Going via Singapore to get to Samporna I overnighted at the Vang Jensen
residence meeting their ferocious guard dawgs and seeing their two cute
boys in the flesh.  While the time there was short‘n sweet it was nice just
to ‘veg out’ starting off with a nice sleep-in at their place.  I did as
little as possible the rest of the day to make up for the hectic work
schedule at the new job that, due to a major water and gas leak at the
hospital, had me up most of the night before I flew off to Bjorn’s.
Think I had Bjorn worried at first, being for me, unusually on the quiet
side ;-)  A nice meal at the American Club rounded off my day with them
before Bjorn & Alex whisked me off to the airport at 3pm for the trip over
to Kota Kinabalu (2hr 25min flight).

Getting up before the sun rose I was whisked away from my hotel by Borneo
Divers to make the early flight over from Kota Kinabalu to Tawau (45min
flight).  Then it was around a 1hr 45min drive in a passenger van from
Tawau to Semporna .. fortunately there were only 4 of us going over this
day so we had plenty of room to spread ourselves out in the van for a
catnap before boarding the transfer boat over to the islands.  Spent 9
days/8nights based on Sipadan Island.  10th day had 2 dives around that
island before transfer over to Mabul Island for 3rd dive of the day there
with another 2 full days of diving from there following that.

Compared to my previous 1995 trip to Sipadan, when there were only 2 dive
resorts actually running, the place is now certainly showing some ‘wear &
tear’ :-(  There are now just too many dive resorts (5) for such a small
island and, compounding all that, are the large number of day boats coming
across from Mabul and Kapalai. Add the liveaboard Celebes Explorer on
top ... the mind boggles on how many divers hammer that unique place in a
single day :-(  While the majority of divers have their buoyancy under
control there are others that I would not let lose in a swimming pool for
their own safety .. heaven knows how they passed their open water cert and
in the case of some a refresher course before reaching the island should
have been done to bring them up to speed.   While there is the current
understanding that at the end of this year there are plans to remove all
the resorts off that island, this will in no way lessen the impact of the
huge numbers of divers because they will still come across as day
trippers.  From what I’ve overheard from some of the locals who currently
work for someone else they themselves are seriously thinking of setting up
with other financiers their own resorts (based out of Semporna for example)
so heaven knows how those who are meant to be managing the area are going
to cope with the growing diver numbers before things really get out of
hand.  According to a news article on the Borneo Divers notice board at
Mabul the government push is to have Sipadan Island listed on the World
Heritage List, like Mount Kota Kinabalu is.  Various lawyers are falling
over themselves with their opinions on how things should be handled with
the removal of the resorts off Sipadan Island, waste products ie sewerage,
etc.  While they all agree they want that island to be resort-free to me
they are just moving the problem from one area to another.  I honestly
can’t see how the ‘powers that be’ are going to manage the number of day
trippers UNLESS they put a cap on any more resorts opening up in
competition and ALSO limit the number of boats each resort can operate.
And, where would all these day-trippers be going to clear their bilges
(toilets/johns) if there are no properly managed ablution facilities on the
island any more.

Well, enough of my bitch session, let’s talk about the diving.  Just about
every day we’d have this short burst of rain around the 2nd dive of the
day.  You certainly noticed this underwater .. very hazy in spots and, in
certain areas, you’d suddenly hit this really chilly patch so the temps yo-
yoed between 25-28C because of this.  I for one certainly felt those
changes as I was just wearing a polartec.

Sipadan is known around the world for its turtles and large schools of big-
eye jacks (trevally) and barracudas swirling around in HUGE circles off
Barracuda Point.  The nice thing about that particular dive is that you can
first head off down the wall looking for hammerheads (I only saw about 4 in
the far distance), manta rays & large sharks before coming across the
swirling masses of big-eyes and barras.  Coming in over the lower wall
there is a sandy area that the white-tips like to rest amongst the garden
eel beds before you off-gas a little bit on the upper reef wall checking
out the resident batfish, marbled groupers, peach-faced and titan
triggerfish, anemones, and other assorted reef feeshes.

