Sipadan, Malaysia

Country: Malaysia (Sabah, Borneo)
Type: reef / wall / pelagic / muck (nearby Mabul and Kapalai)
Best known for: Vertical wall diving, barracuda and jackfish tornados, sea turtles in extraordinary numbers, bumphead parrotfish schools, reef sharks, Turtle Tomb cave
Nearby islands: Mabul (muck diving, resorts), Kapalai (macro, water bungalows), Lankayan
Access: Daily permit system (120 divers per day); resorts based on Mabul and Kapalai
Wetpixel forum threads mentioning Sipadan: 280+

Overview

Sipadan is a volcanic oceanic island rising from the seabed in the Celebes Sea, off the east coast of the Malaysian state of Sabah (Borneo). One forum member described its geological structure as “resembling the shape of a mushroom, with the shaft rising 1000m from the ocean floor and the tip of the mushroom cap protruding just above the surface” (^[1]). Its dramatic vertical walls, beginning just meters from shore, create one of the world’s most iconic wall diving experiences. The island is famous for massive schools of barracuda that form “tornado” formations, large schools of bumphead parrotfish, green and hawksbill turtles in extraordinary numbers, and reef sharks patrolling the drop-offs (^[2]).

The island sits in the heart of the Coral Triangle, home to the world’s greatest marine diversity (^[3]). Key dive sites include Barracuda Point, where schools of chevron barracuda gather and sharks patrol the famous corner, and South Point, where hammerhead sharks were historically sighted (^[4]). The island also features Turtle Tomb (sometimes called Turtle Cavern), an underwater cave containing the skeletons of turtles that became trapped and drowned inside. The cave has three large chambers at depths around 10-24 meters and includes both turtle and marlin skeletons (^[5]).

Access and Logistics

Getting to Sipadan requires flying to Tawau (TWU) in Sabah, then an overland transfer to Semporna (approximately one hour), followed by a 45-minute speedboat ride to the resort islands. Direct flights from Kuala Lumpur to Tawau became available in the mid-2000s, simplifying what had previously required an overnight stop in Kota Kinabalu (^[6]).

Diving access to Sipadan island is controlled by a daily permit system limiting divers to 120 per half-day (240 per day), with a fee of RM40 per diver paid to Sabah Parks (^[7]). Resorts are based on nearby Mabul and Kapalai islands, and the number of Sipadan diving days depends on the resort and season. Typical arrangements offer two to three Sipadan days out of a week’s stay, though in low season divers sometimes get access most days. Some resorts impose 45-minute dive time limits on boat dives, a source of frustration for photographers who preferred longer bottom times (^[8], ^[9]).

The routine for most resorts involves morning boat dives at Sipadan (two to four dives), with afternoon dives at Mabul or Kapalai for macro subjects. Seaventures, a converted oil rig platform near Mabul, offered an alternative base with generally fewer divers and more lottery slots for Sipadan permits (^[10]). Liveaboards such as MV Celebes Explorer also provided access (^[11]).

Resorts

Sipadan Water Village (SWV): Located on Mabul island facing the Celebes Sea, SWV consists of 35 standard and deluxe water cottages built on stilts extending over the water, connected by wooden sidewalks (^[12]). It hosted the annual Photo Week competition from at least 1997 through the 2000s. SWV was considered to offer among the best odds for Sipadan permits, and some members reported successfully negotiating 20% discounts off standard rates (^[13]).

Borneo Divers: One of the pioneering operators, originally based on Sipadan island itself before the 2005 resort closures. Relocated to a resort on Mabul, offering four dives per day with 45-minute limits (^[14]).

Seaventures: A converted oil rig platform offering a unique dive experience. The structure provides both macro muck diving underneath the rig and boat access to Sipadan. Featured in the Borneo from Below web series as “The Most Unique Dive Resort on Earth” (^[15]).

Sipadan Kapalai Dive Resort: Water bungalow resort on Kapalai, offering excellent macro diving plus boat trips to Sipadan (^[16]).

