Where's Scott?

What can I say… Sipadan is a fairyland of pristine untouched coral reefs, massive colorful schools of fish, sea turtles gliding lazily through the torquoise waters or sleeping deeply in one of the many crags scattered along the underwater cliff wall. Sipadan is small, no, miniscule – perhaps 3 acres – but there’s nothing to do on land (in fact the Malaysians, in what Seb professes to be their only smart government action ever, kicked everyone off the island a few years back, and there’s only a few abandoned shacks there now; well, that and a few armed military personel – they did steal it from the Philippines after all). The real action is on the cliff walls all around the island.

The density and variety of life here borders on the absurd. Coral, sea anemones, sponges, plant life and an incalculable number of crawling creatures vie for land space on this crevassed, and sometimes overhanging, dead drop starting a few meters below the surface all the way down to the black depths, at some points 2000m below! Also hidden in the crags and holes, and in amongst the coral, are many (sometimes almost invisible) treasures: Lion fish, dancing harlequin sweetips, and nudibranches are the easiest to spot; more challenging are the lobster, shrimp, crabs, crocodile fish and moray eels; and if you have a really sharp eye, and know what to look for, you might spot a frog fish or a scorpion fish – but these can be so close to invisible that you can stare right at them and not see them unless they move! Seb was taking a picture of one scorpion fish at about 8in, and completely failed to see a second sitting an inch to its left; even when it was pointed out to him in the photo later, he could barely make it out.

Above the crowded wall life swirls a huge variety of more active swimming beasts. In addition to the smaller fare (and the turtles) are various species of shark, tuna, trivalis, angelfish, napolean bumpheads, batfish, jackfish, and barracuda. At one point Seb and I were in the center of a swirling vortex of jackfish – thousands of large silver creatures whirling, all with one eye watching us float there in stunned silence.

I could go on (and on and on) but words and even pictures (which we snapped a few of with a rented camera) cant capture the awe that Sipadan inspires. In the warm evening air, as we speed back to Semporna over the glassy water, Seb and I laugh that it’s ruined diving for us. Since there’s no hope of ever topping Sipadan, there’s really no point in even trying! We joke that we may one day be old fogies with one refrain for scuba diving: “Bah, I’ve seen better!”