| Mabul Island
Mabul Island first became popular due to its close proximity to
Sipadan Island, however, in the last few years it has gained its
own recognition as one of the best “muck-diving” sites in the world.
Mabul Island is a small oval shaped island surrounded by sandy beaches
and perched on the northwest corner of a larger 200-hectare reef.
The reef is on the edge of the continental shelf and the seabed
surrounding the reef slopes out to 25m – 30m deep. There are two
resorts on Mabul Island; Sipadan Water Village and Sipadan-Mabul
Resort and one resort on a nearby refurbished oil rig called Sea
Ventures Dive Resort.
Mabul is arguably one of the richest single destinations for exotic
small marine life anywhere in the world. Flamboyant cuttlefish,
blue-ringed octopus, mimic octopus and bobtail squids are just a
few of the numerous types of cephalapods to be found on Mabul’s
reef. The sight of harlequin shrimp feeding on sea stars and boxer
crabs waving their tiny anemone pom-poms are just a small example
of the endless species of crustaceans. Many types of gobies can
be found including the spike-fin goby, black sail-fin goby and metallic
shrimp goby. Frogfish are everywhere giant, painted and clown frogfish
are all regularly seen. Moray eels and snake eels of many types
can be seen along with almost the whole scorpionfish family. It
would be quicker to list the species not found at Mabul crazy critters
are in abundance at this magical macro site!
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