Bukit Tengkorak

Once a major pottery producing site, Bukit Tengkorak or Skull Hill sits in down town Semporna. This archeological magnificence is a 30 minute track from the centre of town.

Walking up the wooden stairs on the upper forested area will lead you to the cave system. Here a museum welcomes visitors to view its historical finds. Archeological research uncovered pottery shards in layers of ash which were probably remnants of open kilns used for firing pottery. Excavations discovered clay for pottery making. Historical studies point to trading between the people of Bukit Tengkorak and other prehistoric communities along the southeastern coast of Sabah.

Archaeologists believed that long-distance sea trade and migration of people in insular SEA and the Pacific moved east from Melanesia (near Papua New Guinea) to Polynesia, leaving behind what is known as the “Lapita culture” of pottery, stone tools and ornaments.

“Our research at Bukit Tengkorak shows that 3,000 years ago, people were not only moving east towards New Britain in Melanesia but also westwards towards Sabah,” explains Dr Stephen Chia of USM’s Centre for Archaeological Research Malaysia, who based his PhD thesis on the site.

“This is one of the longest trading routes in the world during the Neolithic period,” says the archeochemist who found obsidian (a volcanic glass used to make tools) at the site and traced it chemically to Talasea in New Britain, 3500 kilometres away. His fieldwork in Southeast Asia also found stone tools and pottery similar to Bukit Tengkorak in the Zamboanga Peninsula, the Sulu Archipelago and Sulawesi.

Earmarked as one of the major attractions for the district, this place will be further developed and will eventually feature heritage trails based on the Bajau theme.

Bukit Tengkorak Archaeological Sites, Semporna

This archaeological site is located at Jalan Tampi-Tampi, about 10km south of Semporna town. It is on a hill about 600 feet above sea level. Bukit Tengkorak is a volcanic rock-shelter site and a part of volcano mouth of 2km in diameter. Bukit Tengkorak Archaeological Site is the largest pottery making factory in Southeast Asia during the Neolithic period.

The hill slopes are littered with numerous pottery shards with various patterns dating 3,000 BP. An archaeological study shows that pottery making is still practiced by the Bajau of Semporna today.

GPS coordinates
N4026.323’ E118037.169’

Opening hours
9.00 am – 5.00 pm daily

How to Get Here

We are located at Semporna – Tawau  road and about 10km from Semporna town ship.

Reff : http://museum.sabah.gov.my, http://www.sabah.gov.my

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Ka'andaman Spa Mabul

Imagine being spoilt like royalty in a place with sparkling white sands, clear blue waters, and soft breeze caressing your skin. Fancy this novel experience? Then hop onto the next boat to Ka’andaman Spa Mabul now!

Located at the Mabul Water Bungalows (SMART), Ka’andaman Spa is built on wooden stilts just above the sea. While indulging in a pampering session of spa treatment, visitors get a glimpse of beautiful marine lives dwelling beneath the water surface.

After a long day of sunbathing and soaking in salt water; opt to replenish your skin with a warm, relaxing milk bath that is guaranteed to soothe your sun kissed skin.

Team up long, relaxing walks by the beach with rejuvenating foot and body massages while listening to the sounds of crashing waves and drinking in the breathtaking view of the Celebes Sea.

Catered for the mind, body, and soul, Ka’andaman Spa has an array of foot and body treatments to suit the delicate needs of individuals. For a more indulgent treat, visitors can also pick and choose from the available spa packages.

A treatment session at the Ka’andaman Spa Mabul will definitely leave you craving for more—here is where wellness meets luxury.

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Sipadan Island

The internationally famous island of Sipadan lies five degrees north of the equator in the Sulawesi Sea (Celebes Sea). Lying 35km south of Semporna, on Sabah’s mainland, like many tropical islands it is thickly forested and surrounded by sandy beaches. Sipadan is an oceanic island and was formed by living corals growing on top of an extinct undersea volcano, which rises 600m from the seabed.

The geographic position of Sipadan puts it in the centre of the richest marine habitat in the world, the heart of the Indo-Pacific basin. More than 3000 species of fish and hundreds of coral species have been classified in this richest of ecosystems. Sipadan is well known for its unusually large numbers of green and hawksbill turtles which gather there to mate and nest and it is not unusual for a diver to see more than 20 turtles on each dive. Another unique feature to divers visiting Sipadan is the turtle tomb, an underwater limestone cave with a labyrinth of tunnels and chambers that contain many skeletal remains of turtles that became disoriented and then drowned.

