Mabul Island and Sipadan
I came to Semporna to dive. Mabul is an island off Semporna that is supposed to be another paradise island with clear blue water and beautiful bungalows along the beach. From Mabul, you can go diving in Sipadan which is known as one of the best dive spots in the world. There are a limited number of dive permits (about 60) given out every day and you need to reserve one at least 1.5 months in advance. They limit the number of divers to protect marine life. So I booked a Mabul/Sipadan dive package that included 3 Sipadan dives and 6 other dives. I didn’t necessarily want to dive all that much, but I had no choice.
When I arrived in Mabul, I was honestly quite disappointed of it. I expected another one of these beautiful islands that I had seen in Indonesia earlier during my trip. Mabul is really tiny and you can cross the island in 20min. What was shocking about it is that this tiny island is full of trash and people live in great poverty on the island. It was really more like a slum. I was told that most people who live in Mabul are actually illegal immigrants from the Philippines. Apparently, the government promised for a long time to transfer them to another place, but it hasn’t happened so far. Since this is just a temporary home for them, they take terrible care of the island. The beaches and the water are literally full of trash, except from a few gated resorts.
I was told that almost all of the island was bought by a big Chinese company. Instead of dealing with the problem and cleaning up the island, the Chinese simply decided to build the tourist resorts on the water and connect it to the island by jetties. So the contrast between the water resorts and the island itself is really quite shocking. People also keep building more and more resorts on the water. I really wonder how much further out into the sea they will go… Some of these resorts are built so far out that they now provide shuttles from the resort to the island. The tourists and the local Malay population are quite upset the money from the resorts is not used to make Mabul a nice place in itself. Because if you are not here to dive, there is literally nothing for you to do in Mabul.
Now to the the dives… I started diving because I knew that the world under water is completely different. I wanted to experience and explore it. So I eventually I learned how to dive despite the fact that I actually don’t like water that much and that I am always cold when diving (I hate being cold…). But I had to give the underwater world a chance, I had to see! Surely, the fishes are beautiful with their thousand different colors and always impressive at first. But I have to say that most dives are not actually that exciting… In most places, the world is quite gray and sparsely populated under water.
When I jumped into the water in Sipadan, I felt like a small child must feel in Disneyland. I honestly did not think that a world this beautiful could exist under water. 20-30 meters off Sipadan, the reef drops 600 meters deep and the cliff itself is full of corals of all different colors. It is basically a dense forest of corals. There are thousands of fishes in the water and I saw gigantic turtles happily swimming below or above me every couple of minutes.
I also saw so many white-tip sharks that by the third dive, they almost became uneventful. One shark was swimming past about a meter below me. White-tip sharks are much smaller than the great white sharks and are known to be friendly to humans unless provoked. This particular shark was maybe one third of my size, but I still felt the chill when it came out of nowhere and was casually swimming by below me. I also saw two turtles and three sharks sleeping side-by-side on the cliff.
The last amazing thing I saw in Sipadan were schools of various fishes. When I mean a “school”, I mean thousands of gigantic fishes swimming together in a cluster. The last school I saw, I swam right into it and the fishes formed a vertex around me before moving on. It was such an amazing feeling. You have to imagine it is like standing still on a busy crossroad in Tokyo with everyone circling you and then walking past you.
Sipadan was really out of this world and I am so happy I experienced it. Without a doubt, it was my best dive so far, but I would also not be surprised if it was the dive of a lifetime. The other dives on Mabul were also good, but more like the dives I experienced before. Because of the dive masters, I did start to appreciate a lot more all the tiny animals in the sea. Diving becomes more fun once you know what you are actually looking for, and the camouflage of certain types of fishes is really impressive. It also made me reflect on what we have done to our oceans and marine life. Supposedly, every coral reef once looked like Sipadan…
My time in Semporna/Mabul also concludes my stay in Malaysia. Initially, I also thought that I would visit the Malaysian peninsula. Now I am glad I decided against it. Although I had some really wonderful experiences in Malaysia (Bako, Mt Kinabalu and Sipadan were all fantastic), I’m leaving Malaysia with mixed feelings. Apart from Kuching, every city seems to be quite ugly and not taken care of, people’s attitude towards tourists is not the greatest and the prices are absolutely exaggerated and sometimes even end up being more expensive than in Europe or the USA. Malaysia has also been overtaken by Chinese businesses. Unlike Indonesia and Thailand, Malaysia has very Chinese friendly regulations. Of course this is great for the economy, but many Chinese businesses are also known to completely exploit the people and the environment, leaving pollution and trash everywhere. Mabul is just one good example of that. None of the money that comes from the resorts is re-invested into the local area, and instead of fixing current issues, they work around them. Talking to local Malay people, they are as upset about it as I am, but there is not much the government seems to be doing to address the problem. So in the end, I don’t think I would necessarily recommend Malaysia. I think some of the countries around Malaysia are just as beautiful and much more friendly and welcoming.
See more pictures here. I only included a few photos of the dives. These are actually frames from video footage that I took. I will post some videos once I get back to SF.
Practical Information: I booked my diving package with Mabul Divers at sipadan.com. They are one of the very few companies that are led by locals (instead of Chinese). The employees are very nice, the dive instructors are fantastic, but their organization is so so and the food and accommodation is ok at most. Like any other place in Malaysia, they will charge you extra for every little thing. Speaking to other divers from Scuba junkie or Uncle Chang, everyone told me sipadan.com were still the best organized ones. However, the accommodation at Scuba Junkie is much nicer. In the end, I think I made the right decision going with Mabul Divers. I also strongly believe in supporting local companies, especially in a place like Mabul where the big foreign resorts absolutely don’t care about the state of the island and the ocean.
To go from Tawau airport to Semporna, you can simply use the shuttle bus provided by other hotels. Sipadan.com also offers a taxi service for 80RM per car. Howevery, if you are just at the airport, you can get a bus for 30RM (I got mine from Scuba Junkie). The way back is more complicated and you’ll have to most likely pay the 80RM for the taxi. Note that 80RM is actually cheap, many resorts charge up to 150RM per trip.