Sipadan

Even from Singapore, Sipadan was a significant 12 hour trip. Taxi, plane, taxi to the other terminal, taxi back from the wrong terminal to the original terminal, plane, car, boat, buggy, hotel.  Scotch.

Blessed and relying too heavily on having such an iconic and premier dive site nearby, our resort was disappointing in itself but has the days passed, that faded into the background.

A recent typhoon had reduced visibility so our first actual dive at Sipadan was "shit," as we were told. Over 30 turtles, a dozen sharks, an immense school of jacks, a titanic school of barracuda, forests of hard coral, bumphead parrot fish ..... on one dive alone.  Mabul and Kapalai had equally as impressive muck-diving with leaf fish, scorpion fish, stone fish, giant moray, frog fish, giant cuttlefish, giant mantis, giant grouper, crocodile fish and my favourite, the Oriental Sweetlip.

And as the days passed, the weather and conditions improved to reach an acceptable grade as can be seen below.

Unfortunately my impression was that Sipadan solely represented a money-making opportunity to those in the tourism industry. There was no discernible connection between tourism and the local fishing villages and as they are therefore not stakeholders, being guardians of and maintaining conditions is of little importance. There was no culture of sustainability at the resort, no picking up of rubbish by dive masters during dives, no educating of us guests. I am worried about the future Mr Cousteau.