SIAMIL THE NEW FRONTIER – EAST BORNEO Part 4

  Sabah already has three famous dive sites off its east coast – Sipadan, Mabul and Kapalai – but another may soon be added to that illustrious list – Siamil. This small island is just starting to be explored and its treasures are waiting to be revealed.
    During our recent trip to East Borneo our main objective was to dive the walls at Sipadan and the muck sites at Mabul and Kapalai. Our base for nine glorious days of diving was the Seaventures Dive Rig, the most unique dive resort in the world – a converted oil rig accommodation platform. The Dive Rig accommodates 51 divers in 25 rooms and offers daily diving to the great dive sites in the area.
    Upon arrival on the Dive Rig, Daniel White, the rig manager, mentioned that he would try and get us out to a new area that they were just starting to dive called Siamil. They were only diving Siamil every few weeks, but had so far found some interesting dive sites. A few days later Daniel informed us that he had organised the trip to Siamil. We were not the only ones excited about exploring this new site, as all the dive guides on the Dive Rig were keen to try something new, most of them had never visited Siamil.
    It was a 45 minute boat ride to Siamil and as we got closer we could see there were actually two islands here, the second island called Danawan, and both were covered in thick jungle. Arriving at the dive site we were just below the jungle covered hills with insects buzzing loudly. As this area is only just starting to be explored the site we were about to dive had no official name, just the Coral Gardens . We jumped in to find 20m visibility and a wall dropping from 3m to 30m.
    Drifting along the wall the first thing that impressed us about this dive site was the very rich coral growth – gorgonians, sea whips, sponges and especially colourful soft corals. But it wasn’t long before the corals were forgotten, replaced by an endless range of critters to photograph. Anglerfish, anemonefish, orang-utan crabs, mantis shrimps, leaf scorpionfish, nudibranchs, boxfish, angelfish, butterflyfish, crocodilefish and many other species. But the highlight was the moray eels, dozens of them, including a rarely seen zebra moray. At the end of the dive we even had a spotted eagle ray glide by.
    After morning tea on the island we did our next dive on another section of the Coral Gardens , seeing many of the same creatures, including three anglerfish. Lunch on Siamil was a little wet, sheltering under a tree during a tropical downpour, so it was nice to get back into the 29°C water for our final dive. This time we explored the channel between the two islands, another site with no name. We explored a sloping coral wall and again found a great range of critters; octopus, anglerfish, nudibranchs, moray eels and several crocodilefish. At the end of the dive we found a dramatic drop-off, disappearing into dark water, where schools of fusiliers and fairy basslets were swarming. We didn’t have time to investigate this drop-off but it is a site worthy of further exploration.
    Diving around Siamil is still in its infancy and many exciting dive sites will no doubt be found here in this new frontier area of East Borneo .

For more information – www.seaventuresdive.com

Article appeared in Dive Log No.273 April 2011