Scuba Report - Sipadan Part 2
Trip Start
Jan 01, 2007
1
98
141
Trip End
Ongoing
Pulau Sipadan, Malaysia
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Scuba Diving Report: Sipadan Island
Dive Sites: South Point, Barracuda Point, Turtle Cave
Dive Shop: Scuba Junkies, Semporna
Today is our first relaxing day after completing the Rescue Diver training course. Frank took the day off to relax and recover from the exhausting rescue drills. I, on the other hand, was anxious to jump back in the water for some fun dives!
To find out more about the island itself (Pulau Sipadan), refer to the prior journal entry: Sipadan Dive Report Part 1
Today, we dove the following dive sites: South Point, Barracuda Point, and Turtle Cave
1 Pretty Nudie Branch
. The first two are known for being the best dive sites on the island, so I was excited to jump in and explore!Our group of 10 divers was into two groups: Beginners who stay above 18 meters, and Advanced divers who are certified to go below 18 meters. I was in the latter group with about 5 other divers. This included 1 diver who was an Advanced Student. Our dive master was teaching a class at the same time as leading us fun divers! This is very unsafe and unethical - and so I do NOT recommend the Scuba Junkie dive shop to any of you fellow travellers. On the first dive, we jumped in and immediately went down below 30 meters. While the student and instructor completed some excercises for his class (a deep water dive section), the rest of us divers waited by the wall for them to finish the excercises before continuing with the fun dive.
South Point: this reef is a really steep wall. It is located off the far end of the island, and is usually prone to very strong currents. As such, it is not a dive that many people can visit because the conditions are usually too rough. However, we lucked out (even though it is monsoon season!) and the waters were very calm. We started out exploring the reef wall in a bit of a drift dive, letting the current do the hard work for us. We saw many sharks and turtles, and the usual reef suspects. Halfway through, we came upon a strong current against, so we reversed direction back and explored the upper section of the wall. Toward the end of the dive, we drifted over the wall and drifted on top of a gorgeous coral reef. It was a beauty!
Barracuda Point: this reef is also a steep wall, quite similar to South Point
2 A turtle closeup eating
. At the end, however, we drifted over a sand valley, flanked by a coral reef on each side. At the bottom of the valley were dozens of white tip sharks - really big sharks. We drifted within a couple feet of them. It was fantastic! Despite their reputation, these sharks are very docile. They are more afraid of humans than we are of them. They are usually found sleeping and lazing about. We also saw dozens of beautiful Green Turtles.Turtle Cave: This was the second time I dove this site. We saw thousands of schooling jackfish, dozens of schooling barracuda, nudie branches, turtles, and all the usual beautiful reef fish. Please refer to the earlier Sipadan journal entry for details about this dive.
Cheers,
Kay
