Yes~ Sipadan Island… Here I come!
I’ve been wishing to visit the World’s top fascinating dive spot located in the Celebes Sea since I was certified to dive ages ago. This oceanic island is well-known as one of the richest marine habitats formed by living corals growing on top of an extinct volcanic cone that took thousands years to develop of which, it is certainly require a good / quality dive skill to explore. Therefore, I have put the plan on hold due to no companion and my half-pail-water dive skills that could jeopardize the beautiful marine nature. I’m fortunate that few of my travel buddies decided to take up OWD certification course at Sipadan Island lately, that I could finally have dive companions to dive this beautiful island.
Day 1
6 of us woke up at Nixon’s place early the morning, headed to LCCT to meet up with GN and together, a group of 7 of us flew to Sabah, The Land Below The Wind to begin our dive journey. We were picked up and transported to Semporna for lunch before the boat transfer to Mabul Island. As soon as we arrived and checked-in to Uncle Chang Dive Lodge, we were introduced to meet the Diving Instructor, bro Fatt ( 发哥 ) where Nixon + Jess + Mich + NL & TH commenced their OWD course there and then with DVD watching, soon after they completed the forms filling and course introduction. GN & I also joined the group to recap what we have previously learnt.
Day 2
Whilst some of them are doing their first OWD open water training, myself & GN registered our 1st dive of the trip, a refresher dive at House Reef, Mabul. Under the normal visibility, we saw flamboyant cuttlefish, stone fish resting at the bottom sand of rack house and sea turtle. With the assistance of DM, I stayed right in front of the sea turtle face to face which is just 1ft away. We logged a bottom time of 41min with max depth of 13.8m.
Mich & Jess returned much earlier than the guys, unable to continue their OWD open water because of their uncomfortable breathing beneath the sea level and injured ankle while the guys enjoyed their first dive attempt
Day 3
GN & I took a day off due to the unavailability of our DM that probably over drunk and hanged over almost the whole day. It thus, gave us some time to rest, explore the resort surrondings and enjoys the serenity with books reading.
Nixon forgoes his OWD course in view of his uneasy equalization early today, left only NL & TH who is still doing well in their open water dives.
Day 4
While NL & TH were out for their open water dive test, GN & I did our 2nd dive of the trip at Lobster Wall, Mabul. Under the normal visibility with 39min bottom time and max depth of 22.6m, we managed to bumped up with 3x sea turtles, stone fish, blue & orange nudibranch and boxfish. We were of the opinion that the site could be better if the weather is sunny bright as how our DM of the day commented
We had our next dive at House Reef, Kapalai. It’s a wreck dive site that allowed divers to experience wreck diving with several artificial wrecks and houses that conserve various sea creatures. I recorded a max depth of 19.7m with 29min bottom time and returned to resort with 120 bar left. At the same time, TH & NL were also passed their open water dive test and proceed with their theory test in the afternoon. All of us witnessed TH & NL completed their paper test and completely passed the OWD certification.
Day 5
In view of my poor dive skill, NL & TH’s DI ( bro Fatt 发哥 ) offered me a PPB ( Peak Performance Buoyancy ) dive check early the morning. It seems that I’m not that bad according to bro Fatt’s comment after the PPB dive check, but I do need more and more practices to polish my dive skill because I will somehow lost control in the middle of dive out of nowhere. More dives could make me understand my skills level so that I can have smooth and better dive control.
GN + NL + TH & I had our 1st dive together after both TH & NL being certified. We had our dive at Paradise 2, Mabul. Our DM observed mild current, so he advised us to do drift dive and stay by his side at approximate 15 / 16m. It was fine at first but the current gets stronger and stronger where we were unable to stay focus at one point even with strong kicks. Our DM immediately gathered TH + NL & I myself to hold on to coral stone to prevent further drifted away. He instructed us to stay holding on whilst he drifted himself away to find GN who has lost in sight. The visibility get worsen with only less than 1m sight and the current gets even stronger until we no longer able to hold on to the coral. I managed to check my dive computer that shows at 5m depth and signaled my buddies to perform 3min safety stop for ascend before I’m being further drifted away. We were all separated with emergency ascend that recorded 26min bottom time at max depth of 15.4m without proper safety stop. We were fortunate and glad that all of us were safely picked up by our boatman separately. No doubt it was a shocked dive but a good dive experience. Our DM complimented us indirectly that luckily we all knew how to survive ourselves without him because this was also his first experience at this known mild current dive site.
