you spot the crocodile fish?

Can you spot both stonefish?

A sea snake!

Nemo!

One last weird experience to share. As we were snorkelling around we would randomly feel little sharp stings that would make us jump. They didn't hurt or burn but just really surprised us. It was probably a funny sight to see us calmly and slowly kicking our way around the reef and then suddenly jump and rub an arm, then jump and rub a thigh, then jump again and rub a shoulder! On one occasion it happened so frequently that I just had to get out of the water. We were so perplexed. It was only after a staff member saw us staring at the water scratching our heads did we learn about the micro jelly fish that tend to get caught in the currents at certain times of the month!

Whether you're a diver or a snorkeler - Go to Sipadan!

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