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This description is not far from reality: it might even actually downplay a little bit, as Sipadan is considered one of the five top diving destinations in the world. This small rainforest-covered tropical island rising from a 700 meter abyss in the Celebes Sea is a destination the committed diver cannot miss.
Pulau Sipadan Resort & Tours Sdn Bhd, one of a handful of operators allowed to bring divers into this protected island, Divers will be confortably accommodate at Sipadan-Kapalai Dive Resort (Known best as Kapalai), offers great food and comfortable accommodation in simple, water chalets with attached bathrooms, mini refregerator and power points, with three boat dives a day, unlimited pier diving and not-to-be missed excursions to the nearby very different dive sites around Kapalai and Mabul.
A few minutes by boat from Sipadan but a full world away it lies the exhilarating Sipadan-Kapalai Dive Resort , sitting on its sturdy stilts on the shallow sandbanks of the Ligitan Reefs. Planned and built in full style as an airy, comfortable, sunny water village with no land in sight, it boats a mile-long sandbank of powdery blindingly white sand where one can suntan at complete leisure.
The resort offers great food, surprisingly roomy and elegant twin-sharing wooden chalets with huge private balconies and attached bathrooms and a couple of miles of walkways for those who like to take their morning jog while looking at thousands of fish just a few inches beneath their feet. Meals are served in the terraced, open central structure, while a big western sundeck allows divers to have an evening drink or an after-dive chat with a background of fabulous tropical sunsets.
Diving around Kapalai is exceedingly easy and shallow but quiet spectacular: the sandy bottom and the spare coral heads host an amazing array of small, often yet-to-be-classified, shamelessly colorful subjects, making the diving here and unforgettable experience for any discerning photographer. The resort offers three dives a day plus, if requested, day trips at Sipadan.
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| The purest image of natural serenity, the sandbank of Kapalai and its exclusive resort- on-stilts lie on a patch of brilliant turquoise a few miles off the coast of Borneo, along the spectacular Ligitan Reefs and just a few minutes by speedboat from the celebrated (and more crowded) islands of Sipadan and Mabul. Quiet shallow waters lap at the sturdily, kampung-style built wooden bungalows overlooking the sandy sea bottom, and from the windows of the elegant, spacious rooms one can spend endless hours looking at the sea life dancing its never ending tune just a couple of meters below. Innovative in concept -a chain of roomy and well-equipped chalets with private bathrooms linked by long wooden walkways, centered around the open restaurant cum sundeck and the customary dive center -the Kapalai Dive Resort has been built on a shallow but surprisingly wide sandbank which had been long known (and dived) by underwater photographers from all over the world, who used to come all the way from Sipadan and Mabul in search of its wildly exotic resident fauna. Swimming, creeping, crawling or just simply lying still on the surrounding sand bottoms, hiding among the branching colonies of the shallow surrounding coral reef, ambushing their unwary prey from the hideouts offered by the resort stills and a few artificial reefs dotting the bottom, an amazing number of rare and unbelievably colorful species play their game of life and death, offering to the discriminating visitor unsurpassed opportunities for observation and macro photography. |
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