Mabul Water Bungalows (MWB): Resort on Mabul offering cave diving at Turtle Tomb as a specialty dive for an additional fee of approximately USD 100 (^[17]).

Diving Character

Wide-Angle at Sipadan

Sipadan’s signature subjects are its pelagic encounters. The barracuda tornado at Barracuda Point became one of the most photographed scenes in underwater imaging. Schools of bumphead parrotfish — sometimes requiring divers to be in the water before dawn to witness them — provided dramatic wide-angle opportunities (^[18]). Green and hawksbill turtles were present in numbers described as “almost unimaginable,” with some of the largest specimens individual divers had ever encountered (^[19]). White-tip and grey reef sharks patrolled the walls, and hammerhead sharks were historically sighted at South Point, though sightings declined significantly after the mid-2000s (^[20]).

A 2011 visit documented a resurgence in shark numbers at Barracuda Point, with one diver reporting “I haven’t seen so many of them in 10 years, I think the environment there is really benefiting from the strict Sipadan permit restrictions!” (^[21]). By 2023, experienced members assessed that while turtles remained in extraordinary numbers and barracuda schools persisted (though reduced), hammerheads were rarely seen and the destination was “still very good, but not what it once was” (^[22]).

Macro at Mabul and Kapalai

Mabul was considered one of Asia’s premier muck diving destinations before Lembeh Strait rose to prominence. Forum members praised its orangutan crabs, leaf scorpionfish, pygmy seahorses, frogfish, flamboyant cuttlefish, mantis shrimp, and nudibranchs (^[23]). Kapalai offered similar macro opportunities. Japanese photographers in particular were noted for bringing elaborate macro setups with teleconverters and diopters to capture extreme close-ups of fish eyeballs and goby fins (^[24]).

Water conditions varied by season. Visibility at Sipadan ranged from excellent to poor (sometimes as low as 30 feet with greenish water), particularly during the rainy season. Mabul typically had worse visibility than Sipadan itself. Water temperature around 78-82°F (26-28°C) allowed diving in thin wetsuits or shorties (^[25]).

Wetpixel Coverage

Sipadan was one of the earliest and most frequently discussed dive destinations on Wetpixel, with coverage spanning from 2003 through 2023. The archive documents both extraordinary diving and a troubling pattern of environmental threats.

Photo Week

Sipadan Water Village’s annual Photo Week competition, held since at least 1997, was first covered on Wetpixel in 2003. The February-March 2004 event was marketed as combining photography instruction with competition, featuring equipment pros and offering participants the chance to try new photo and video gear. The $2,995 package included round-trip air on Malaysia Airlines from Los Angeles, seven nights lodging, all meals, and six days of three-tank boat dives plus unlimited shore diving (^[26]).

Wetpixel member Craig posted a gallery from the 2004 Photo Week showing extensive macro work with a Nikon 70-180mm lens, generating enthusiastic community response (^[27]). The 2006 Photo Week featured photo pros Marty Snyderman, Mauricio Handler, and Clay Wiseman, with equipment pros Joe Wysocki, Fred Dion, and Andrew Wallace. Wetpixel member Larry Chan (LChan) won Best of Show with an image of a giant grouper surrounded by juvenile golden trevally (^[28]).

Amazing Seas Book Event

In 2010, Eric Cheng promoted the Amazing Seas Book Event, a collaborative coffee table book project scheduled for four one-week sessions at Sipadan and Mabul from October through November 2010. The event featured Mauricio Handler and invited participants to shoot and compete for the book cover, with the finished book to be presented as a gift to the Prime Minister of Malaysia. The concept — flooding a destination with photographers to collectively produce a book — generated debate in the community, with some questioning whether a definitive work could come from a group event rather than sustained individual effort (^[29]).

Scubazoo and Borneo from Below

Scubazoo, the Borneo-based production company founded by Simon Christopher and co-founded by Jason Isley, made Sipadan a centerpiece of their work. Their first coffee table book was specifically titled “Sipadan, Mabul, Kapalai: Sabah’s Underwater Treasure,” followed by “Reef” (2007) and “Sensational Seas of Sabah” (2014). The review of “Reef” on Wetpixel noted that while the book’s geographic focus on the Indo-Pacific was a limitation, the photography was excellent, and Scubazoo’s first book had been “exactly that” — a focused celebration of the Sipadan area (^[30]).

