SIPADAN ISLAND
Sipadan is located some 35km(22miles) south of Semporna, on the southeastern side of Sabah in Borneo. It was first gazetted a bird sanctuary in 1933 and was left pretty much alone until the late 70's when recreational divers rediscovered this new dive eden. Only a handful of the privileged were allowed into this secret garden.
Its geographic location puts the island within the Indo-Pacific basin, the richest marine bio-diversity area in the world. Some experts believe that the Indo-Pacific basin was earth's marine incubator. Nowhere in the world can we find such diversity and researchers are still discovering new species as new places and depths are discovered.
This small tropical island is to be preserved by the Malaysian Government as a World Heritage area.
The natural treasures of this island are its greatest assets. Here, you can still find wild deer in secluded coves. Dugongs, a cousin of the American manatees were known to swim the tides. Now they are hardly ever seen but are still held as one of Semporna's secrets.
The natural glory of Sipadan remains. An arising awareness of the frailty of its natural wonders has rallied the defence of the island.
Some attraction at Sipadan Island
Sipadan jetty / drop-off: Steep wall with overhangs. If you stay at Sipadan you can jump right off the jetty and there is one of the nicest dive sites right there. You always encounter large schools of fish like mackerels or barracudas or groups of batfish. On one dive here we were lucky to see a large leopard shark.
Turtle Cavern: Some meter to the right of the jetty is also the entrance to a large cave. Without a certificate in cave diving (most dive operators offer cave diving courses) you can't go inside. I have seen photos, and there are skeletons of turtles inside the cave, that haven't found their way out anymore and died there. If you make a nightdive, be cautious not to dive down to the level of the cave (18m), you might enter it by mistake like a dive buddy of mine did. She said it was the scariest dive ever, because she didn't realize she was inside the cave until she already was well in the back of it. Luckily she didn't panic and managed to get out again!
Sipadan South Point: Steep wall, ledge and then drop-off. Divers liked this site a lot, because they had seen a group of hammerhead sharks there at about 55m depth. I went down as well, but actually you have to swim out first to the ledge and then go down, otherwise you don't have enough bottom time.
Sipadan Barracuda point: Wall, then flat valley on about 20m. The dive site has suffered some though, and there are a lot of broken corals because it is the dive site everybody wants to go. Large schools of barracuda consisting of several hundreds animals nearly always hover there, forming huge spirals, which become vortices and form high walls. If you don't make any abrupt movements and keep level in the water you might end up in the middle of a circular wall of huge adult barracudas. An exhilarating feeling! Currents can be strong here at times with down currents possible.
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