Dive Sites in Sipadan, Malaysia
4 dive sites in Sipadan
Consistently ranked among the world's top five dive sites, Sipadan drops 600 metres from a tiny island to the ocean floor. Barracuda Point's tornado of 500+ chevron barracuda, green turtle populations so dense they queue at resting ledges, and grey reef sharks cruising the walls. Only 120 dive permits issued daily. Browse all Sipadan dive sites below.
Barracuda Point at Sipadan is one of the most iconic dive sites on Earth, and the reason is a single, staggering spectacle: thousands of chevron barra...
Drop Off is Sipadan's original dive site and the one that put the island on the global diving map. When Jacques Cousteau's team explored Sipadan in th...
South Point is Sipadan's deep-water pelagic encounter, the site where the island's wall meets the strongest currents from the Celebes Sea and the chan...
Turtle Cavern at Sipadan is one of the most sobering dive sites in the world. The cavern entrance sits on the wall at about 18 metres, opening into a ...
The wall at Barracuda Point drops straight into the deep blue, and somewhere around 20 metres the barracuda appear. Not a few. Not a school. A tornado. Five hundred or more chevron barracuda spiralling in a column from the reef top to well beyond recreational depth. It's one of the most photographed underwater scenes on the planet, and it happens at Sipadan with remarkable consistency.
Sipadan is a small island, roughly 500 metres across, sitting on top of an oceanic pinnacle that rises 600 metres from the seabed. The diving is wall diving in the truest sense: you roll off the boat, descend to 15 or 20 metres, and the reef falls away beneath you into nothing. Every wall section has its own character. South Point brings whitetip and grey reef sharks patrolling the drop-off. Drop Off (the site is literally named this) offers a vertical face covered in soft corals where turtles rest on ledges at every depth. Turtle Cavern is an overhead environment at 18 metres containing the skeletal remains of turtles that lost their way.
The turtle population is what catches most divers off guard. Sipadan has so many green and hawksbill turtles that you stop counting after the first few dives. They rest on every available ledge, graze on the reef, and swim past you with the indifference of animals that have never been hunted here.
Access is controlled. Only 120 permits are issued per day, split between the resorts and operators on nearby Mabul. You cannot stay on Sipadan itself; accommodation is on Mabul or Kapalai, a 15-minute boat ride away. Book well in advance, particularly for peak season (April to September). Getting to Mabul means flying to Tawau in Sabah (Malaysian Borneo), then a 1.5-hour road transfer to Semporna, followed by a 45-minute speedboat. Visibility at Sipadan regularly exceeds 30 metres, water temperature holds at 27 to 29°C, and most sites suit confident Open Water holders and above. Current varies from mild to moderate, nothing unmanageable for divers with 20+ logged dives.