Diving at Sipadan

I have finished my fourth day of diving on Sipadan Island. The dives have consistently been very good. There is a great diversity of corals and fishes. In fact, a recent survey suggests that the Seporna area might have the greatest fish diversity in the world (844 species were found here) and one of the highest diversity of corals. I hope that this report stimulates the Malaysian and Sabah government to do a good job conserving this amazing resource.

Sipadan is best known for large animals such as sea turtles, sharks, and baracudas. Today on the second dive everything came together for one of those dives I will remember for a lifetime.

One of my fellow divers, Bianca from Australia, rented a camera from the dive shop today and she took some nice photos. I will just post a few to give you an idea about some of the amazing things that I have seen.

Green Sea Turtles

We saw lots of green sea turtles on every dive at Sipadan. You could see them swimming, feeding, or sleeping in little caves in the wall.





White-tipped Reef SharksWe also saw white-tips on every dive at Sipadan. Usually, we saw them swimming either above or below us along the wall, but sometimes we saw them resting on the sand.




School of Baracudas

Sipadan is also well known for this large group of baracudas. Often these fish are found at a dive site known as Baracuda Point. I dove on this site four times and was lucky enough to see the school twice. We were even luckier that there were no currents when we saw the school because when the water is calm they circle in this large cylinder shaped school. When we saw it the second time the school extended from 50 feet to the surface. When there is a current, all of the baracudas orient by facing into the current.