Eat DIVE, Drink DIVE, Sleep, DIVE
Firstly I have to say that this place is probably the most amazing place I have ever been too, words can't even describe how perfect it is. All I've wanted to do when I started diving was dive with the turtles and throughout the 4 days and 10 dives I lost count of how many I'd seen, something around the 50-60 mark.
Sipadan is located 36km off Sabah's southeast coast. Sipadan (also called 'Pulau Sipadan') is the shining star in the archipelago's constellation of shimmering islands. The elliptocal islet sits like a clay-tinged crown atop a stunning submerged pinnacle with its world famous near-vertical walls. This underwater beacon is a weigh station for virtually all types of sealife, from fluttering coral to school-bus-sized whale sharks (we didn't see any though). Sea turtles and reef sharks are a given on any dive, we saw 50-60 turtles both the Green Turtle and Hawksbill Turtle, at least 15 black-tip reef sharks, blue-spotted rays, schools and schools of Barracuda's, schools of Giant Trevally, a dozen Giant Groupers, Titan trigger fish, crocodile fish, boxfish, pufferfish and the list goes onnnnnn.
We managed four dives at Sipadan's technicolour sea walls which reach deep down - 2000m to the distant ocean floor - and act like an underwater beacon luring docile turtles, slippery sharks and waving mantas. The most famous being Barracuda Point, where streamers of barracuda collide to form impenetrable walls of fish flesh. Reef sharks seem to be attracted to the strong current here and almost always swing in to say hello. Although Sipadan outshines the neighbouring sites there are other reefs in the marine park that are well worth exploring. The macro-diving around Mabul is world famous and in fact the term 'muck diving' was invented here. We were able to do 3 macro dives at Mabul and saw all sorts of colourful Nudibranch, Raggy scorpion fish, Juvenile boxfish, white eye morays, ribbon eel, peacock mantis shrimp....I couldn't name everything....
We stayed at Kapalai-Sipadan Resort, although commonly referred to as an island, Kapalai is more like a large sandbar sitting slightly under the ocean surface. From afar the one hotel looks like it's sitting on palm trunks in the middle of the sea. Basically our days consisted of eating, diving, eating, diving, eating, drinking, diving, in that exact order. With a bit of sun tanning, snorkelling, swimming and kayaking!
This experience has been a once in a lifetime. I don't know how any diving I do the rest of my life will live up to this place, if I find it, I will be sure to let everyone know... The coolest experience would have to be diving with Turtles all around me and then suddenly bumping into a wall of Barracuda's with black-tip reef sharks lurking below...also I had two striped cleaner shrimp cleaning my finger nails at 15m below sealevel and after they were done with my nails they went on to clean Rodel's (our amazing dive master for 4 days) teeth. He took out his regulator, climbed onto his lips and started cleaning his teeth...SO cool...and Amy and I went on a sunset dive on our own...free as a bird in the open water just the two of us as buddies!
Kapalai, Sipadan is a place I will never forget, it's turquiose waters surrounding the entire resort, turtles popping up to the surface to say hello right outside our wood, water bugalow built on stilts, and the pinkest sunsets I've ever seen. We lived in the worlds best aquarium for 4 days and I hope I do it again one day :)
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WOW, fantastic experience, one that i am very envious of and hope that you will want to go back to one day with your really old man. Glad to see you FINALLY got to swim with turtles so hopefully the number of them makes up (a bit) for the years that you have not swum with them. love ya.
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