Sipadan Island

Sipadan is about an hour by boat from Tawau, Sabah. I have been to this island twice and my last visit was in 2001, and hope to make another visit soon. Sipadan was quite different from the many islands that I have visited because the beauty lies underneath the island itself. To enjoy the beauty, one has to do scuba-diving or just snorkelling along the shore waters of the island.

It is an 'oceanic island' whereby the island is supported by a tall pillar from the bottom of the ocean-bed. Around this so-called pillar, the living organisms of the sea makes their home like corals and shells. Therefore, the fishes have a rich supply of food and thus the waters around the island are full of variety of fish.

I was having real fun with my children doing snorkelling since we were not skilled in scuba then. The multi-coloured corals were so beautiful and still intact with many colourful fishes swimming around the corals. Underwater we were able to feed the fishes too, since all of them were very friendly to us. We used crushed crackers in a plastic bag and punctured a small hole at the end. In the water the crackers became soiled and the fish enjoyed themselves with the liquid-biscuits that oozed from the small hole in the plastic. That was so lovely, with so many fishes crowding to get the feed from your hand.



That night we were brought to see the turtles laying their eggs. We managed to see 3 of them even though by the track-signs we saw at least 5 turtles came ashore to lay their eggs that night. The shores around Sipadan is just about 3 kilometers only and was not difficult to cover the island within an hour or so.

During my stay, I met a few visitors of which most of them love the island so much. One particular visitor told me that was his fourth visit to the island and definitely he would come again. For the scuba-divers Sipadan is the best site to do scuba diving in the world.