Malaysia: Sipidan v

Sept 29 - Oct 7 |

Adding first dive trip report to Terraxplor. Finally made it to Sipadan, a trip booked with Scuba Junkie in March 2020, then disrupted by Covid.

Sipadan is a world-famous destination in east Sabah Malaysia, the only seamount in the country, and a protected site that limits the number of divers to ~100 per day. I flew Singapore-KL-Tawau, then stayed one night in Semporna on arrival and departure (my flight took me over Tioman, where I had already done 30 dives in 2022). There's no accomodation on Sipadan, so most people stay on Mabul Island, where SJ's resort is located. I did 18 dives over 6 day, with 2 days of dives on Sipadan, the rest around Mabul.

As expected, the diving was exceptional. The final day at Sipadan was truly wow, front-line with the legendary massive school of barracuda, Bumphead Parrotfish, many sharks, and turtles.

Aside from the diving, it was interesting to visit the east coast of Sabah, my first trip to Borneo. In particular, the "sea-people" settlements built on the water, often way offshore, is a unique sight. But that said, it was not all positive. The part of East Malaysia I saw is mostly a giant palm oil plantation (much like a huge percentage of peninsular Malaysia). The region, in particular what I saw in Semporna and Mabul, was much more poverty stricken than I expected it to be; much of this appears to relate to the hundreds of thousands of refugees (migrants?) from south-west Philippines, many with ties to this area having previously been part of the Sulu Sultanate, which has been segmented between today's Sabah and the Philippines Sulu archipelago (Sipadan has a long history of terrorist incidents over the years related to this matter). Scuba Junkie's classy dive resort is surrounded by people living in extreme poverty, which kind of jolts the daily experience. Another sobering sight was the 1km long "wall of death" drift net that had accidentally drifted on to Sipadan, unleashed by commercial fisherman who were illegally in an off-limit area.

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