This trip provides the perfect opportunity to comprehensively experience the best of Malaysian Borneo's marine environment and close encounters with the island's most famous wildlife.  Combining the Layang Layang atoll, with Lankayan Island and of course Sipadan gives you the best possible chances of sighting everything that Borneo has to offer from pelagics such as sea turtles, sharks and barracuda, to tiny marine life such as frogfish, crocodile fish and nudibranch.

Now that you can no longer stay on Sipadan itself, our alternative route to the island is by speedboat from the islands of Mabul or Kapalai.  Here we can place you in one of our selected waterside lodges, ideal for divers and non-divers alike.  You have the option of diving at Sipadan and the other Semporna Islands of Kapalai and Mabul.

As well as diving at Sipadan from Mabul and Kapalai, you will stay at our recommended dive lodges on the Layang Layang atoll, located off of Borneo's north coast, and Lankayan Island which is off the north eastern tip of Borneo in the Sulu Sea.

Borneo's emerald waters may reveal treasures to satisfy the most avid of divers, but the best of wild borneo is both above and below the waves.  Whilst this experience has its emphasis on the sub aqua, it also combines close encounters with two of the island's most famous wildlife highlights - sea turtles and orang utans.  On your journey with us you will witness one of the world's most famous wildlife rehabilitation and conservation programmes at an orang utan rehabilitation centre.  Here, young captive or abandoned orang utans, orphans of deforestation, are being helped by highly trained and motivated staff to readjust to a life in the wild.

Sea turtles are abundant in this part of the world and as well as encountering these below the water from your waterside lodges, we will take you to see them laying eggs at an island sea turtle sanctuary.  Here you have the opportunity to not only see conservation in action but actively assist in transplanting of eggs to the hatchery and releasing baby turtles back to the sea. 

Pulau Lankayan

Located 90 minutes speedboat ride from the northeast Borneo town of Sandakan, the verdant oasis of Lankayan offers a myriad of diving opportunities around just one island.  As well as a rich diversity of marine life residing on its reefs, it provides an excellent combination of macro life and pelagic species which includes the occasional whale shark and dugong.  Amongst its gently sloping sandy areas you can find sponges, gorgonians and corals.  These play host to bamboo sharks, mandarin fish, porcelain crabs, seahorses, mimic octopuses and flying gurnards.  An additional highlight of Lankayan are the illegal fishing vessels deliberately scuttled and scattered around the coastline.  These themselves have become established reefs with their own array of sealife.

Pulau Layang Layang

Layang Layang is an atoll of 13 linked coral reefs and part of 600 islands, shoals and reefs in the South China Sea known as the Spratleys.  Located about 300km from Borneo's north coast, Layang Layang can offer extraordinary visibility and a rich diversity of marine life.  The diving is characterised by steep walls that descend as far down as 2000 metres and encounters with pelagic species such as dogtooth tuna, barracuda, humphead (Napoleon) Wrasse and bigeye trevallies.  Grey reef, white and blacktip reef sharks abound.  Turtles and triggerfish are common and diving on this atoll provides an outstanding opportunity to view scalloped hammerhead sharks, especially during April - May.  Manta rays are another frequent visitor.

Pulau Sipadan 

Pulau Sipadan is Malaysia's only volcanic island and was made famous by French oceanographer Jacques Cousteau in his documentary, 'Ghosts of the Sea Turtle'.  Sea turtles are undoubtedly prolific here and so accustomed to divers that they largely ignore them.  The island also boasts almost every type of marine flora and fauna in the Indo-Pacific.   The coral and marine life here is prolific with great opportunities to encounter huge bumphead parrotfish and living walls of hundreds of schooling barracuda.  Sipadan is the most famous of a scattered group of islands that make up the 73,000 acre Semporna Marine Park. 

Click HERE for a more detailed description of the marine life of Pulau Sipadan.

Pulau Mabul

Mabul is located some 25 minutes north of Sipadan.  In contrast to the steep drop offs, coral reefs and pelagic species of Sipadan, Mabul is renowned internationally for a very different reason.  A muck diver's paradise, Mabul is great for macro life with every hole in the sand and coral rubble inhabited by ghost pipefish, frogfish, devil scorpionfish, stonefish, crocodile fish, Flamboyant Cuttlefish, cowfish and nudibranchs.  Macro photographers will find great opportunities to capture some rare species that inhabit the sandy bottom of Mabul's marine environment. 

Pulau Kapalai

Like Sipadan and Mabul, Kapalai is part of the Semporna Marine Park island group.  Located around 20 minutes from Sipadan, Kapalai is another macro diving destination with all the species found at Mabul including blue-ringed octopuses, dragonets, mating mandarin fish, jawfish and cuttlefish.  Other sites around Kapalai are likely to reveal humphead (Napoleon) wrasse, blue spotted ribbontail rays and bumphead parrotfish.

Sites visited will be dependant upon weather conditions and all diving activity is at the discretion of the boat skipper and Sabah Marine Park rules prevailing at the time

For a detailed draft itinerary, please click HERE

Price 2008: £2195 (diver) or £2025 (non-diver) Our prices include Transfers All domestic flights Marine park & national park conservation fees & permits 3 meals per day plus served in buffet style.  Meals at all other times as indicated (B,L,D)  Tea, coffee and water available throughout the day (self service) Afternoon tea and snacks All resort accommodation based on twin share  3 boat dives daily except on arrival/departure day with unlimited shore dives. Use of tanks, weights and weight belt Unguided night dives for qualified divers with buddy only Guided trips as per itinerary with English-speaking, expert naturalist guides Our prices exclude International flights Travel holiday insurance Tips Visas Alcoholic beverages Services not listed Equipment rental Camera permit fees within national parks Optional extras 3 day climb of Mt Kinabalu via Mesilau Trail add £295 pp sharing (2 nights on trail + 1 extra night in Kota Kinabalu) Extra day diving at Kapalai add £105 pp sharing Extra day diving Lankayan add £95 pp sharing

Malaysian Borneo's islands are jewels in South-East Asia's rich tapestry of marine habitat - and long may they remain that way.  The diversity of life within them is of global importance, but like many reefs around the world, they are beautiful but fragile environments that are under pressure.  We therefore urge all divers to dive responsibly and safely, avoiding any contact with the reef.  For full details of our Responsible Diving Code of Conduct, please click HERE

Photographs kindly provided by Ralph Pannell, Charlotte Caffrey, Alan Oh, SMART, Albert Teo, Nick Bramley, Lawrence Lee & PSR