Day 6We began our Sipadan Island journey under the drizzling rain. The 1st dive site we went was South Point where, the visibility was just normal due to rainy day. Despite that the not so good weather, it was still a pretty good dive as we able to saw sharks not far from us at top right bottom, dive within school of jackfish and along with school of bumped head fish.
After lunch, we had our 2nd dive at Barracuda Point. With the max dept of 18.6m and 26min bottom time spent, we saw school of jackfish, 2x sea turtle, another school of bumped head fish as well as barracudas even though the weather was getting bad with poor visibility.
Our 3rd dive was Turtle Cave at max dept of 19.9m. However, I failed to stay at the bottom due to my hair-wired out of control buoyancy once I got out from the cave entrance. I kept ascend no matter how hard I tried to exhale as much as I can. DM directed me to give up the dive and complete ascend to surface with his help letting go oxygen bubbles from 20m down the sea level. Oh no~ I’m so embarrassed… : (
Day 7
Nixon, Jess & Mich decided to forgo their Mataking Island trip, left only 4 of us remain. I didn’t join the guys for the 1st dive of the day due to the phobia from yesterday’s 3rd dive incident without safety stop. I later then regretted because the guys claimed the dive site was beautiful and nicer than Sipadan Island probably due to sunny bright weather. : (
Started of my dive after boat lunch with the guys, for their 2nd dive at Jalan-Jalan, Timba-Timba Island The dive site visibility was good, we spent 41min bottom time with max dept of 21.3m. We observed several different colored nudibranch ( black, white orange, yellowish etc ), sea turtles, very tiny transparent boxing shrimp and small red brownish octopus.
My last dive of the trip was Black Coral, Kelapuan Island. Though the visibility was normal, but we only managed to saw a few sea slugs ( nudibranch ) with 42min bottom time spent at 17.6m max depth, a little disappointed to end our dive trip like this.
Day 8
We packed our belongings slowly after breakfast, enjoyed and amazed the resort surrounding one more time after we placed our backpack at the reception counter. We then had our lunch, continued our relaxing time and catch up with new friends we have made during the trip while waiting for our boat transfer. We reached Semporna jetty around evening and land transferred to Tawau airport for departure flight.
We enjoyed our holiday especially with good and cheap seafood that we can easily bought every morning directly from villagers’ catches till we do felt a little reluctant to head back home for work. Last, I would like to thank all my dive buddies especially GN for tolerating my half-pail-water dive skills.
I’ve been wishing to visit the World’s top fascinating dive spot located in the Celebes Sea since I was certified to dive ages ago. This oceanic island is well-known as one of the richest marine habitats formed by living corals growing on top of an extinct volcanic cone that took thousands years to develop of which, it is certainly require a good / quality dive skill to explore. Therefore, I have put the plan on hold due to no companion and my half-pail-water dive skills that could jeopardize the beautiful marine nature. I’m fortunate that few of my travel buddies decided to take up OWD certification course at Sipadan Island lately, that I could finally have dive companions to dive this beautiful island.6 of us woke up at Nixon’s place early the morning, headed to LCCT to meet up with GN and together, a group of 7 of us flew to Sabah, The Land Below The Wind to begin our dive journey. We were picked up and transported to Semporna for lunch before the boat transfer to Mabul Island. As soon as we arrived and checked-in to Uncle Chang Dive Lodge, we were introduced to meet the Diving Instructor, bro Fatt ( 发哥 ) where Nixon + Jess + Mich + NL & TH commenced their OWD course there and then with DVD watching, soon after they completed the forms filling and course introduction. GN & I also joined the group to recap what we have previously learnt.
Whilst some of them are doing their first OWD open water training, myself & GN registered our 1st dive of the trip, a refresher dive at House Reef, Mabul. Under the normal visibility, we saw flamboyant cuttlefish, stone fish resting at the bottom sand of rack house and sea turtle. With the assistance of DM, I stayed right in front of the sea turtle face to face which is just 1ft away. We logged a bottom time of 41min with max depth of 13.8m.
Mich & Jess returned much earlier than the guys, unable to continue their OWD open water because of their uncomfortable breathing beneath the sea level and injured ankle while the guys enjoyed their first dive attempt
Day 3
GN & I took a day off due to the unavailability of our DM that probably over drunk and hanged over almost the whole day. It thus, gave us some time to rest, explore the resort surrondings and enjoys the serenity with books reading.
Nixon forgoes his OWD course in view of his uneasy equalization early today, left only NL & TH who is still doing well in their open water dives.
