Past
Articles

Magic Mabul

Sport Diver Magazine UK, 2004

Pictures by Jane Morgan

"Today, the choice of site is yours. Where do you fancy diving?" asked our guide. "Paradise 1, the check dive place, please!". Not that we wanted to fine-tune our mask-clearing skills, or anything, but there was just so much to see there.

48 hours after tying the knot, Jane and I flew to Sabah, on the north-eastern side of Malaysian Borneo, for an action-packed honeymoon. We'd heard many stories about diving in Sipadan and seen the stunning images of turtles, sharks, schooling barracudas and jacks there. Although keen to discover its secrets, we also wanted to find-out more about the lesser-known Mabul and Kapalai islands lying but a few miles from the world-renowned resort.

The journey itself can be a bit of an adventure: London - Bandar Seri Begawan (Brunei) - Kota Kinabalu - Tawau and finally an hour's drive to Semporna where we stayed overnight before boarding the speedboat to Mabul. We had chosen Royal Brunei Airlines who offered an attractive price and were known for their excellent on-board service. Should you choose to fly with them, just be aware that they don't serve alcohol on board - but are happy to open your duty-free bottles for you - and that their Heathrow ground crew are pretty strict on the luggage allowance, even for dive gear.

Unlike the name suggests, the Sipadan Water Village is located on the eastern side of Mabul Island. Built on stilts, it offers a range of accommodation from cosy to really swanky. Because we were on honeymoon and a treat was in order, we chose one of the four "grand deluxe" bungalows, the village's equivalent of the bridal suites. Bigger than our London home, the chalet even had its own private hot tub on the balcony. Jacuzzi after diving, I hear you say? Bliss for us but probably enough to give Dr Jules a fit! Abuse it and you could end-up as fizzy as the water you're lying in!

Immediately upon entering the water for the check dive, we came across our first frogfish, sitting on the white sand. If only we'd been allowed to take the cameras! A few fin kicks away, another smaller one seemed completely unfazed by our presence. At that point, I thought I'd better practise my navigation skills because it looked like the house reef would be worth a few visits. Continuing our guided tour of Paradise 1, we found a heap of old tyres strapped together to form an artificial reef. I was at first a bit dubious about a rubber reef, but a closer look revealed the presence of beautiful soft corals and their guest crabs. Hundreds of catfish had also chosen the tyres as their home. Moving along to a patch of sea-grass, we found a number of seahorses that were obviously used to seeing divers. Not a bad start of the holiday!

Although the dive centre at Sipadan Water Village can cater for a large number of guests, we were surprised to see that it never looked busy. Several speedboats take guests to various sites around the 3 islands and stagger their departure times just enough to avoid overcrowding. 3 guided boat dives a day are offered, together with unlimited diving from dawn to 5:30pm on the house reef. Dusk and night guided dives are an optional but well worth extra. We booked a dusk dive on our first day to make sure we didn't miss any action. At around 5:45pm, our dive guide took us to the far end of Paradise 2, the second house reef. As night fell, a pair of very colourful mandarinfish started feeling a bit romantic. Every now and then for the next few minutes, they came out of their staghorn coral and performed before our eyes, oblivious to the camera strobes. We felt a strong sense of privilege at being able to witness this rare moment, with yet a touch of guilt about invading their privacy. Once their mating session was over, they disappeared back into their coral shelter, so we slowly made our way along the reef and back to the jetty, stopping for a moment to marvel at 2 resident ghost pipefish.

Thanks to the divemasters' trained eyes, we were able to see many species of tiny shrimps and crabs. Directly outside Sipadan Water Village, a decommissioned oil rig turned dive resort offered some first-class macro opportunities; its massive pillars colonised with soft and hard corals. Every now and then, tiny porcelain crabs would appear from underneath the velvet mantel of the anemone they shared with Nemo's mates. Orang-utan crabs would risk a peek outside their bubble coral. The abundance of fish was a welcome sight, especially at a time when marine naturalists talk more about stocks decline than richness of the fauna. My dive computer had just reminded me that it was time to head back to the surface when I spotted Jane snapping away furiously. She had just found a gorgeous yellow frogfish happily posing for the camera. The result was a 17-minute decompression stop in the middle of schools of various fish. I've had worse deco stops!

Ten minutes by boat from the Mabul resort, Kapalai is an underwater island for most of the time. There, another water village is built on stilts and can accommodate tourists. The diving there was very much like Mabul, with an abundance of nudibranchs, shrimps and small fish such as gobies and jawfish. I was busy watching a very inquisitive cuttlefish one morning when a very frustrated Jane swam to me, waving frantically. She had just finished the film in her camera and was enjoying the scenery before the end of the dive when a small movement caught her eye. A tiny blue-ringed octopus had appeared out of nowhere and was quickly becoming the centre of attention, displaying an impressive array of colours. It's interesting to think how such a harmless-looking creature can have a such a lethal bite.

Every day, guests can also dive the Sipadan sites, 15 minutes away. There, critters make way for bigger animals. White-tip reef and grey-reef sharks and schools of jacks were our daily bread, but unfortunately, we never came across the big school of barracudas that Sipadan is well known for. An angel shark also made a quick appearance one day. I was lucky enough on one occasion to witness a pair of mating white tips with the male's teeth firmly clamped to his partner's pectoral fin. An awesome display. Who would have thought that fish could fancy a spot of S&M, hey? If only I'd had the camera ready to frame the action! Sipadan is also colonised by green and hawksbill turtles. Used to the presence of humans, they never showed any fear when we swam close to them and we came back with quite a number of wide-angle shots. Watching a large female lay her eggs on the beach one evening was a very special moment, and so was visiting the cave where a number of them drowned after getting lost.

For almost 2 weeks, the three islands revealed a few of their secrets. We discovered a real underwater paradise, offering great opportunities with an abundance of both small and large creatures. Sadly, Sipadan is under threat from the human population there. The Malaysian government, which recently claimed the island after years of discussions with neighbouring Indonesia, has recently decided to take drastic action. Nothing seems official yet, but it looks like, as early as 2005, dive centres situated on Sipadan might have to leave the place and relocate. Borneo Divers have already built a new resort on Mabul. A maximum of 80 divers a day would still be allowed, but they would have to commute from the nearby islands.

Having flown all the way from London, it would have been a shame to miss the opportunity to taste the scenery above water in Sabah. Sipadan Dive Centre operates a comfortable nature lodge in Sukau, on the Kinabatangan River. After a short hop from Tawau to Sandakan, followed by a long drive to the lodge, we were introduced to the proboscis monkeys, a long nose species that live exclusively on Borneo. Spending most of their time high up in trees, they share their habitat with exotic birds, but also with macaques and the few remaining wild orang-utans that have managed to escape the deforestation in the region. Just make sure you take a long lens and you could fly back home with some stunning wildlife images.

A majority of diving destinations offer their guests either big animals or small critters. If you would like to see both on the same diving holiday, then Mabul is definitely your best bet!

Stumble it!