Good bye 2011 and welcome 2012!!!
My last post for 2011 is definitely going to be my last dive trip for 2011, this bring me back all the way to August 2011, destination
Sipadan Kapalai Dive Resort.
Sipadan Kapalai Dive Resort (Kapalai in short) sit on the shallow sandbanks of the Ligitan Reef and just few minutes boat to reach Sipadan Island !!! consider one of the accommodation nearest to Sipadan.
Kapalai consist of 59 airy wooden water chalet offering either twin or triple sharing equip with attached batch room, hot shower, bath tub and a cleverly through-out balcony which offer total sought of privacy for lover of sunbathing and sun tanning.
As for dining Kapalai provide sumptuous meal serve in buffer style on a big wooden western sundeck which allow guest to enjoy tropical sunset while enjoying meal and drink. Resort facilities include diving, snorkeling and kayaking with gear and equipment for rental.
This trip we have a total of 7 divers some I have dive before and some are new to me. Access Kapalai resort from Kuala Lumpur is almost similar with my previous trip to Mataking Island you can
click here to see my previous blog which require to take flight from KL to Tawau airport which you can travel with Air Asia or Malaysia airline (MAS) we took air asia due to it cheaper fair and require approximately 3 hours from KL International airport (LCCT) to reach Tawau airport, from Tawau there will be land transport arrange by Kapalai resort which took us one and a half hours to reach Semporna Jetty from there to the resort is about 45minute on speed boat.
Kapalai resort was build on top of a shallow sandy bay on lingitan reef so virtually there is no land; however there is some sandy bay that you can walk around during low tide. Overall the resort is very nice, windy, very comfortable but do not expect luxury, staff are friendly, food are nice and diving crew and dive facility are 5 star.
After a short briefing from hotel staff we went straight for our check out dive at Kapalai house reef, I have to mention specifically the house reef as you will have high chances of seeing flamboyant cuttlefish a small tiny colorful and rarely seeing cuttlefish you can read some write up
here this is the first time I ever seen this kind of cuttlefish and is just awesome !!!
The highlight of the whole trip definitely is diving in SIPADAN…. This is my 2nd time dive in Sipadan and I’m as excited as before. However this trip is a little bit tuff due to bad weather and very choppy water that cause some of our member having bad sea sick and the visibility was also not great thanks to the weather.
As usual when you dive in Sipadan you have check with you gauge a little more and strongly suggest dive with a dive computer. Sipadan is like huge mushrooms grow out of the sea and is virtually a bottom less dive only few site you can see a sandy bottom as a result you lost your reference point on how deep you are. During the 2nd dive on Sipadan I went into decompression dive as show from my dive computer due to this I need a 12 minute safety stop instead of a usual 3minute the good news is I still have plenty of air for my stop the bad news is other that went up to the boat have to wait for me. I think some of the divers also hit decompression dive because they do not have a computer the only did 3 minute of safety stop which is not very good. Usual dive side you will dive in Sipadan is south point, barracuda point, drop off, coral garden and etc. I personally like South point and barracuda point a lot, thing to see include numbers of white tips shark, green turtle, school of Jack fish, school of resident barracuda and etc (check out my picture).
In this post I posted some of the fee I spend during my trip as a reference for anyone that is interested in Diving in Kapalai. However the fee is only for reference basis and it can varies depend on the season and also which country you from I guess……
Total Stay : 4days 3 night
Total Dive: 9 dive (can be more as house reef is unlimited)
F&B: Full board (exclude alcoholic drink)
Flight: from KUL (LCCT) terminal to Tawau (returned flight)
Total Spending: Accommodation: RM2150++,Flight: RM400 (it depend on when you book the flight, if you book earlier it will be cheaper)