Scubazoo’s Borneo from Below web series, produced with presenter Bertie, dedicated multiple episodes to the Sipadan area: the Sipadan episode (2015) described the island as topping “many diver’s bucket list” (^[31]); the Seaventures episode showcased the converted oil rig resort (^[32]); and the Shark Special (2015) investigated conservation efforts for Borneo’s sharks, noting that while healthy populations remained, sharks worldwide were “under threat as a direct result of the shark fin soup industry” (^[33]).

Jason Isley, Scubazoo’s Managing Director, used Sipadan extensively as a location for his innovative underwater miniature photography, placing model railway figures alongside marine life. His images of green turtles battling for cleaning spots on “Turtle Rock” at Barracuda Point demonstrated both his artistic vision and Sipadan’s iconic wildlife (^[34]).

Burt Jones and Maurine Shimlock

Pioneering underwater photographers Burt Jones and Maurine Shimlock included early Sipadan work among the film-era images in their “Three Decades of Inspiration” retrospective on Wetpixel in 2020, alongside their pioneering work in Komodo, Lembeh, and Raja Ampat (^[35]).

Key Photographers

• Alex Mustard — Visited Sipadan in 1999 and extensively in 2006, staying at three different resorts to compare operations. Started the reef damage discussion thread, provided balanced conservation perspective on the barge disaster (^[36], ^[37])
• Drew Wong — Visited Sipadan regularly in the 1990s and early 2000s, published the shark finning call to action, and provided expertise in the camera ban debate (^[38], ^[39])
• Jason Isley / Scubazoo — Borneo-based photographer and production company co-founder, produced multiple books and web series episodes featuring Sipadan (^[40])
• Mauricio Handler — Featured pro at Photo Week 2006 and the Amazing Seas Book Event 2010 (^[41], ^[42])
• Marty Snyderman — Featured pro at Photo Week 2006 (^[43])
• Larry Chan (LChan) — Won Best of Show at Photo Week 2006 (^[44])
• Burt Jones and Maurine Shimlock — Early Sipadan visitors during the film era (^[45])
• Mike Veitch — Wetpixel moderator, contributed to reef respect discussions and the camera ban debate with direct Sipadan experience (^[46])
• Klaus E. Fiedler — Fish guide author who documented marine life decline at Sipadan during a 2005 visit (^[47])

Conservation

Sipadan’s conservation history as documented on Wetpixel is a recurring story of environmental threats to a supposedly protected site, complicated by the tension between tourism revenue and ecological preservation.

Resort Closures (2004-2005)

Five dive resorts operating directly on Sipadan island were closed by the Malaysian government in 2004-2005 in an effort to protect the marine environment. All visitors were thereafter required to stay on Mabul or Kapalai and travel to Sipadan by boat. By mid-2005, the island was guarded by a military detachment with “persuasive-looking light machine guns” that restricted visitors to the jetty area — no walking into the interior or around the island was permitted (^[48]). The closure was effective for diving access, as the reef arguably began recovering from years of resort-related damage.

Barge Disaster (2006)

The irony of the resort closures became acute when a massive steel barge carrying thousands of tonnes of construction materials — coarse gravel, sand, steel tubes, iron mesh, a bulldozer, and a crane — was allowed to anchor in front of Sipadan’s legendary drop-off. Wind pushed the barge onto the reef between the old pier and Barracuda Point, scraping away “thousands of years of nature’s delicate work.” The barge’s flat steel hull wiped corals “like a giant knife slicing through butter,” leaving hundreds of square meters of unnaturally flat limestone and killing turtles in the process. The barge had been ferrying materials to construct a resort — without the requisite permits (^[49]).

The Malaysian Tourism Minister, who also served as Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister, considered closing the island indefinitely to allow regeneration. All construction on Sipadan was suspended and a full inquest ordered. The community response was visceral — comments ranged from calls for UNESCO intervention to suggestions of international expert surveys (^[50]).

