Borneo Diving... Sipadan? Layang Layang? Lankayan?

Hello all,

I have a trip booked to Singapore for early March. After a few days there, I will have about two weeks to travel to Malaysia and dive in Borneo. Any advice on what dive site to choose would be much appreciated, as would any information regarding travel to, and between, the diving locations. Is it worth it to try to go to Sipadan AND Layang Layang in one two-week trip? If so, what is the best mode of travel between the two? What about Lankayan?
Also, if you have any thoughts on the best places to stay, please feel free to share that info as well and I will be forever grateful.
One last thing if you have the time.... what should I see in the cities I assume I will be pasing through along the way? Is one town preferred? Kota Kinabalu? Tawau? Kuala Lupor?

Thanks in advance very much for your time and kindness.

Yes, you could easily go to both Sipadan and Layang Layang in the space of two weeks, spending about 5 days at each place.

There is only one place to stay on Layang-Layang, and only one way to get there. The resort shares a little filled-in atoll with a Malaysian naval station and an air strip. The resort has contracted the services of a private charter aircraft to ferry customers from Kota Kinabalu airport and back. You book the flight at the same time you book the resort.

From KK it's easy to get a flight to Tawau, the airport nearest to Sipadan. My advice is to stay at one of the resorts on Mabul island or at the one resort on Kapalai. The resort you select will arrange your transfers from Tawau airport by mini bus to Semporna, and from there by speedboat to the islands.

Thanks so very much!
I have just been reading that some folks do not get a pass to dive Sipadan Island. Do you know if this happens a lot?

The Sipadan area resorts never leave you with absolutely NO dives on Sipadan Island, but you won't dive there every day the way we used to before the limits were implemented. When you DO go there, the op will take you to the best sites, such as barracuda point, and you'll see tons of sea turtles on other sites, for which Sipadan is justly famous. When you're not diving at Sipadan proper, you'll be diving at Mabul and Kapalai, which are mainly muck diving areas. So it just depends on what sort of diving you like whether you'll be happy with the limited number of dives available at Sipadan Island. If you hate muck diving, you'll be unhappy, but Lankayan, for example is not known for big pelagic action, so I'm not sure you'd be happy there either. Layang-Layang, on the other hand, does get visited by pelagics, so maybe that would be enough for you to balance out the muck diving at Mabul.

Sipadan permits are limited to 120 divers per day to protect the island. March is still relatively calm compared to june-sept so you should be able to get a dive permit to Sipadan without booking too long in advance. Also as said above most resorts will ask you to dive a few days mabul/kapalai and then give you a sipadan trip.
Mabul and Kapalai are really great for critters, unusual fishes, muck diving. Also you will easily see turtles.
You can skip Tawau, there is nothing for tourist there. You can visit Mt Kinabalu, Sepilok, Sukau, Kinabatangan.
On mabul you can have a budget holiday in a local homestays on the water (more info at www.sipadan.com).
On Layang Layang, it's only top end luxury and highest prices.
Langkayan is nice and private (expensive), also they had a real damage 3 years ago when suage arrived at the island suddenly and killed almost all the marine life. Also now it has recovered somehow.
My 2 cents are that you spend a few days diving in Layang layang, then a week onland (sukau/kinabatangan/kinabalu) and 1 week in Sipadan/Mabul/Kapalai area.

Enjoy!

Hi there,
I just read your post to Thorn Tree about diving in Mabul. We are currently in KK.
I am just about to book with Sipadan.com and stay at the Arung Hayat Homestay.

DIVING
Is it true that you have to dive Mabul first before you dive Sipadan?
With Sipadan.com, can they arrange the dive to Sipadan Island directly from their homestay in Mabul or do they herd you out to Semporna first to do this?
Would you recommend not missing Sipadan if we just plan to do 3 dives in total? In that case, we would just dive Mabul...or would this be a big mistake?
Did you think there were strong currents while diving? Which sites? We have kind of had a bad experience in the past with current dives.
We may also dive with Sphere Divers. Have you heard about them or have any experience with them?

ACCOMODATION
Do you know what the name of the homestay is on Mabul Island?
At some homestays, I have heard that the food is cold, and staff is not really that friendly. Would you disagree?

How much should we budget in total? We are a couple.
Thanks so much for your help! You guys have some great insights.

You can easily do both in two weeks. Lankayan is amazing, a beautiful place. I stayed at Kapalai for dives in that area. In three days diving we got 5 dives in Sipidan. The diving around Sipidan island was truly stunning. The diving around Kapalai and Lankayan was also good but not as good as Sipidan.

In response to "2travellers"

Just finished a 2 day stay on Mabul. I went with Sipadan.com (also lnown as Noble Inworld I think) and they were very good. Some points that might be useful for you:

• The Sipadan.com homestay is basic but clean, very friendy, good food.

• For Sipadan dive contact them as soon as possible beforehand with passport details to make sure you have Sipadan permits for the day you want. You will not be herded back to Semporna for a Sipadan dive - Mabul is the the main base for diving in the area and the best place to locate yourself. Semporna is an hour away by boat. You can see Sipadan from Mabul island. You will go to the Sipadan.com office in Semporna to settle-up before they transfer you to their homestay on Mabul and afterwards if you owe;

• S.com will not take you to Sipadan to dive as they are not allowed - they will arrange it for you though. This is a shame as they are a great outfit and I enjoyed a day's diving in Kepalai and Mabul with them. I was passed on to a Global Divers group for the Sipadan dive. I was very disappointed with them as an outfit - diving was kept very shallow, basic and slow - we really did not get the best out of the dive sites which were quite spectacular. Also their equipment was poor - my depth gauge had rusted still but they showed no interest in changing it with someone who had their own computer - just shrugged the shoulders and said "stay on my level" - a cocky bunch in my view. I think Billabong are the other outfit allowed to dive on Sipadan and I have heard they are much better though have no experience of them.

• S.com will try and sell you a 3 day dive package with a Sipadan day add-on. Keep insisting you do not want this and they finally understand (if, say, you only have 2 days to dive as I did). They charged me 600 ringgit for the day's diving in Sipadan - 3 dives. Dives in Mabul were 100 each. 100 per head for rtn transfer to island and 70 per head for accomm (inc all meals). If you are going all that way I would suggest at least a couple of Mabul area dives as well as Sipdan - I thought they were excellent.

• None of the dives I did were particularly challenging (I am not particularly advanced having done 40 dives over 8 years).

• Never heard of Sphere Divers.

Hope this helps. Just my view - we had a great couple of days there overall. Enjoy...

-

londonspireite: that info rocks! very helpful. so rare to find such detailed trip reports. thank you.

I can confirm the above post and would recommend warmly that you try sipadan.com if you plan to dive the area while relaxing on mabul. Also it's getting popular with travellers.
Sphere divers targets big chinese groups, no western tourists there. Billabong diving is good but the problem is that their longhouse is a ruin, the wooden deck is ready to fall, clearly the owner is not making any effort to improve his place.

wow great thread, i didnt even see this subsection on scuba !!!
anyone in semporna from april 8th may 15th or so ?
I'm doing a divemaster around sipidan in this time frame
sipidan is obviously amazing and accomodations are such a great price
try the city inn in semporna for amazing deals
and if u want better dive prices, i think just showing up is a much better plan ... or non-plan
that's if you're going to semporna, if your diving off mabul etc, your going to pay alot and u need to book ahead