It’s been awhile for me to organize a KSDC dive trip and again for this year I found myself organizing another trip back to Malaysia....Is Sipadan this time!!
Well....it was spontaneous reaction when some of the friends and participants gather together and started talking about how good is Sipadan. Here we go after the chat and the trip was in the website. Overall for me I think it was a very nice trip even we did hit some problems like flight cancel and the operation issues...
1st April: We arrived late at night about 9pm in Semporna and after settled everything in the dive shop was about 10pm and we couldn't really check in our dive gear and for those who needs equipment rental were no done as well....we leave it till tomorrow morning before the dive to settle everything. For the 1st day...you know...expected....everyone was tired after long flights and obviously worn off!!
2nd April: Yeah....long anticipated diving in 1 of the best dive site around the region. Gear rental - checked, water - checked, own dive gear - checked, video, camera - checked....here we go and we depart to the dive site - Sibuan Island. It is slope dive site and as usual...turtle sighting! The dives were easy, no or mild current and the water temperature was about 28 degree Celsius. And we all agreed that the best part of this island is not the underwater world....it was the island itself. We were all amazed the how beautiful is the island when we did our surface interval. White sandy beach, crystal clear water... perfect!!
3rd April: After the 1st day's confusion and all the trouble for the gear....finally we get into the right momentum. The withdrawal of the gear was shift and effective and the loading of the equipment was on time as we had clear where we were heading!!
Next stop.....Mantabuan Island. It is famous for its Black coral forest. And we were hoping to see the eagle ray and manta....no chance. But the coral there were in healthy and very good shape. Gentle current and basically a very relax dives over that island.
4th April: Highlight of the whole trip........Sipadan here we come! And it did not disappoint anyone of us and proved that Sipadan is indeed one of the best in the region. And we have seen it almost all of Sipadan wonders in 3 dives there. Lots of turtle, we have hawksbill and green turtle and I lost count how many of them in just 1 dive. Sharks? Hmmm....they were "EVERYWHERE" during the dives, white tip, black tip and even grey reef sharks been in the list. And of course the schooling of barracuda.....that school was huge and we spent 15-20 minutes stay low and being surrounded by them, awesome. The schooling of jacks? Well.... those jacks were very big in size!!
As the guide mentioned...normally there will be a school of bumpheads feeding frenzy during the low tide, bingo.....we seems them up close with the feeding frenzy behavior, we were so close and surrounded by them that until I felt scare even I knew they are gentle giants!!
5th April: We spent the night at Tawau town in order to catch the early flight back home. Seafood dinner at the most famous Sabingdo restaurant chain there. Delicious seafood dinner and superb dives that sums up the trip back to Sipadan.
If you ask me want to go back again? 100% sure!
Again....I would like to thank all the participants, dive crews of Sipadan Scuba (
www.sipadanscuba.com) for your patient and cooperation. Thank you very much!!
Till we dive again
See video