You’ll dive Sipadan to see BIG pelagics.

Now dive Mabul & Kapalai. Smaller denizens await.

Mention Malaysia’s oceanic island of Sipadan to any diver and chances are they’ve heard of it and hope to dive Sipadan at least once in this lifetime.

Situated off Semporna on the east coast of Malaysian Borneo, the island was made famous by Jacques Cousteau in one of his voyages. After producing the documentary “Ghost of The Sea Turtles” in 1983, he reported, “I have seen other places like Sipadan, 45 years ago (1938), but now no more. Now we have found an untouched piece of art.” Rising from the ocean in the heart of the Indo-Pacific basin, this extinct volcanic island was one of the richest in biodiversity Jacques had ever seen.

Just a splash across the sea from Sipadan lies two other islands, Pulau Mabul and Pulau Kapalai. Both may not have 600 metres walls that drop into the abyss, nor endless walls of intricate corals. But from numerous visits, I have found both islands exploding with smaller denizens in the most fascinating shapes and colours.

Small Treasures, Big Rewards

Sipadan is where you’ll see turtles, barracudas, jacks, trevallies, bumphead parrotfishes, sharks in abundance, and occasionally, manta rays. Fantastic corals appear squeezed into every nook and cranny on the walls.

However, diving off Mabul and Kapalai is like going on a treasure hunt. The yields from all my dives on these 2 islands continue to hone and excite my hunting instincts. What’s really thrilling for divers is that here in Mabul, you can see species found nowhere else on this earth.

Slimy sea slugs! Yucks?

While you may catch a glimpse of big deep sea fishes or even the elusive hammerhead sharks that patrol the depths around Sipadan island, muck-diving as it is called while diving in Mabul and Kapalai requires a very sharp pair of eyes. A great advantage is to have an eagle-eyed dive guide who can help you along. The rewards include psychedelic nudibranchs that resembled a hybrid-human character from an undersea exploration television series in the 80's. While one nudibranch looks out of this world, displaying vivid colours that signal they are poisonous, others are pure cannibals. The Gymnodorididae species, for example, preys on other nudibranchs for food. They even attack meals much bigger than themselves. By definition a shell-less, marine snail of the suborder Nudibranchia, having external, often branched respiratory appendages on the back and sides; majority of nudibranchs feed on soft corals, tunicates and hydroids. They also use toxins from soft corals they’ve ingested as a defence mechanism to ward off predators that might find these slow moving sea slugs an easy meal.

Underwater frogs

Then there are the ugly but adorable frogfishes or anglerfishes (Antennariidae family). These fishes are bottom dwellers that seldom move and can stay in a location for days. With “hands” to help them stay rooted to the reef, they sit and wait for their next meal to unknowingly swim by or by baiting them with their anglers – that look like shrimps or worms in most cases. Dangling their “bait” in front of their mouth and jiggling it to make it look real. When their unsuspecting meal approach, a fast gulp from the frogfish and the show is all over. Once, I had the opportunity to observe a frogfish with it's partially eaten meal still hanging out of its mouth. Obviously, the frogfish bit off more than it could swallow.

Patience rewards the diver who waits. To be able to perform a feat of swallowing another fish, they periodically have to stretch their jaws by yawning. Watching them do their exercise will be one scene where I guess you wished you could do the same. But do not move off yet, frogfishes tend to yawn three to four times in succession. So if you missed their first performance, linger on and watch a re-run. Most likely on their third yawn, you can see how wide they can open their mouths - Talk about bigmouths.

Pick-me if you can – Seahorses.

From frogfishes to seahorses and what better place to see them at the dive site under the Oil-rig turned into a resort lying just off Mabul. The reef offers you encounters of the smallest kind. Measuring just 5mm in length, these seahorses are normally found on gorgonian sea fans. The pygmy seahorses (Hippocampus bargibanti) are shy critters and usually face away once you have spotted them on the sea fan, making photography a challenge. Because they appear hardly visible on your camera's screen, you may need assistance from your guide or buddy to point them out to get into focus again. Give it a go and relate to your friends how small they are. Do watch out for long-nosed hawkfishes and trumpet fishes that prey on these pygmy seahorses. Keep a good watch before and while shooting. They may dart in to steal your subject for a meal instead.

The resort on Mabul directly facing the oil-rig resort has a fabulous house reef to observe marine life coming to certain spots to be cleaned. These cleaning stations are normally anchor points for mooring lines hidden with cleaner shrimps and wrasses. After the day is done, turtles can be seen resting close to these cleaning stations, letting the shrimp and wrasses do their job of removing parasites and algae.

Sex in the sea-ty

Over at Kapalai's house reef, register yourself for a sunset dive and watch the mating ritual of mandarin fishes. Coming out from hiding in the rubble, the male searches for his harem and engages in multiple mating or couplings daily. These repeat performances take only seconds from the time they lift off the reef into mid-water, releasing their eggs and sperm each time. Once the entire show plus encore is over, swim along the reef slope and close to the jetty. The proliferation of marine life here is large mainly because they seek shelter under the jetty.

Most dives around these islands can last longer than normal as the depth between the surface and the seabed is shallow. Ideal for underwater photographers wanting more time to study their subjects.

Conservation starts with me!

Notes for divers with underwater cameras: Exercise care when shooting. Where do you place your fins? Avoid resting on or damaging corals. For personal safety, check to ensure that venomous fishes like stonefish and lionfish are not beneath you. Likewise, check before moving off once you have photographed your subject. Refrain from touching corals for support and if necessary use a pointer to help stabilize you with the camera. Ensure the pointer rests on the sand.

A special plea – because of their minute size, over photographing the pygmy seahorse is equivalent to having huge 2,500-watt stadium floodlights flashing into your eyes. If you are with a group of photographers, try to limit to (3 each?) the number of photographs each  one is taking. We never know how many times the seahorse has to go through this daily paparazzi attack.

Some resorts implement a ”no-dive” rule in the evenings. This allows marine life to settle down for a change of shift from day to night, while some like turtles move to cleaning stations. Other resorts also implement a “no-gloves” policy. We can play our part by observing and adhering to these rules. Preserve the eco-system. Enable future generations to enjoy what we have experienced.

Foto-Story by Ivan Choong.