Borneo - Diving at Sipadan Kapalai Dive Resort (Malaysia)

When booking sipadan Kapalai Dive Resort, you have to decide whether to book a diving package or snorkeler package. Since we didn’t have a diving license yet, we chose the snorkeler package.

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Kapalai and Sidapan’s diving experience

Facilities at Sipadan Kapalai Dive Resort include a PADI diving centre, which offers diving trips and courses, snorkelling equipment and kayak rental. The dive center offers three trips a day with speedboats to the best spots around Kapalai, Mabul & Sipadan. But beware: a dive in Sipadan cannot be guaranteed! The Malaysian government has limited the daily number of divers in Sipadan to 120 and introduced a conservation fee. Licences are shared between all resorts in the area and only 2 days in advance will the resorts know how many permits they will receive for their guests. All dives are accompanied by local guides, all of which have a very good knowledge of the dive sites. But also on the beautiful house reef you can dive wonderfully.

Diving in Borneo

Even if you saw a lot while snorkeling (turtles, firefish, colorful reef fish, etc.), it was a bit of a pity that we didn’t have a diving license yet, because Sipadan is considered one of the best diving areas in the world. The area was declared a nature reserve in 2004 and has been protected ever since. Since we also wanted to get a little “diving feeling”, we decided to take a taster diving course at the resort 🙂

After some explanations and exercises we went together with a diving instructor at a depth of 12 meters and saw two large turtles, moray eels and a big squid.

Diving map of Kapalai Dive Resort

Diving on Kapalai

Our very first dive

A turtle

Our very first dive

A sepia

Nemofic

This fascinated us so much that we quickly decided to make a diving license on our next holiday 🙂

The video of our first Scuba Dive

Here is a short video of our very first dive:

Snorkeling at Kapalai Dive Resort

Of course, we are also shaded in the clear water every day. What you can always do here is swim with turtles. There are so many turtles around Kapalai that you can’t get out of the way of them 🙂

Swimming with turtles on Kapalai

A turtle

The reef around Kapalai

Starfish

A blue-point ray

A pusher fish

Reef fish

A reef fish

A puffer fish

A sepia

Pennant fish

View from the water to the resort

All travelogues from South-East Asia (2013)

In this holiday through South East Asia we travelled through 5 different countries. Starting with our flight to Hong Kong (China), then on to Bangkok (Thailand), to the million metropolis Singapore, then into the jungle to the UNESCO World Heritage Angkor Wat to Siem Riep (Cambodia), on to Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) and finally to the island of Borneo (Malaysia). An unbelievably fascinating journey with an incredible number of impressions and experiences.