The sea-god was merciful to me this trip ..the triggerfish were only just
getting in to preparing their nesting areas 3 days before I left the island
so I did not have to do the trigger-fish-tango ie beating off the ferocious
beasts with my fins or strobe arms on the camera system.  I think it is the
first time I have been less than an arms length away from these triggerfish
watching them dig a hole in the sandy shallows in preparation for the egg
mass that looks very similar to the consistency of pink candy floss.  On
the last day of diving on Sipadan the peach-faced triggerfish were getting
a bit toey so I know a few unsuspecting divers would by now be getting more
than they bargained for if they think they are going to be able to do their
safety stops right up there in the shallows.  That is a real shame as my
favourite spots are really in the shallows where there is always a lot of
activity.  In fact on one of my dives I did not drop down below 7 metres as
I volunteered, when I realised a newly arrived diver was having ear
equalisation problems, to babysit her so that the DM could lead the rest of
the group for a drop down to 40 metres to look for hammerheads before
coming back up the wall to rejoin us eventually.  We were at the Turtle
Patch dive site which lives up to its name as the turtles like to take
their time having breakfast in this area.  Happily plonking themselves down
in one spot where they could dig through the broken coral rubble for a tid-
bit and, in the process of tossing out what did not interest them, the
other fish gathered around the turtles could nibble on the algae covering
these pieces of broken coral could pick those over

On many of the dive sites you felt like you should have been wearing a
safety helmet due to the number of turtles were swimming around ..
especially as, like I was, you are busy concentrating on photographing
something on the reef wall and you are suddenly clunked on the noggin from
behind by a turtle flipper.  Either the turtle wanted to rest up right
where you were or it wanted to check out if there was any thing of interest
to eat there.  I should also have a very funny sequence of turtle shots
with them in various sleeping positions.  The younger & very much lighter
turtles have got in to the habit of resting up on the soft corals, black
corals, soft sponges ... literally anything that looks nice & soft for
their weary bones :-).  The yellow damsels certainly did not take too
kindly to these young turtles taking over the black corals as resting spots
as those and gorgonian seafans were very clearly covered on certain
branches by freshly laid damsel eggs.

I lost count of the number of moray eels that could be seen out in the open
swimming from one hiding hole to the next.  Not one octopus was in a
playful mood.  Usually I take my glove off and twiddle my fingers around in
front of them where they eventually get curious and either come out further
from their lair or send out one tentacle to taste-test me ... these ones
were all too shy .. just keeping a wary eye on us and changing colour over
and over until we moved on. On occasion you would hear long before you saw
them, the massive bumphead parrotfish chomping their way through the
coral.  With their very prominent large teeth to me they appear to always
be laughing at you .. thank goodness they do not nest up like the titan
triggerfish do in the shallows as lots of divers would certainly lose a
finger or two if these magnificent beasts acted like the titans do during
nesting period.  Non-diving friends think I am joking when I tell them I am
more worried about titan triggerfish during nesting period then sharks ..
just can’t get through to them that the majority of sharks are not vicious
man-eaters.

One popular dive site use to be Staghorn Crest  .. I don’t know if a storm
has trashed it or whether some idjit has been dynamite fishing on it
(various people told me different things) but what staghorn coral growth I
saw there in 1995 is currently no more.  While it is true that nature has a
way of sorting things out ie the slower corals only get a chance to grow
bigger when the faster growing corals are trimmed back now and again, I had
fond memories of that particular spot.  Between there, Lobster Lair and
Hanging Gardens it is a favourite resting spot for the turtles all the way
along that reef wall and it was quite a pretty sight back in 1995 to look
upwards towards the staghorn growth in the shallows nearly always seeing a
turtle peering back down at you as you cruised by with current.

Beside the jetty itself was part of a coconut trunk that had broken down to
very fiberous pieces that looked like branches on a tree which was a
favourite hiding spot for some juvenile batfish.  They were so cute looking
and must have been the 3rd most photographed thing around the island – 1st
& 2nd being barracudas, then the big-eye jacks.  After having my fill of
the big stuff I then turned my attention to the smaller sea critters –
anemonefish, porcelain crabs on the anemones, blind bulldozer shrimp and
gobies, hawkfish, garden eels, leaf fish, scorpionfish, crocodilefish,
peacock flounders, lionfish, various types of filefish & beautiful
angelfish … this place is just uw-photographer heaven.

Viv ...Mabul trip report to follow.