The internationally famous scuba diving island of Pulau Sipadan lies five degrees north of the equator in the Sulawesi Sea (Celebes Sea). Lying 35km south of Semporna, on Sabah's mainland, like many tropical islands it is thickly forested and surround by sandy beaches, Sipadan is an oceanic island and was formed by living corals growing on top of an extinct undersea volcano, which rises 600m from the seabed.
The geographic position of Sipadan puts it in the center of the richest marine habitat in the world, the heart of the Indo-Pacific basin. More than 3000 species of fish and hundreds of coral species have been classified in this richest of ecosystems. Sipadan is well known for its unusually large numbers of green and hawksbill turtles which gather there to mate and nest and it is not unusual for a diver to see more then 20 turtles on each dive. Another unique feature to divers visiting Sipadan is the turtle tomb, an underwater limestone cave with a labyrinth of tunnels and chambers that contain many skeletal remains of turtles that became disoriented and then drowned.
The residential schooling barracuda and big-eye trevally, which often gather in thousands forming spectacular tornado-like formations, are one of the highlights on every diver's wish-list. With the possibility of seeing pelagic species such as mantas, eagle rays, scalloped hammerhead sharks and whale sharks, each dive at Sipadan is a highly anticipated event.
It is not only the big fish that amaze divers coming to Sipadan, the marco life is equally mesmerizing. Garden eels, leaf scorpion fish, mantis shrimps, fire gobies and various pipefish are guaranteed at various dive sites. The diversity and abundance of marine life found at Sipadan gives it its reputation of being one of the ten best dive locations in the world.
The Government of Malaysia has decided that all existing onsite dive resort operators are to move their operations out of Sipadan by 31st December 2004. The move is mainly to conserve and maintain a balanced marine and land eco-systems on Sipadan and its environs. Scuba diving will continue in Sipadan for divers to be ferried in b y operators operating from the mainland or nearby islands other than Pulau Sipadan and Ligitan.
