Dive Review of
Sipidan Water Village in
Malaysia/Sipidan, Kapalai, Mabul

Indonesia, Fiji, French Polynesia, Costa Rica, PNG, Palau, Honduras,
Belize, Grand Cayman, St. Vincent, Bahamas, Hawaii

Dive Conditions

Depth restrictions, dives maxed at 1 hour   

Water buckets on boats upon request. Ample rinse facilities on dock. Small
camera rooms near shop available for rent.  Staff experienced handling
cameras.   

Overall Rating

From LAX it took two days to get to Sipidan Water Village and it was well
worth it. It is an amazing accommodation, with potted plants and trees
along the boardwalks that lead to private bungalows. My deluxe room was
large, with a separate sitting area, huge bathroom and wrap around deck. If
you are at the end of the boardwalk it is a brisk 5 min. walk to the dive
shop. Not easy with a heavy camera. There is a full bar and the restaurant
serves meals buffet style with choices of American, Asian, and local
dishes.

The dive shop is extremely organized and necessarily so, as it catered to
40 plus divers most days I was  there.  Your name will be posted under the
boat you are assigned to and you can choose all combinations of diving
Sipidan, Mabul and Kapalai in a single day.  You can change boats daily to
dive the areas desired, and the divemasters are eager to fulfill requests
for particular sites. 3 dives per day with a possible 4th dive in Sipidan
or a dusk dive at 5:30.  Night dives allowed only for groups traveling on a
dive shop sponsored trip.  

Sipidan divers are now required to pay a US$10 levy to the government each
day they dive the reefs around the island.  The boat will stop by the
guardshack on the way to a site and pay for the whole boat.  If you prepay
the levy with the rest of your reservations and decide not to dive every
day in Sipidan, the resort will not refund the unused levy.

Sipidan diving is known for barracuda, batfish, schools of jacks,
turtles, and sharks.  They were all there. Favorite sites, Barracuda Point,
South Point, and Mid Wall were repeated several times. Sometimes currents
would start to rip and we would tuck in and fly together through valleys
and channels until we reached an area that was not affected. There were
areas with healthy hard corals, but many areas void of coral .  Hopefully
the recent closing of the accommodations on Sipidan will allow the corals
to grow back. Many  whitetips on most dives. A few huge grey reef sharks
and three leapard sharks. June and July is great time to see sea turtles as
it is mating season.  We saw huge turtles on most dives.

Muck diving at Mabul and Kapalai was excellent.  Tons of nudibranchs,
painted frogfish, orangutang crabs,giant mantis shrimps, soft coral crabs,
blue ribbon eels, leaf fish, whip coral shrimp,ornate ghost pipefish,robust
pipefish, cuttlefish, longnose hawkfish, pigmy seahorses, and a rare pink
hairy octopus made it hard to decide where to dive the next day. Guides at
the resort were excellent critter spotters. 

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