April 2013

I went back to hometown Sandakan Sabah with a group of hometown frens who are based at KL and Singapore now.

The purposes of the trip are Good Friday, Ching Meng, gathering among the buddies, seafood, Orang utan, Kinabatangan rivers and Diving + beach...

Lankayan island located at the north east of Sandakan Sabah.

Speedboat, well maintained and spacious, can comfortably contain 15 persons and powered with 2*250hp. The journey took more than 1.5hr due to rough sea.

Restaurant which also houses the registration desk and the dive center are both sitting on stilts above the sea, spacious and fantastic view. Food comes with many variety, taste average to good.




The only resort has 16 unit chalets only, thus a peaceful and relax island environment. Chalet balcony came with beautiful sunrise. Powdery beach, just jump off from the balcony. 




Check out dive at the home reef, artificial site with camp and wooden tower, viz was 5m or less! I was alone half way coz was checking out  a lionfish without notifying buddy, managed to find buddy n others awhile later. 

*Note: Stay closely to buddy n communicate especially during bad viz

Then dived at Sunnug Lair (22m), the Lankayan wreck (24m), and Jawfish Lair (18m). Again, viz r bad, around 5m. Nevertheless, sealife s active at these sites. various type of shrimps and nudibranch at Sunnug Lair, ghost pipefish, octopus and those beautiful corals at Jawfish Lair, and many scorpion fish, lion fish and lobsters at the wreck.

Last dive at South Point was the highlight. As plan, dived to 18m which has low viz and reverted to shallow depth of 8-12m. rewards are school of yellow tails, school of jackfishs, 5-6 fat sweetlips, 2 huge green turtles, a cute tiny yellow boxfish (2-3cm) [i enjoyed his/her dancing around for minutes] and the beautifully healthy corals.