Consistently ranked among the top-10 dive locations in the world, the area of Sipadan offers a perfect combination of pelagic encounters and macro diving. Sipadan is a tiny oceanic island, dropping to a depth of 600m (2,000ft), and has a well-deserved reputation as one of the “big fish world’s capitals”. The nearby Mabul and Kapalai Islands provide a different range of diving opportunities, and are viewed among the international dive community as some of the best spots for macro and muck diving, with an impressive diversity of rare and bizarre critters.

For environmental reasons, all resorts on Sipadan have been closed. The best way to dive the area is by staying on Mabul Island, 20 minutes north of Sipadan. After a one hour land transfer from Tawau airport to Semporna, it takes less than 60 minutes by boat to reach your resort on Mabul Island.

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Barracuda Point (Sipadan)
This world famous site derives its name from the resident barracudas that often appear in the thousands. The dive starts out as a classic wall dive before coming to a channel in 18m/59ft, which frequently has strong currents. Grey reef sharks are always patrolling or resting on the bottom, which is teeming with life. The shallows feature beautiful corals, where you can literally find tens of turtles.

Seaventures (Mabul)
This site, which varies in depth between 12 and 17m (39-56ft), is sheltered by the structure of an oil rig, providing a unique environment for many strange critters. A fantastic dive for macro fans, where frog-fishes and pygmy seahorses are commonly observed. Cruising around, you may spot giant moray and ribbon eels, ghost pipe-fishes and nudibranchs. What looks like a desolate wasteland is home to a flourishing marine community.

Mandarin Valley (Kapalai)
A coral slope which goes down to around 20m (66ft). The highlights are the vibrant Mandarin fish performing their mating ritual over the corals. This site is also home to many rare and bizarre critters: harlequin ghost pipe-fishes, frog-fishes, stone-fishes, octopus… A little deeper lies the wreck of a small fishing boat, where groups of cuttle-fishes often gather together.

Turtles
Around Sipadan Island, it is not uncommon to spot over 40 turtles in a single dive. Divers and snorkelers are to refrain from touching, riding, teasing and restraining turtles, as they are air breathers and can be drowned if panicked or cornered.

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Seaventures' dive center, a Padi 5 Star Dive Resort, is located on the main deck of the platform. To go diving, you take an elevator that drops you on the dive boat or on the rig’s fantastic dive site. The dive center operates 4 boats powered by 2*150hp Yamaha engines.

Three boat dives are organized daily, with unlimited diving on the platform's house reef, including night dives – Waterlines recommends not to exceed 4 dives per day.

Please note that, for their own safety, all guests’ first dive will be an orientation dive. This is to ensure that the dive center knows your abilities and can put similar experienced divers together in a group.

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From Kuala Lumpur (KL) airport, fly directly (or via Kota Kinabalu) to Tawau airport, where our local partner will be waiting for you. From there, it takes approximately 1 hour to reach Semporna Jetty, where you will be transferred to Mabul by speedboat, which takes approximately 45 minutes. Depending on your time of arrival you, might have to spend a night in Semporna (Waterlines can book accommodation for you).

Although we strongly recommend you carefully compare airfares, Air Asia's airfares are usually competitive.  If you prefer to fly Malaysia Airlines, please contact us as we can sometimes obtain competitive rates. Air Asia operates flights from many cities not listed below, the information provided below is non exhaustive and for information purpose only. For more details, please visit www.airasia.com

From Shanghai: Air Asia does not operate from Shanghai. You can either fly from Shanghai to KL, and then to Tawau with Malaysian Airlines, or take the train to Hangzhou, from where Air Asia operates direct flights to KL.

From Hangzhou: direct afternoon flights to KL with Air Asia

From Beijing: Air Asia does not operate from Beijing. One of our partners can sometimes get competitive airfares from other airlines, such as Malaysian Airlines. Please contact us.

From Guangzhou: morning and evening flights to KL

From Shenzhen: morning and evening flights to KL. Afternoon direct flight to Kota Kinabalu.

From Hong Kong: morning, afternoon and evening flights to KL

From Macau: morning, afternoon and evening flights to KL. Depending on weekdays, direct evening flights to Kota Kinabalu.

From Singapore: several direct flights to KL, daily. Afternoon direct flight to Kota Kinabalu. Depending on weekdays, direct flights to Tawau.

From Manila: late morning flights to KL. Afternoon direct flights to Kota Kinabalu.

From Taipei: afternoon or overnight flights, depending on weekdays, from Taipei to KL. Morning, direct flights to Kota Kinabalu.

From Saigon: morning, afternoon and evening flights to KL

From Hanoi: morning, afternoon and evening flights to KL

From Jakarta: several direct flights to KL, daily. Direct flights to Kota Kinabalu, depending on weekdays.

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People are thought to have been living on Borneo for more than 35,000 years, in nomadic or semi-nomadic communities. Perhaps 3,000 years ago, foreign traders began to visit the island but it was around 500 years ago that significant changes came about. The first Westerners to arrive were the Portuguese in 1521, followed by the Spanish soon after. The Dutch came at the beginning and the British in the middle of the 17th century. Islam arrived and various settlements were established along the coast: most important of these was Brunei. The European superpowers began to wrest control from the local rulers and coastal Borneo roughly became divided between the British and the Dutch. Though impacting strongly on the coastal regions, Islam, Christianity and colonialism in general rarely affected life in Borneo's interior, an area deemed too impenetrable for most outsiders.

In 1840, James Brooke, a British army officer, helped the Sultan repress rebel tribes. In recognition of his services, he was made "rajah" and established Kuching as capital of Sarawak. Known as the White Rajahs, Brooke's descendants continued to rule Sarawak until the Japanese brutally occupied Borneo between 1942 and 1945. After the Second World War, Kalimantan, which takes approximately 70% of Borneo’s area, separated itself politically from the rest of the island and became part of Indonesia in 1963. The same year Sarawak and Sabah broke free from British rule and joined the federation of Malaysia. Brunei became independent in 1984.
Tapping in to Borneo's natural resources had begun before the British and Dutch left, in the form of exploratory drilling for oil (which was discovered in 1888). With independence came a rush to benefit financially from the land's riches, such as gold, diamonds, coal, bauxite and iron ore. The oil industry has also boomed during years of largely unregulated industrial logging. Illegal hardwood logging and forest fires have meant that one-third of the island has already been deforested.

Today, Borneo's large areas of dense tropical forests and mountainous terrain mean that it has a relatively low population of around 16 million. There are few roads and vast tracts of thick forest are uninhabited - except for passing nomadic tribespeople – and many villages can only be reached by boat. The island is home to dozens of different ethnic groups speaking nearly 100 dialects. The largest tribe is the Dayak. Their native ethnic groups are Dayak Austronesians and their languages belong to the Malayo-Polynesian language family. There are over 30 Dayak sub-ethnic groups, making the population of Borneo one of the most varied of human social groups. Some sub-ethnicities are now represented by only 30-100 individuals and are threatened with extinction. Their ancestral knowledge of ethno-botany and ethno-zoology is useful in drug discovery or as future alternative food sources. Much culture, language, ethno-music and traditional knowledge has yet to be documented by anthropologists.

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