 

The residential schooling barracuda and big-eye trevally, which often gather in thousands forming spectacular tornado-like formations, are one of the highlights of every diver’s wish-list. With the possibility of seeing pelagic species such as mantas, eagle rays, scalloped hammerhead sharks and whale sharks, each dive at Sipadan is a highly anticipated event.

It is not only the big fish that amaze divers coming to Sipadan, the macro life is equally mesmerizing. Garden eels, leaf scorpion fish, mantis shrimps, fire gobies, and various pipefish are guaranteed at various dive sites. The diversity and abundance of marine found at Sipadan gives it its reputation of being one of the ten best dive locations in the world.

Diving at Sipadan Island

Sipadan is a legend in diving circles and with good reason. It is located at the heart of the Indo-Pacific basin, one of the richest marine habitats in the world; where over 3,000 species of fish and hundreds of coral species have been identified. Apart from its supreme location, the island and the dive sites that surround it are filled with spectacular natural formations such as a 600m reef wall and a labyrinth of underwater limestone caves, where many turtles have met their doom.

The tiny island can be circled on foot in less than half an hour, but offers at least nine established dive sites with enchanting names like Hanging Garden, Turtle patch, White-tip Avenue, Coral Garden and Barracuda point. Although diving is the main attraction of Sipadan, non-divers are welcome to join the diving boats to go snorkelling in Sipadan. Those that want to start exploring the depths can even complete a four day PADI diving course or a one day Discover Scuba Diving course, offered by all the dive centres on the island.

Underwater encounters

It is not only the diversity but also the abundance of the marine life in Sipadan that has earned its status as one of the top diving locations in the world.

A rich variety of soft and hard corals create a vividly colored backdrop, where equally vibrant schools of tropical fish hover and sway in the current. There are Dendronephyta corals in delicate pastels and feather stars of all shades and hues. Don’t miss diving at Coral Garden to see all of these in their full glory.

It is the thrill of Sipadan’s bigger marine life that brings divers back here time and again. Here you can swim amidst tornado-like schools of thousands of Barracuda and Big-eyed Trev ally or watch as giant schools of Bumphead Parrotfish munch their way through the corals. Manta and eagle rays soar through the Celebes Sea and deeper down, Hammerhead sharks stalk their prey. Endangered green and hawks bill turtles are found in unusually large numbers in the area and some divers see up to twenty of these in one dive.

The macro life is equally mesmerising. Garden eels, leaf scorpion fish, mantis shrimps, fire gobbles and various species of pipe fish are in abundance, if you can peel your eyes away from the big fish for a minute!

Conservation efforts in Sipadan

Sipadan Island was established as a bird sanctuary in 1933 and in 2004, the Government of Malaysia has decided that all onsite dive resort operators are to move their operations out of Sipadan Island by 31st December 2004. The island is open for divers from 6am to 4pm - no night dives are allowed. The number of divers allowed to dive in Sipadan daily has also been limited to 120 pax in an effort to preserve the island’s pristine state.

Sipadan is a treasure which we want to save for the generations to come, before Sipadan can be saved, it must first be truly appreciated - hence the conservation efforts. Nevertheless, a treasure amounts to nothing if it cannot be enjoyed. Therefore, Sabah welcomes everyone to enjoy and appreciate Sipadan, and this appreciation will hopefully incite a bigger desire to save.

Sipadan Dive Sites

There a total of 12 dive sites in Sipadan Island namely the West Ridge, North Point, The Drop Off, Turtle Cavern, Barracuda Point, Coral Gardens, Whitetip Avenue, Mid Reef, Turtle Patch, South Point, Staghorn Crest, Lobster Lair, and the Hanging Gardens. The most popularly recommended dive sites are the Turtle Cavern, Barracuda Point, South Point and Hanging Gardens.

Barracuda Point
The Barracuda Point is located at the north Coast of Sipadan Island. Famous for its astounding vortex of barracudas (hence the name Barracuda Point), divers have also reported sightings of white tip sharks, grey reef sharks, eagle rays, turtles, as well as the bumphead parrotfish. A caveat: currents can get too strong, so don't go too deep!

