Mabul Scuba

As beautiful as Mabul is above water, it is the goodies underwater that I came to see. Mabul is located about a 30 minute boat ride from Semporna and a 30 minute boat ride from Sipadan Island. Now that they have removed all of the resorts from Sipadan, Mabul is of the nearest places to Sipadan where people can stay. Most people come to Mabul for a mixture of diving at Sipadan and around Mabul. The diving in Sipadan is famous for its steep walls and large critters (e.g., sharks, baracudas, and sea turtles). Mabul is famous for muck diving, which is searching in rubble for small and interesting creatures.

Because I dove at Sipadan for several days in December and I felt like I had experienced a "perfect" Sipadan dive, I decided to do all of my diving this trip at at Mabul and other nearby islands. So what did I see? Remember I don't take photos underwater, so here are some shots of Mabul critters taken from the internet.


Leaf Scorpionfish

photo by Scubster. http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=1440175406821468415

Ornate Ghost Pipefish. Usually these are a beautiful red color. I saw two while diving at Kapalai and both of them were black and were living near black crinoids. One of them was a pregnant female and it was easy to see her big belly.

Photo by optix the gaul. http://www.flickr.com/photos/30173633@N
05/5433859336/

There was a large grouper (about 4 feet long) swimming around the artificial reef at Kapalai. This was the second largest grouper I have ever seen. Lucky alums of Odyssey Expedition's BVI voyage may have been able to see the 600 pound monster living in the Chikuzen wreck.

photo by imagine.asia. http://www.panoramio.com/photo/6609184

I saw several very large moral eels. I saw a couple of unusual eel behaviors on this trip. Once I saw two small eels sharing the same hole which I had never seen before. I also saw an example of cooperative hunting between an eel and some sort of a sea bass. The eel swims in the holes in the reef while the other fish cuts off the poor potential prey's opportunity to escape. It hardly seems fair!

photo from http://www.dive-the-world.com/diving-sites-malaysia-mabul-island-seaventure-platform.php

There were lots of cool nudibranchs. This is the most interesting, and beautiful, nudi that I have ever seen. (I can't download this photo, so you have to click on the link if you want to see it).
http://www.flickr.com/photos/symbion/2954567903/

Crocodile Fish. These guys are about a foot and a half to two feet long. You can find them chilling on the bottom. I really like the way that they have tried to hide their eyes. They are ambush feeders that wait until an unsuspecting fish gets too close before they strick.
http://www.superstock.co.uk/stock-photos-images/1566-352137

photo from http://www.scubadiving-malaysia.com/mabul.htm

Overall Review of Sipadan and Mabul Diving

Overall I think that the combination of the "big critter" diving at Sipadan and the muck diving at Mabul makes for a very interesting combination. Alone the muck diving at Mabul did not seem to be as good as at Lembeh Straits in Sulawesi, Indonesia and the big animal action was not as exciting as Palau in Micronesia. Together they make a worthwhile trip. If you add on a few days viewing wildife in the rainforest then I think that a trip to Borneo should be on every divers schedule.