Usukan Wrecks, Wreck Diving in Kota Kinabalu with Borneo Dream
Fancy a scuba diving adventure? Then go Wreck Diving from Kota Kinabalu with Borneo Dream - Your only quality choice for wreck diving in Kota Kinabalu. Go on a scuba diving trip, or diving trips, to the three, large Usukan Bay World War II Japanese wrecks. Wreck diving on the ‘Usukan Wreck’, ‘Upside-down Wreck’ and the ‘Rice Bowl Wreck’ is an awesome scuba diving experience.
All of the wrecks lay in 26m – 40m of water and can have small to medium strong currents present, making them a wreck scuba diving adventure for experienced leisure divers (minimum PADI Advanced Open Water Diver) and technical divers. You can find a brief description of each wreck dive below.
As mentioned above we have a minimum qualification level for these dives and all dives are No-Decompression. If your dive operator is taking you on Decompression Dives when you are not certified and you are NOT under instruction from a Technically Qualified Instructor you are not insured and the Dive Operator is being reckless and stupid.
At Borneo Dream we have been diving these wrecks and other deep dive sites for many years and have full technical backup allowing us to operate incident free.
The Rice Bowl Wreck
So-called because a cache of rice bowls was found in the bow when it was first dived, this is a relatively long vessel lying in a North Easterly direction in 40m at its deepest and 26m at its shallowest. The superstructure is punctured in many places, making exploration possible and interesting, and the metalwork is robust. The soft coral garden is memorable. You can watch a video from a dive on the Rice Bowl Wreck (videoed by Roger Munns from Scubazoo during a diving trip with Borneo Dream on 8th July 2010).
Video of the Usukan Bay World War II Wrecks taken by Roger Munns of ScubaZoo Images
The Upside-Down Wreck
The name gives away the orientation of this ship, which lies in the same direction and at similar depth to the Rice Bowl wreck. This one has good swim-throughs, though a torch is essential and is good for exploring as well as a training ground for Wreck Diver specialty.
The Usukan Wreck
This is the deepest of the three at 35m – 45m and consequently only available to technical divers. We use rebreathers, but also support twin-tanks/Trimix and decompression diving if required. The wreck is interesting and has a spectacular whip coral coverage that can give it a frosted appearance in a certain light.
You can enjoy some photos and video from our wreck diving trips.
Video of the Rice Bowl Wreck taken by Tino De Rik
All of the wrecks are covered in stunning soft coral gardens and hard corals, teeming with fish life and home to an amazing range of marine life. Find schooling Barracuda, Nurse Sharks, large Groupers and large shoals of Yellow Snappers and Fusiliers. The variety of marine life makes scuba diving the wrecks a fantastic dive for the experienced Scuba Diver.
Please find at the bottom of this article drawings for each of the Usukan Bay Wrecks.
We recommend scuba divers use Nitrox when diving the wrecks with Borneo Dream - diving on Nitrox extends your bottom time when wreck diving the Usukan wrecks in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Borneo, Malaysia. We offer FREE Nitrox EANx30 or EANx32 for PADI Enriched Air Divers when on a wreck diving trip with Borneo Dream.
Find out more about the itinerary for this trip, what is included and diver requirements for our dive trips from Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Borneo.
Borneo Dream offers fun, high quality and safe wreck diving trip experiences. So what are you waiting for? Book your Borneo Dream wreck diving trip from Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Borneo, Malaysia today! If you fancy wreck diving for a short holiday, try our 4D3N Get Wrecked diving package.
Please note - minimum 4 persons per wreck diving trip.
Drawings of the three known wrecks at Usukan Bay reproduced with the kind permission of John Elder.
