Sipadan: The underwater perspective

Diving in Sipadan is a little different from other places I've been to; most of the dive site here (though not all) is more than 25meters deep (sometimes even bottomless), and be prepared to be greeted by walls of corals.

The clear water tone between shallow and deep...take a look underneath the water at that line and you'll see a cliff

Imagine this, you're in the water at 25m depth. Look to your left, it's a stretch of wall and you'll be swimming forward keeping the wall to your left, look to your right, all bluish with visibility about 3 to 4 meter, beyond that is just plain bluish water, look down, and you couldn't see the bottom because it is so dark down there, look up and you have a feeling you are so far away from the surface. Of course, other than that you have other divers around you, fishes big and small, and turtles :)

Turtles are very common around Sipadan and Kapalai dive site. In the second dive alone, I saw 3 turtles, all laying at the bottom, resting.

An alert turtle

I was very excited when I saw the first turtle.

Sleeping turtle

Swim very near the turtle and admire it close up.

So close that I can see the turtle's follower under its belly, the Remora

We were not allow to touch the turtle as we were briefed before the first dive. It is consider harassment to touch.

Sea turtles are really gentle creatures. I love to swim with them and observe their behavior. They do things slowly and gently, just look at them swim, so graceful...why rush rite? They have more than a hundred years to live!

Swim after the turtle

But then, dive after dive, we saw more turtles. Almost every deep dive we did, we can see at least one turtle.

Gliding turtle

It gets boring on the third day. Whether they are the same few turtles I don't know, because they don't carry name tags on them. At the end of trip, it becomes a norm to see turtles and I don't bother to take pictures of them anymore.

Turtle hanging on the walls feeding on corals

And this is the turtle that gets me thinking...

Poor sea turtle, what happen to part of its missing shell?

What had this turtle been through? Is it born like this? Or has it been through a horrible accident? Or was it some fish bite off its shell (very much impossible)? I've check though, all 4 of its flippers is still intact, only part of the shell went missing. Poor thing.

Having this trip as my fourth diving trips, I've seen many different kinds of fishes and worms and weird things living in the water from previous dive trips. The difference is that in Sipadan, the fishes are in a bigger group, much much bigger in numbers compare to Tenggol and Tunku Abdul Rahman Park...

A group of Yellowfin goatfish

They are called goatfish because they have 2 janggut under their gill, when the janggut is not in use, they can tucked it away. Cute rite?

A big school of Jack fish, circling us

Batfish is very frequently seen in Pulau Tenggol, and they are usually in pairs. But in Sipadan, they are in schools too!

In Sipadan, Batfish becomes uncountable nouns

There are more variety of fishes too. Some of them I've never seen them anywhere else. Here are some of the amazing fishes I get to see, LIVE, for the first time:

Moorish Idol, I remember seeing this fish in Finding Nemo. It's one of the fish in the dentist's aquarium

Then there was Unicornfish. Never know Unicornfish exist until I saw it and find it out from books.

Unicornfish

Crocodilefish, also known as flathead

The color of the octopus changed before my eyes to match its background when it moved from sand to rock

Blue-spotted stringray

Mantis shrimp...amazing photo by Hong Yann

Ghost pipefish

Razorfish, they swim with their heads down and tail up

I'm gonna have to stop here...can't possibly upload everything...its just too many.

Many divers frequented Sipadan annually, staying in the nearby Kapalai and Mabul Resort. Although conservation technique was used by both the resorts to care for the environment, such that they have waste and water treatment plant, but still, having too many human at one place is never good because human usually means destruction. Not that they purposely ruin the environment, sometimes small accident happens: accidentally spill diesel while filling up boat, accidentally drop building materials into the sea, accidentally drop 'things' into the sea while eating potato chips, and etc.

Construction in Kapalai, they are rebuilding the old chalet

Saying that makes me recall this incident. One evening in Kapalai Resort, I saw this group of people who were eating potato chips (Pringles I think) while looking into the shallow water below. There were fishes in the water, parrotfish to be exact. Then this stupid uncle throw his potato chips into the water, trying to share it with the fish. Brainless human being, doesn't he know that potato chips are oily? And potato chips are not part of parrotfish food chain. The fish might get sick or even worst, may die of food poisoning.

Kapalai Dive Resort, the village on stilts

There are many more unseen beauty of Sipadan and its ecosystem, the 4-day trip I had is just too short to see it all. I hope I can dive there again in the future, looking forward to the same old unpolluted, beautiful Sipadan.

No, the eel is not trying to eat the fish

I hope human and Sipadan ecosystem can co-exist together just like how Moray eel and Cleaner Wrasse are.

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All photos here were taken by me and my travel buddies. Ownership of photos are as stated by the signature on the photos. Respect copyright.