Alex Mustard provided crucial perspective, cautioning that while the damage was severe, it had “not ruined diving on Sipadan” and affected only a section of the reef. He stressed that continued tourism income was essential — “without the income generated by tourism Sipadan would soon be consumed by the fishermen” — and that publicizing the damage was necessary to prevent recurrence (^[51]).

Reef Damage from Divers

In a thread started by Alex Mustard during his 2006 visit, he documented a dive guide plucking a sponge from the reef to clean his mask at Barracuda Point, raising broader concerns about diver behavior and the example set by guides. The thread expanded into a wide-ranging discussion about reef damage from photographers and divers worldwide, with contributors noting that dive guides in the region were reluctant to confront guests about damaging behavior, regardless of nationality — a cultural tendency toward non-confrontation (^[52]).

A Wetpixel comment on the “Reef Respect” article specifically cited Sipadan as a place where “lots of inexperienced divers with huge camera rigs literally stood on and walked over coral tables to take snapshots of some of the huge schools of fish” (^[53]).

Shark Finning (2008-2009)

Wetpixel member Syam discovered local Bajau and Suluk villagers catching and finning sharks on Mabul Island over Christmas 2008. Drew Wong published a detailed call to action with contact information for Malaysian government officials, Sabah Parks, and resort operators, urging the community to write civilized protest emails. The thread revealed that while Sipadan itself was nominally protected (divers paid RM40 park fees), Mabul and Kapalai were not part of any marine protected area. The finning was attributed to fishermen from a village on Mabul, not the resorts, but drew attention to the paradox of tourists paying to see sharks while nearby communities profited from killing them (^[54], ^[55]).

Community members reported hearing and feeling dynamite fishing during dives in the Sipadan area (^[56]). One member who had seen hammerhead schools at South Point years earlier returned to find dramatically fewer sharks: “fewer gray reef & white-tip sharks & only ONE lone hammerhead. Now, I know where they have gone to” (^[57]).

Oceanarium Resort Threat (2008-2009)

In late 2008, plans emerged for a massive oceanarium resort on Mabul, including an artificial reef, swimming pools, and over 200 bungalows and villas on a 33-hectare site. The project would have required land reclamation on Mabul’s shallows — environmentalists warned it could transform the island so drastically that “the current beach front resorts will be the center of the island once the project ends.” The plan raised concerns about a repeat of the 2006 barge accident, as construction materials would again need to be brought in by barge (^[58]).

Drew Wong noted that “there was always ‘someone’ who wanted to monopolize the Sipadan island” — first removing existing operations, then planning to build on it after public attention faded. Indigenous Bajau villagers (over 2,000 on Mabul) opposed the project, fearing displacement as the local land office considered them squatters. A Facebook campaign attracted over 4,300 supporters. Forum member Barttrigger, a marine biology student from the region, called for international experts to conduct rapid surveys to discredit the Environmental Impact Assessment (^[59]).

Camera Ban Proposal (2013)

A proposed ban on underwater cameras at Sipadan generated the most-discussed Sipadan thread on the forum (56 replies). The proposal, apparently driven by NGO studies attributing most reef damage to camera-carrying divers, drew polarized reactions. Some members supported the measure, noting that many photographers had “little/no buoyancy control” and did significant damage. Others argued that a blanket ban was discriminatory and that better alternatives existed — minimum certification requirements, mandatory briefings, and enforcement of no-touch rules by marine police (^[60]).

Drew Wong, drawing on his extensive Sipadan experience from the 1990s and 2000s, acknowledged that “underwater photography (and diving in general) does a lot of damage to coral, especially in a high traffic zone like Sipadan.” Mike Veitch, Wetpixel moderator and professional photographer, noted that some professional photographers “are absolutely shocking in their disregard of the environment and do far more harm than new divers just to ‘get the shot’” (^[61]). The ban was never formally enacted.