Turtle Cavern

This site is famous for its population of green turtles and smaller hawksbill turtles. This cavern which lies 20 meters underwater is believed to be the final resting place of turtles. Divers are reminded to be extremely careful when exploring the caves as visibility can be drastically reduced to zero should the silt be disturbed.

South Point
South Point is one of the most likely sites for the rarer sharks such as the hammerheads and thresher sharks which are normally only seen around the 40-meter point. Divers are advised to be wary of the strong currents at this site.

Hanging Gardens
Named after the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the topography of the Hanging Gardens consists of a 2-meter-deep reef that slopes down to a terrace at about 70 meters which subsequently plunges into an abyss. This is an excellent spot to view soft corals with dendronephthya alcyonarians in multifarious pastel colours encrusting the slope. Do keep an eye also for the diverse macro life.

Where to Stay
The Malaysian government has decided that all existing onsite dive resort operators were to move their operations out of the Sipadan Island by 31st December 2004. The move is aimed at conserving and maintaining a balanced marine and land ecosystem on Sipadan’s environments. However, Sipadan will remain as a dive site and divers are to be ferried by operators operating from the mainland or nearby islands other than Sipadan and Ligitan.

On an overnight trip to Sipadan, choose to stay in any one of these excellent resorts:

1. Borneo Divers & Sea Sports (Sabah) Sdn Bhd (KPL 1510)
2. Explore Asia Tours Sdn Bhd (Sipadan-Mabul Resort) (KPL 2941)
3. Seaventures Tours & Travel Sdn Bhd (KPL/LN 2639)
4. Sipadan Water Village Resort Sdn Bhd (KPL 3143)

* Resort rates may vary

Getting There

From Kota Kinabalu, take a 55-minute flight to Tawau and enjoy an hour’s drive to Semporna. From Semporna, Sipadan is another 40 minutes by speedboat. Be sure to pre-arrange transportation with your respective resort/dive operator.

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Mataking Island

With its sparkling white sand, mesmerizing blue waters and top-class resort, Mataking Island is the ideal getaway for both the avid diver and non-diver. Divers can gear up and explore the Eel Garden, Coral Garden, Nudibranch Garden, Turtle Playground, Lobsters Lair and Hump Head Point.

Non-diving activities include a luxurious pampering experience at Jamu Spa, batik painting, kayaking, canoeing and jungle-trekking to name a few. A must-do during your time in Mataking is to take a leisurely walk to Pulau Mataking Kecil (literally meaning Small Mataking island) which is a 20-minute walk from the main island. The best time to take this walk is in the morning when the tides are low, allowing you to walk on a sandy stretch that leads directly to the smaller island. With the sea surrounding you on both sides, you will feel almost as if you are walking on water!

When you arrive back on the main island, climb up the wooden observation tower to get a breathtaking view of Mataking and its surrounding areas. Catch a glimpse of Mataking's famous ‘Underwater Post Office', the first of its kind in Malaysia. In March 2006, the resort decided to sink Mataking 1, an old 40-foot wooden cargo ship to create an artificial reef and also to serve as a unique underwater mailbox. Divers seal their mail in a waterproof vacuum bag and post it underwater. Picturesque, equipped with excellent facilities and complemented with friendly service at all times, your stay at Mataking will never be long enough.

Diving

Of course the main attraction remains diving. The island offers fantastic macro and pelagic dive sites, for all skill levels, with 10 dive sites and other 23 to choose from in the neighboring islands, with the furthest being one 25 minutes away by speedboat. Some of the underwater wonders that you will encounter are barracudas, rainbow runners, frog fish, turtles, and plenty of other types of tropical fish. You can also spot dolphins across the calm seas, or even whale sharks.

The Mataking Resort

Mataking Island Dive ResortIt is one of the most exclusive and romantic resorts, a gem for honeymooners. Among its accommodations it has 5 Beach Villas and 8 King Chalets, designed in traditional architecture, exquisitely elegant, providing a serene environment. All the rooms are air conditioned and have sea view bathrooms and balconies. All in all, they make your stay on the Mataking Island the most passionate and memorable one.

