Lankayan Island Beach Resort, Malaysia: Undercurrent 09/2025

Lankayan Island Beach Resort, Malaysia

trying to ignore the background music

from the September, 2025 issue of Undercurrent

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Dear Fellow Diver,

I backrolled off the side of our 30-foot dinghy, and by the time I popped up and looked around, the current had already pulled me 10 feet away. While we had been told there might be a current, I had to kick with everything I had to get to the boat's grab line. I reached up for my camera, then pulled myself along the length of the boat, finally managing to clip my camera to my BC. At the mooring line, I dropped to 30 feet to wait for the others below the vicious surface current.

Lankayan Dive Boat In the murky 20-foot visibility, I followed our guide, Will, to a sandy, stirred-up bottom at 62 feet. I found a couple of shrimp gobies, and then we worked our way up the reef, locating a curious foot-long cuttlefish. As we followed the steep slope higher, the visibility opened up to 50 feet, revealing a reef covered in cream, yellow, and electric-blue staghorn coral: eight-banded butterflyfish, reticulated angelfish, and scores of damsels darted about. Will pointed out a barramundi under a large coral head, and I noted a few highfin coral groupers.

It was a nice dive, and we all ascended to the safety stop at 50 minutes, 10 minutes early, because many divers had sucked their air fighting the surface currents. The divers stayed close together because no one wanted to be separated in the strong surface current. Will inflated his surface marker buoy, and the boat quickly arrived.

It had been a cramped and crowded adventure getting to Lankayan Island Dive Resort, located in the middle of the 179-square-mile Sugud Islands Marine Conservation Area (SIMCA), northeast of Borneo. A van packed with divers and gear picked us up at our Sepilok hotel. Luggage was stacked to the ceiling. My partner and I squeezed in for the 25-minute ride to port, where we boarded a 35-foot boat to ferry us to Lankayan Island -- a 90-minute ride that turned into a rough two hours.

Thirty minutes into our March journey, three-foot waves pounded the boat, showering us with salt spray. I buckled my life vest, and after going airborne, I moved from the bow to the stern and donned the thin poncho that I had fortuitously brought. Larger waves slammed into the boat, bouncing people off their seats. When my poncho began shredding in the wind, I tossed my chair cushion on the floor behind the seats to protect myself from the stinging spray. Miles from anywhere, this seemed a foolhardy journey....

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