Mabul Island

Mabul is a small sand island off Semporna with stilt villages over the shallows, resorts on the shore and one of the most celebrated muck-diving sites anywhere beneath it. Muck diving means unglamorous ground - sand, silt, rubble, discarded pilings and household debris under the villages - and the point is what lives in it: flamboyant cuttlefish, blue-ringed octopus, frogfish, ghost pipefish, mandarinfish, mimic octopus and a dense concentration of nudibranchs, in a small area at shallow depth, which makes it a photographers' site above all. Sipadan, the oceanic wall dive twenty minutes away, is the region's famous name but is limited to a fixed number of permits a day and nobody may stay on it, so most divers base on Mabul. The island has a serious waste problem and a stateless Bajau Laut population living in real poverty, and neither is hidden from view.

History

The island lies about 15 km north of Sipadan, covers 0.2 square kilometres and rises only 2 to 3 metres above the sea; according to its village chief, the name comes from the Arabic makbul, "good" (Wikipedia, Mabul Island).

What's there

• Muck diving on sand - cuttlefish, frogfish and octopus in silt and rubble.
• Stilt villages over shallows - the settlements the diving happens beneath.
• The base for Sipadan - permits limited daily, with nobody permitted to stay there.
• Poverty and waste in plain sight - the Bajau Laut community and the island's rubbish.

When to go

April to December is best; diving all year. Three days.

What to expect

Sipadan permits are limited and allocated through resorts - book far ahead. Mabul has a visible waste problem and severe poverty.

Nearby

Sipadan is twenty minutes by boat; Semporna and the Tun Sakaran islands are north.

Key facts