Dive Review of
SMART/Mabul Water Bungalows in
Malaysia/Borneo

Caribbean, Micronesia, Polynesia, Indonesia, PNG, Galapagos, Costa Rica

Dive Conditions

No deco. Dives limited to 45 minutes, including safety stop  

If you want pictures of green turtles, or bumphead parrotfish, this is the
place. Good coral also.   

Overall Rating

Mabul Water Bungalows an up-scale partner of Sipadan-Mabul Resort (SMART).
Great accomodations, good restaurant,  great service, nice spa. 

Dive operation same as SMART. Did not group divers according to experience
-- we had several dives with recent certifications, which is not good for
either the muck (Mabul) nor the blue diving (Sipadan). Boat crews very
good, helpful, and careful with your gear. One divemaster was great
(Deniah): enthusiastic, talented, and flexible. Unfortunately, we spent
most of our time with another (Eddy), who was none of these. Most
irritating was his impatience to get the dive over with; he'd start
signaling "safety stop" at 39 minutes. After he'd made a major
screw-up (and there were several, including taking a group out into the
blue and then losing his direction - we were out there for 35 minutes,
until I went to the surface and took a compass bearing) you might get a 50
minute dive by way of apology. Despite listings on dive board, frequently
changed dive sites to places closer to the resort. Only did Kapalai once.
Some major issues with Sipadan permits. One couple who stayed 12 days only
got to Sipadan 5 times. We went over twice to be turned back. Second time,
all divers pushed back really hard, and we ended up doing both dives there
on the side of the island away from the Malaysian military post, with our
surface interval on the boat. Would not recommend going here until this is
sorted out. Don't know if it's a problem in general, with SMART, or with
our particular dive master. Resort did not volunteer refunds of the Sipadan
levy. 

The muck is not remotely comparable to Lembeh, so Mabul is not a
destination unto itself, in my opinion. Sipidan pretty much as advertised,
with lots of turtles, big school of bumphead parrotfish (usually only seen
on 6:00am dive at Barracuda Point), lots of whitetip sharks, fewer gray
reef sharks, and an occasional hammerhead or leopard shark (South Point
seemed best for the last three). Barracuda school there, but shy, and with
new divers in our group both times we found them, we didn't see them for
long.

We did a long trip to see Borneo wildlife, which was great, and we had very
good luck in both the Kinabatangan River (3 days) area and Danum Valley (3
days). If I was just diving, I would not come here. Komodo/Manado,
Indonesia, and Palau represent better diving for comparable distance from
US. 

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