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DIVING KAPALAI
A half hour boat ride from famous Sipadan and even less distance from acclaimed Mabul, is a resort that can only be described as something very special. Kapalai is built as a water village and her pretty bungalows hover over a clear lagoon full of fish and corals.
Although charted on maps, there is only a sand bar remaining from what was once a small island. This flat topography is similar underwater and reef mounds are washed daily by gentle tides. Corals are low lying to the contours of the landscape and are a haven for all sorts of weird and whacky critters.
There are resident mandarinfish and flambouyant cuttlefish right below the boat jetty. Ornate ghost and seagrass pipefish are all over the place while tiny pink sangian crabs were caught in the folds of barrel sponges. Leaffish appeared in threesomes, crocodilefish in groups, frogfish on virtually every dive.
Being on Kapalai is quite an experience. It's hard to describe just how good somewhere like this can be. Romantic and peaceful evenings are balanced by exciting critter life on your doorstep and big blue pelagics half an hour away on Sipadan.
For us, Kapalai was about as good as you can get - so a year later we went back. The dive guides were still incredible, the rooms as comfortable as we remembered, the food delicious PLUS there was an explosion of tiny blue ringed octopii.
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TRAVELOGUE: Flights: Malaysian Airlines to Kota Kinabalu and Tawau |
PROS AND CONS: For underwater photographers or those interested in unusual creatures, this resort ranks as one of the best in Asia. It's another one of those places where you have to actively look for a criticism. The only down side, if you could even consider it so, is that it's too far to go to for the weekend like so many Asia divers do. UPDATE: now that there is no accommodation on Sipadan, Kapalai has expanded and there are many more rooms here. The expansion appears to have been done sympathetically. Likewise there are now far more rooms on Mabul than in the past. |
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| Learn all about the Mandarinfish of Kapalai....
Complete reports on this area are in Diving the World |
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