Dive Review of Scuba Junkie in
Malaysia/Mabul

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Scuba Junkie: "Enjoyable dives in Sipadan - less so for the rest", Jul, 2024, by Heejae Cho, hamilton, Bermuda ( Reviewer 3 reports with 2 Helpful votes). Report 13043.
No photos available at this time
Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations		Food
Service and Attitude		Environmental Sensitivity
Dive Operation		Shore Diving
Snorkeling	N/A
Overall Rating
Value for $$
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	We stayed at Scuba Junkie Mabul for 10 days diving 9 days. We could secure 5 Sipadan days and 4 non Sipadan days. The non Sipadan dives available are Mabul / Kapalai and Si Amil. We got here late July and due to the time of the year the resort is more or less full. The bar on the deck is nice but permanently occupied – or rather occupied by people’s belongings while the owners are off somewhere else for hours. It would be nice if they can prevent people from doing this. Food was ok though not great and we were happy to eat at a different restaurant after leaving. It is mostly Malaysian fare. Scuba Junkie does not serve fish or seafood which we laud as otherwise it would encourage the dynamite fishing even more. It does mean that meal times are referred to as “chicken time” by the staff. Scuba Junkie offers 3 dives a day. When diving Sipadan due to the government regulation 2 dives would be in Sipadan followed by 1 dive at Mabul / Kapalai Because of how the operation is run, you do not dive with the same DM throughout the trip. Nitrox is available but few people take up on it – also they do not offer Nitrox for Sipadan dives since they are worried people may go too deep. We dove Nitrox one day but stuck with air the rest of the time. Diving: Mabul / Kapalai diving suffer from bad visibility and is mostly macro focused. It’s not the best macro diving that we have done however the night dive was interesting with four different types of frogfish spotted. The highlight was a marble mouth frogfish with eggs on its side. We dived with guide “Legend” who is an amazing spotter. While we did have some good day dives notably at Kapalai house reef and Little Okinawa, Panglima in particular was quite poor – apparently it’s a good night dive spot. Si Amil is further out and takes 45 mins to 1 hour to get there. Both days the first dive was at the Monkey Pocket trying to spot devil rays and eagle rays. First day we saw two devil rays and one eagle ray, the second day none. The visibility was not great, perhaps 10 meters. I was told that the best visibility is from April to early May. Second dive was at Red Rock, where we saw several giant frogfish. Third dive was at the First Beach muck diving. The muck dive was a mixed experience – first day we did see a few interesting things but the second day was mediocre, not helped by very poor visibility. But we are here to dive Sipadan – this was my first time in Sipadan and my husband’s second. We lucked out with visibility and saw big school of barracudas, jacks and bumphead parrotfish as well as a few smaller napoleon wrasse not to mention lots and lots of turtles. On the days with good viz we swam out to see if we can spot hammerheads. Out of 4 days and 5 blue water dives, we saw hammerheads once in the deep, and another day where 3-4 of them came up and circled around us. We went for 5 days Sipadan, 2 days Mabul/Kapalai and 2 days Si Amil. We met people who got better Sipadan dive to other dive ratio, with one person having 1 Mabul/Kapalai (which would be minimum as a check out dive) and 4 Sipadan dive. It’s clearly worth negotiating for better ratio. Sipadan offers great all around diving, but having to dive Mabul / Kapalai does detract from its appeal. I would strongly recommend going at the best time of April – May for best visibility and diving Mabul / Kapalai as little as possible. Si Amil has potential in better visibility.
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	501-1000 dives
Where else diving	Bermuda, Bahamas, Egypt, Cayman, Roatan, Utila, Cozumel, Isla Mujeres, Saba, Tenerife, Philippines, Indonesia
Closest Airport	Tawau	Getting There	1.5 hours from Tawau airport to Semporna then 1 hour boat ride to Mabul
Dive Conditions
Weather	sunny	Seas	calm, currents
Water Temp	81-82°F / 27-28°C	Wetsuit Thickness
Water Visibility	30-5 Ft/ 9-2 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	no
Enforced diving restrictions	60 min cap
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	yes
What I Saw
Sharks	Lots	Mantas	None
Dolphins	None	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	> 2	Whales	None
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals		Tropical Fish
Small Critters		Large Fish
Large Pelagics
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter	N/A	Boat Facilities	N/A
Overall rating for UWP's	N/A	Shore Facilities	N/A
UW Photo Comments	[None]

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Dive Review of Scuba Junkie in Malaysia/Mabul

Scuba Junkie: "Enjoyable dives in Sipadan - less so for the rest", Jul, 2024,

Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Overall Rating

Reporter and Travel

Dive Conditions

Dive Policy

What I Saw

Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):

Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Dive Review of Scuba Junkie in
Malaysia/Mabul