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.

What you actually see

• 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.

Honest expectations

Sipadan permits are limited and allocated through resorts - book far ahead. Mabul has a visible waste problem and severe poverty. The eastern Sabah coast has had security advisories in the past; check current guidance.

Nearby

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