SABAH DIVING WITH BORNEO DIVER’S
This story actually starts in Las Vegas during October 2005. The yearly DEMA convention was happening and I usually try and attend. I sat in on the Malaysian Tourism presentation and won their drawing for a free 5 night stay & diving with Borneo Diver’s at their Mabul resort!
So after nearly 4 days of flying, I live in the Caribbean, I was ready for the world class diving of Sipadan. I hauled nearly 20 kilos of dive gear with me, 2 bathing suits and 1 change of clothes. Since I was traveling so far I booked in for an additional 7 days of diving. This winter I did 108 dives in Bonaire from my sailboat (home). I was excited about the challenging diving I expected from Sipadan and the great muck diving of Kapalai & Mabul. My usual diving holiday means 4 or 5 dives daily and bottom times of well over 60 minutes.
Especially nice things about this trip: mandarin fish on the sunset dives: nice hot showers: good fresh fruit daily, nearly every day fresh salad greens: no mosquitoes or cockroaches: dropping into the water first on every dive….I put on my BCD in the water….since the entire boat load of divers were really slow this meant I got 10 minutes of watching the fish time while waiting for the gang to drop in beside me on the reef top; lots of turtles; great walls, wonderful fish life; helpful friendly staff; comfortable cabins; meeting lots of nice divers; chatting with many of the staff who all seemed to really like their jobs; good access to two computers for internet, I was able to use an office computer to check my photo CD’s from each day of diving.
Things I did not appreciate: 5 days of no warm vegetarian foods while the staff served us tofu with beef chunks and could not figure out why we (3 vegetarians) were not happy; getting food poisoning on day 3 and missing 24 hours of diving; one boat driver who’s idea of getting his divers up quickly was to drive directly over your bubbles and rev his engine as high as possible-really safe while trying to do a safety stop!; after checking my tank and breathing my regulator, I drop into the water and my gear is handed down with the tank valve being closed- this happened 3 times; having all the boat drivers go home instead of going out for the sunset dive-this happened 2 times and my buddy & I had a real hassle with the dive shop manager to get us a boat-his view was the sunset dive was optional and if we missed it so what?; 3rd boat dive leaving 40 minutes late as our boat driver went home-happened 2 times making our sunset dive another argument as it was later than the rules allowed; I expect dive guides to look for things that I would probably not see- these guys seldom looked; short dive times, less dives than I would have chosen daily; when I asked where I should look for the mandarin fish on the house reef my dive guide of the day told me I would never be able to find them unless I paid extra for a night dive- I asked 6 guides before one told me where to look in 4 meters off the end of 1 of the piers-I watched the mandarins every evening!; could have done with clean rinse tank for my regulator not the moldy green sided tank that no one ever cleaned.
I arrived together with 3 other guests and we found that a group of guests from UAE had decided to not check out of their rooms for 6 more hours. I was offered a mattress on the floor to rest. Not quite what I was expecting. Due to this “room” problem I did not make the first after lunch dive. Finally a room was found and I was sent with the cleaning lady & key. The cleaning lady took a dirty towel off the floor dusted the table & desk, shook out the towel, sniffed it, then she folded it up and handed it to me to use as my “clean” towel. Not the 5* diving resort I’ve read about?
I think I was the only guest who was not using rental gear (all ScubaPro which looked to be kept in good condition). After assembling my regulator I setup my own gear on the boat for our late afternoon dive. Normal routine was for the boat driver and guide to do the gear set up. Eight of us were put into the water just in front of the resort and did the shortest dive I think I’ve ever been on., 45 minutes and max depth of 17 meters. Everyone else was out of air quite fast. All new divers. They were diving with 12 liter tanks and I was using a 7 liter tank and still had ½ tank of air left.. The boat was back after 4pm so we were told we would not be allowed to do the free sunset dive which was without a guide. Dive shop rules were to be in the water by 5pm for a 40 minute dive in front of the resort by boat. They did back down on the 40 minute time limit after a big confrontation and allowed 60 minutes. Night dives were at 6:15pm also just in front of the resort with a guide and cost 50 Rm extra. You were not allowed to do the “free” dive and the night dive. But it didn't’t really matter as during the entire time I was there, 11 nights, there was never a night dive even offered. And I asked every day for a night dive.
With all new divers the Sipadan dives were not what I was expecting. I did 21 dives at Sipadan. WOW! When the current was strong the fish life was awesome. And here is the big BUT. With all the new divers I did only 2 dives that actually had enough current to attract the giant schools of barracuda, jacks, longfin banner fish, schools of pyramid butterfly’s, and of course all the nice to watch sharks! Whenever the current was strong we dove the quietest of the site choices. These were good and frequently with lots of turtles and a few sharks. They were not Barracuda Point at its best though.
I bounced from boat to boat (this was due to the total turnover of diving guests ) and dove with 8 different dive masters. I met at least 8 different boat loads of divers. I’m a Dive Master and have made nearly 1400 dives. 700 of those in Indonesia. Nearly everyone on all my dives with Borneo Diver’s was making their #10-14th dive. Most of the divers were just visiting for 2-3 days (this meant 2 Sipadan dives) and had not dove since last year when they were certified. All these folks were delightful to chat with over our meals. They were all having a blast diving with a shark for the first time. All of the diving was geared to this level of diver experience. More than ½ of the divers I spoke to had yet to do their advanced certificate. On 2 days I was on the 5:30am departing boat. We did a crack of dawn dive to watch the herd of bumphead parrotfish parading along the wall. Really beautiful. Our dive profiles were 30m 1 hour interval, then 26m 1 hour interval and a 3rd dive to 24m and home before lunch. That afternoon my dive buddy asked about doing the night dive (which never actually happened). Nicole was told she was not qualified to do a night dive since she was not an “advanced” diver. I thought that dives without an advanced certificate were limited to 18m? She and several other divers were doing deep repetitive dives with no watch and no computer.
I’ve seen some awesome photos from night diving on Mabul and Kapalai. I was really looking forward to diving these mucky areas day & night. Borneo Divers only dives 1 site at Kapalai. I saw it 3 times. It’s very silty and with 10 divers in the water all it took was a few to fin up billowing clouds. Mabul dives were to only 3 sites. Your last day they visit 1 other site. Our Dive Masters had their hands full with many dog paddling divers and did not spend more than a couple of minutes looking for all those interesting critters.
I dived every sunset dive that I was allowed. I dove no night dives as this was never offered. I saw only 1 dive guide actually underwater keep his divers from touching coral while watching mandarin fish I did find lots of good interesting critters like warty frogfish & nudi’s on my own and was shown several leaf fish, 2 giant frogfish and 2 ornate ghost pipefish by guides.
In all the diving here is world class. But to truly enjoy this you need to find some active dive guides and bring your dive group of 10 divers. Then maybe you will be able to go to the sites with significant current and see the critters that have earned Barracuda Point its reputation.
Would I come to Sipadan again? YES but I would look for a different diving situation.