Security Concerns

The 2000 kidnapping incident at Sipadan, carried out by Abu Sayyaf militants, resulted in the temporary evacuation of the island and ongoing military presence. Several subsequent kidnapping incidents and shootouts at area resorts over the following years led to permanent armed guards (typically four per resort, 24/7) and periodic travel advisories from multiple governments. Community members generally concluded that the security measures were sufficient and the risk acceptable, with some noting that post-kidnapping periods offered exceptional diving due to reduced tourist numbers (^[62], ^[63]).

Community Discussion

Sipadan generated one of the most active bodies of forum discussion for any single destination on Wetpixel, with over 280 threads mentioning the island. Key discussion categories included:

• Trip planning: Extensive threads on resort selection, permit odds, travel logistics, and seasonal conditions (^[64], ^[65])
• Trip reports and galleries: Regular photo and video showcases from community members spanning 2004 through 2020 (^[66], ^[67])
• Conservation debates: Shark finning (47 replies), reef damage (47 replies), camera ban (56 replies), and the oceanarium resort threat (21 replies) (^[68], ^[69], ^[70], ^[71])
• Destination comparisons: Members frequently compared Sipadan to Raja Ampat, Komodo, Tubbataha, and Lembeh, with experienced divers increasingly recommending Indonesian alternatives for first-time Coral Triangle visitors (^[72])
• Gear for Sipadan: Macro lens selection for Mabul critters, wide-angle setups for Sipadan schooling fish, and video lighting questions (^[73])

Timeline

• ~1997: Sipadan Water Village begins hosting annual Photo Week competition (^[74])
• 2000-04: Abu Sayyaf kidnapping incident at Sipadan; military presence established (^[75])
• 2003-07: Sipadan Water Village Photo Week promoted on Wetpixel for February-March 2004 (^[76])
• 2004: Wetpixel member Craig posts gallery from Sipadan Photo Week 2004 (^[77])
• 2004-2005: Five dive resorts on Sipadan island closed by Malaysian government; divers relocate to Mabul and Kapalai resorts (^[78])
• 2005: 120-diver daily permit system established for Sipadan access (^[79])
• 2005-05: Fish guide author Klaus E. Fiedler documents marine life decline at Sipadan (^[80])
• 2006-04: Alex Mustard plans extended Sipadan visit, staying at three resorts (^[81])
• 2006-05: Barge destroys hundreds of meters of reef at Sipadan; Eric Cheng reports, Mustard provides context (^[82])
• 2006-05: Mustard documents dive guide reef damage at Barracuda Point (^[83])
• 2006-11: Photo Week 2006 results — Larry Chan wins Best of Show; pros Snyderman, Handler, Wiseman featured (^[84])
• 2007-10: Scubazoo’s “Reef” book reviewed on Wetpixel; first book “Sipadan, Mabul, Kapalai” referenced (^[85])
• 2008-12: Plans for massive oceanarium resort on Mabul spark community opposition (^[86])
• 2009-01: Drew Wong publishes call to action against shark finning at Sipadan/Mabul (^[87])
• 2010: Amazing Seas Book Event at Sipadan and Mabul, featuring Mauricio Handler (^[88])
• 2011-10: Diver reports shark resurgence at Barracuda Point, credits permit restrictions (^[89])
• 2013-03: Proposed underwater camera ban at Sipadan generates 56-reply debate (^[90])
• 2014-01: Scubazoo publishes “Sensational Seas of Sabah,” journey ending at Sipadan (^[91])
• 2015-01: Trip report describes continued kidnapping threats; armed guards now permanent at all resorts (^[92])
• 2015-08: Borneo from Below Sipadan episode published by Scubazoo (^[93])
• 2015-09: Borneo from Below features Seaventures converted oil rig resort (^[94])
• 2015-12: Borneo from Below Shark Special investigates shark conservation in Borneo (^[95])
• 2017: Jason Isley photographs green turtles at Barracuda Point using Nauticam WACP converter (^[96])
• 2020-03: Community members share Sipadan video showcases during pre-COVID period (^[97])
• 2023-09: Community discussion assesses Sipadan as “still very good, but not what it once was,” recommends Raja Ampat and Komodo as potentially better alternatives (^[98])

References