Kapalai – a stilt village built on top of a submerged reef one hour by speedboat from Semporna on the east coast of Sabah, Borneo. The only land is a sand bar exposed at low tide.

To get there, fly to Tawau, Sabah from the provincial capital Kota Kinabalu then take a minibus for the 75 minute drive to Semporna. The driver meets you off the plane at Tawau and then it is a swift drive along goods roads through palm plantations to the coast. Pulau Sipadan Resorts (PSR) who run Kapalai have their own private pier and the boat is waiting when you arrive. Luggage is handled by the crew and a little initial arrival paperwork is done in the office on the pier before you board.

Kapalai is well located for boat dives to the more famous neighbouring islands of Sipadan and Mabul but the best diving, if you are looking for small, unusual, hard to find creatures, is around the reefs of Kapalai itself.

The dive centre runs air only, no nitrox yet and has 80 cu ft ( 11 litre ) tanks with valves for A clamp first stages, (DIN users bring adapters). Good airfills, 3000 to 3300 psi (200 to 220 bar) are the norm. Some rental equipment is available and it looks reasonably new and well-maintained. They have a willing dive shop crew and excellent dive masters gifted at finding the impossible, (a shrimp living in a sea cucumbers butt, even!!) All dives are 45 to 50 minutes long; no decompression and a five minute safety stop. The first dive on Day One is a check out dive from the Kapalai jetty, a paradise for rare sea life.

The normal daily schedule is

0700 to 0800 Breakfast
0800 Dive One
1100 Dive Two
1300 Lunch
1500 Dive Three
1630 Snacks
1900 to 2000 Dinner

You can add a dawn dive or late afternoon dive off the jetty to see the weird and wonderful creatures at the times they are most active. Just post your names and entry time on the board so they know you are in. You need to take a buddy but a dive master is not necessary, although you can always request one if you want to find something particularly elusive. We needed help for instance to find the gorgeous but inconveniently tiny mandarin fish.

Tea, coffee, lemon tea, juice, water and biscuits are always available at the bar and free of charge. The food is good and there is plenty of it although not a great deal of variety. Dinner consists of a seafood dish, a meat dish, (NOT pork), two choices of vegetables, rice and either french fries or spaghetti, and fruit for dessert. Restaurant and housekeeping staff are mostly Filipino and very friendly. A number run their own little private business selling jewellery; they are very happy if you buy but there is no pressure if you don’t.

The Kapalai shop has a good range of high quality tees at RM35, (about US$9.00), and they have a small reference library of marine life identification books so you can put a name to the wonderful things you have seen during your dives. The resort is well used to photographers and they say E6 processing is available, although we having gone digital, did not get around to checking this out.

On the boats, dive groups are kept small, usually four to eight people. Entry is a backwards roll over the side and you get back into the boat via a small ladder on the side. Easy to get up with gear on but if you want to take it off first and climb the ladder unencumbered this is fine too. There are plenty of helping hands on board with each boat staffed by captain, crewman and divemaster.

The rooms have no airconditioning but the sea breeze does the job really well and they stay cool even in the middle of the day. And of course you have sea-views on all four sides…….and below! I can best describe it as like living on a large boat with no movement, no engine noise and no claustrophobia! The rooms all have private bathrooms and private balconies. There is hot water all day along with plenty of powerpoints ( 3 PIN UK style 220 V) for charging cameras and lights. Towels and blankets are provided although these are quite thin and you should bring your own soap and shampoo.

Tips are not demanded but they are much appreciated and the staff really deserve them. EVERYONE on Kapalai smiles constantly and the whole place has a relaxed, laid back feel.

You only really appreciate the peace and quiet of Kapalai when you visit neighbouring Sipadan and see the diveshops and hotels crowded along the beach , not to mention the hundreds of divers queued up on the pier waiting to take their turn on the underwater fairground ride that Sipadan has become. The island is a victim of its own success and while numbers there are a fraction of what they were a couple of years ago, this is package tour diving for the masses.

But from Kapalai you get all the access to Sipadan with none of the downside AND you get some incredible “muck diving” (as it is called in Papua New Guinea) both around Kapalai itself and around nearby Mabul Island. See how many of the following are on YOUR private list of “must sees”

Clown Frog Fish
Giant Frog Fish
Dwarf Scorpion Fish
Ornate Ghost Pipe Fish
Devil Scorpion Fish
Fingered Dragonet
Blue Ringed Octopus
Snake Eel
Mantis Shrimp
Crocodile Fish
Flying Gurnard
Razor Fish

Enough rarities for a week of diving??? That was the haul on one dive!! And all in a small, sandy area with occasional coral outcrops and sponge colonies.

Security concerns prompted by Muslim terrorist activity in the area in recent years are assuaged by the presence of a military detachment quartered at the far end of the stilt pathway. We also saw Malaysian naval patrol vessels vigilant in the passage between Kapalai and Sipadan.

Sipadan diving is not difficult but the following pointers will help you get much more from your trip. The walls are deep so buoyancy control and self-discipline are important to make sure you keep to the planned depth and dive profile. A dive computer is necessary for you to keep track of multiple dives over multiple days. The schedule is similar to that on a live-aboard so carrying two dive computers on every dive is a good idea, (so you have an accurate record of your tissue loading in the event of one computer crashing).

Buoyancy and excellent fin control are also crucial when you are looking for and photographing the rare creatures inhabiting the sand patches at Kapalai and Mabul. You MUST master the skill of getting close to the animal you are looking at without your fins touching the sand. And if they do touch the sand, have the mental awareness to resist the temptation to kick……NEVER EVER KICK!!!! If you want to swim away from a resting position, become slightly positively buoyant to raise yourself from the sand and, only when you are above the sea bed, scull your fins with a gentle sideways movement to propel yourself away. Do NOT kick vertically or the wash from the downward movement of your fin will produce a sand eddy.

There are a number of different ways of finning other than the classic wide full-legged flutter kick. Before your trip, go to the beach or the pool and practice frog kicks, modified flutter kicks and a pull and glide technique which cave and wreck divers usr to minimise movement in a confined overhead environment. If you need help consult your instructor. If it is too late and you are reading this on the plane or in your room at the resort, just watch what your dive guide does and copy him. (By improving your fin technique you will find that your air consumption improves too. Now there’s a bonus!)

Another important point to remember is, when you are down near the bottom looking at the animal, never scull with your hands to maintain balance. It does not work, it immediately marks you out as a new diver and, as with poor fin technique, hand-sculling will cause the sand to swirl up around the creature, obscuring it from everyone’s view. The photographers will not get their picture, your name will be mud and you will have a very lonely week as all the other divers seek to avoid you! If you lose your balance, shift your body position by moving your shoulders to regain equilibrium or use breath control to make yourself more or less buoyant.

If you find this difficult, it may be that you are over-weighted and are compensating for this by injecting air into your BCD. This excess air is moving around within the cell as you swim and is making it hard for you to maintain your balance.

Also prepare for current – most of the dives are a nice gentle drift but sometimes you will find you have to kick against a current to reach a certain location where a frogfish or blue ringed octopus may be lurking. After any period of exertion always rest, grab hold of a rock, (making sure first of all that it IS a rock), and get your breath back, while checking your contents gauge to see how much air you have remaining.

Hope you find these suggestions helpful. Have fun in Kapalai. It’s like nowhere else on the ocean!