If you’re an avid diver, you’ve probably heard of Sipadan – the best dive site in Malaysia and one of the top 10 dive sites in the world. It’s also home to the Seaventures Dive Resort, a dive rig and floating village, giving you breathtaking views, unlimited diving options and a truly unique place to lay your head at night and listen to the rhythms of the ocean around you. But this resort isn’t for the everyday holidaymaker – it’s a tailored rig designed for avid divers, equipped with everything you need for diving. Today, we wanted to give you a taste of what time on the rig is like, and why you should give it a try!
Explore The Facilities
When you’re ready to start diving, you need to get down to the water. This in itself is an adventure as you can’t just walk to the edge and jump in. Instead, you need to take the elevator. Yes, you read that right. The Seaventures resort operates an elevator at its heart, which hoists divers up and down the rig, and even into the house reef below the waves. So you can slide directly into the flourishing reef below the rig and start your dive off right. You also have the chance to go out to other dive sites and excursions throughout your stay, including rig diving, wreck diving, muck diving and drop-offs.
The Seaventures resort is also equipped with a full dive deck, complete with everything a diver needs, from nitrox tanks to dive equipment, camera charging stations and shower area. Just inside, you will find comfortable rooms with a strong WiFi signal, a restaurant serving home-cooked meals, a bar and a fully stocked dessert fridge (we recommend the crème brûlée). During your surface intervals, you can tan on the deck, play pool in the games room, nap in the deck hammocks or even take a run in the small gym or have a massage. The showers and baths all use water supplied by a reverse osmosis filtration system, which means you might get some salty bathwater, but it’s easy to get used to. You might not enjoy this rig if you’re not a diver, since there isn’t much to do except eat, sleep, dive and repeat. But if you’re a diver looking for some good R&R, Seaventures Dive Rig Resort is the perfect place for you.
Conservation Work
The Sipadan is one of the most stunning stretches of the ocean you can find in the world. It’s also one of the most well preserved, thanks in part to the efforts of places like the Seaventures dive resort. Despite running a business out at sea, they are passionate about preserving the beautiful waters around them. They use an environmentally friendly reverse osmosis system for all of their water needs, and they regularly run ‘clean up dives’ of staff and visitors to keep the area and it’s wildlife clean and protected. They are also active contributors to the Project AWARE, Divers Against Debris program, as well as members of Green Fins (an organisation that sets conservation standards for dive centres). They have resident marine biologists on the rig, who regularly do conservation talks and teach dive courses with an emphasis on conservation and care. If you want to help preserve The Big Blue, there is no better place you could go for a dive holiday.
Wildlife | Seaventures Dive Resort | Dive Sipadan
Of course, you’re not really there for the rooms, the crème brûlée or the salty showers. You’re there to dive! So, what can be found in the colourful reefs below the Seaventures Dive Resort? Well, sharks, barracuda and hump heads are just the beginning. Baby scorpionfish, elegant Spanish dancers, psychedelic nudibranch, moray eels, goliath groupers and turtles the size of dinner plates. Sharks swim the waters regularly, you can enjoy a huge variety of macro life in the house reef, as well as the chance to submerge at dusk and experience the reef at night. And if you like trivia – the rig was home to the Blue Planet crew (yes, the one with David Attenborough) for two weeks. The crew dived every day to film the reef, hoping to get a shot of male humphead parrotfish bumping heads. It took two weeks to get that single shot, after which the crew left for the next location.
At Borneo Dream, we love finding new and exciting locations for our diving getaways. The Seaventures Dive Resort is always a firm favourite among novice and experienced divers, and a great place to really escape from the modern world and get back in touch with nature. We offer a wide range of diving courses and experiences, so you can make the most of your trip to Malaysia. To find out more, just get in touch with us today.