While NL & TH were out for their open water dive test, GN & I did our 2nd dive of the trip at Lobster Wall, Mabul. Under the normal visibility with 39min bottom time and max depth of 22.6m, we managed to bumped up with 3x sea turtles, stone fish, blue & orange nudibranch and boxfish. We were of the opinion that the site could be better if the weather is sunny bright as how our DM of the day commented
We had our next dive at House Reef, Kapalai. It’s a wreck dive site that allowed divers to experience wreck diving with several artificial wrecks and houses that conserve various sea creatures. I recorded a max depth of 19.7m with 29min bottom time and returned to resort with 120 bar left. At the same time, TH & NL were also passed their open water dive test and proceed with their theory test in the afternoon. All of us witnessed TH & NL completed their paper test and completely passed the OWD certification.
Day 5
In view of my poor dive skill, NL & TH’s DI ( bro Fatt 发哥 ) offered me a PPB ( Peak Performance Buoyancy ) dive check early the morning. It seems that I’m not that bad according to bro Fatt’s comment after the PPB dive check, but I do need more and more practices to polish my dive skill because I will somehow lost control in the middle of dive out of nowhere. More dives could make me understand my skills level so that I can have smooth and better dive control.
GN + NL + TH & I had our 1st dive together after both TH & NL being certified. We had our dive at Paradise 2, Mabul. Our DM observed mild current, so he advised us to do drift dive and stay by his side at approximate 15 / 16m. It was fine at first but the current gets stronger and stronger where we were unable to stay focus at one point even with strong kicks. Our DM immediately gathered TH + NL & I myself to hold on to coral stone to prevent further drifted away. He instructed us to stay holding on whilst he drifted himself away to find GN who has lost in sight. The visibility get worsen with only less than 1m sight and the current gets even stronger until we no longer able to hold on to the coral. I managed to check my dive computer that shows at 5m depth and signaled my buddies to perform 3min safety stop for ascend before I’m being further drifted away. We were all separated with emergency ascend that recorded 26min bottom time at max depth of 15.4m without proper safety stop. We were fortunate and glad that all of us were safely picked up by our boatman separately. No doubt it was a shocked dive but a good dive experience. Our DM complimented us indirectly that luckily we all knew how to survive ourselves without him because this was also his first experience at this known mild current dive site.
Day 6After lunch, we had our 2nd dive at Barracuda Point. With the max dept of 18.6m and 26min bottom time spent, we saw school of jackfish, 2x sea turtle, another school of bumped head fish as well as barracudas even though the weather was getting bad with poor visibility.
Our 3rd dive was Turtle Cave at max dept of 19.9m. However, I failed to stay at the bottom due to my hair-wired out of control buoyancy once I got out from the cave entrance. I kept ascend no matter how hard I tried to exhale as much as I can. DM directed me to give up the dive and complete ascend to surface with his help letting go oxygen bubbles from 20m down the sea level. Oh no~ I’m so embarrassed… : (
Day 7
Nixon, Jess & Mich decided to forgo their Mataking Island trip, left only 4 of us remain. I didn’t join the guys for the 1st dive of the day due to the phobia from yesterday’s 3rd dive incident without safety stop. I later then regretted because the guys claimed the dive site was beautiful and nicer than Sipadan Island probably due to sunny bright weather. : (
Started of my dive after boat lunch with the guys, for their 2nd dive at Jalan-Jalan, Timba-Timba Island The dive site visibility was good, we spent 41min bottom time with max dept of 21.3m. We observed several different colored nudibranch ( black, white orange, yellowish etc ), sea turtles, very tiny transparent boxing shrimp and small red brownish octopus.
My last dive of the trip was Black Coral, Kelapuan Island. Though the visibility was normal, but we only managed to saw a few sea slugs ( nudibranch ) with 42min bottom time spent at 17.6m max depth, a little disappointed to end our dive trip like this.
We packed our belongings slowly after breakfast, enjoyed and amazed the resort surrounding one more time after we placed our backpack at the reception counter. We then had our lunch, continued our relaxing time and catch up with new friends we have made during the trip while waiting for our boat transfer. We reached Semporna jetty around evening and land transferred to Tawau airport for departure flight.
We enjoyed our holiday especially with good and cheap seafood that we can easily bought every morning directly from villagers’ catches till we do felt a little reluctant to head back home for work. Last, I would like to thank all my dive buddies especially GN for tolerating my half-pail-water dive skills.
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