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Kapalai Island

Kapalai island – The mere name conjures the image of crystal clear waters and a floating paradise like no other. A 45-minute trip from Semporna by speedboat, Kapalai island is one of the many beautiful diving havens in this part of the world. However, Kapalai is truly unique because it is not quite an ‘island’.

The 40 chalets are built on high wooden stilts in the middle of the ocean. Visitors can enjoy the sights of marine life in action as they stroll along the boardwalk, a sturdy construction that connects the various sections of the floating resort. The resort has 40 chalets, equipped with basic amenities, including tea and coffee making facilities.

You will never have to gripe about having a less than desirable view: you have a breathtaking view of the Celebes Sea no matter where you turn! The restaurant is a wooden deck, where diners can eat indoors or al fresco. There’s even a viewing area in the middle of the restaurant which allows you to see the myriad of marine life passing below.

The sundeck, a popular favourite, is a great place to enjoy your novel, work on a tan or indulge in an afternoon siesta. The Dive Centre provides diving, snorkelling and kayaking gear for rent. Can’t dive but would love to? No problem! The centre offers a variety of PADI courses, including Open Water and Introduction to Night Diving. After enjoying your underwater paradise, explore other facilities offered by the resort including the souvenir shop, games room and broadband access.

Diving in Kapalai

Diving around Kapalai is exceedingly easy and shallow but quite spectacular: the sandy bottom and the spare coral heads host an amazing array of small, often yet-to-be classified, shamelessly colorful subjects, making the diving here an unforgettable experience.

Home to the weird and techno-colored flamboyant cuttlefish rumbling on the bottom like a miniature tank rippling with fluorescent waves of vermilion, purple, chocolate brown, bright yellow and blinding white, all the time waving and flourishing its paddle-shaped front tentacles like some samurai of yore, looking more like a sensuous orchid than a predatory cephalopod ; it is the domain of the invisible frog fish found in Kapalai in all sorts of shapes, sizes and colors- which despite sometimes being as large as a melon will often escape even from the most trained of wildlife spotters.

Swimming, creeping, crawling or just simply lying still on the surrounding sand bottoms, hiding among the branching colonies of the shallow surrounding coral reef, ambushing their unwary prey from the hideouts offered by the resort stilts and a few artificial reefs dotting the bottom, an amazing number of rare and unbelievably colorful species play their game of life and death, offering discrim nating visitor unsurpassed opportunities for interesting observation and macro photography for any discerning photographer

Though diving is the highly commended activity in Kapalai, there are other water activities one can indulge in such as swimming, snorkeling as well as ocean kayaking while looking at the many colorful fishes swimming freely just a few inches beneath.

Ref : http://www.sabahtourism.com, http://www.toursofborneo.com,http://www.sipadan-kapalai.com

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Mabul Island

Mention Mabul Island and visions of swaying coconut trees and idyllic water villages come to mind. And that’s just above the water. Located only about 15 minutes by speedboat from the famous Sipadan Island, Mabul has gained its own recognition as one of the best muck-diving (a term used to describe limited visibility dives at shallow sites with usually sandy bottoms) sites in the world.

Mabul is a small oval shaped island fringed 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 25–30m deep.

Mabul is also renowned for its amazing array of macrolife, making it an underwater photographer’s dream location to capture some of the rarest ecological species on film. Flamboyant cuttlefish, blue-ringed octopus, spike-fin gobies, frogfish and moray eels are just some of the spectacular critters you will encounter beneath the waters of Mabul.

Although all the excitement is underwater, you can always set your scuba gear aside for a day to laze on Mabul’s soft sand to work on your tan.

Diving Mabul

It is more correctly recognised now that the reason for the quality of the MUCK Diving is simply a result of overfishing uses of cyanide and dynamite by the local people of this area.

The reef is on the edge of the continental shelf and the seabed surrounding the reef slopes out to 25 to 30 m deep. There are several dive resorts operating on Mabul island.

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 cephalopods to be found on Mabul's reef.

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 regularly seen along with almost the whole scorpion fish family.

Popular dive sites around the island include:

• Coral Reef Garden
• Crocodile Avenue
• Eel Garden
• Froggy Lair
• Lobster Wall
• Nudibranch Centre
• Panglima Reef
• Ray Point

There are six resorts here, which provides accommodation for scuba divers - most located on the island or on stilts over the water, while one is on a converted oil platform about 500 meters from the beach. There are also several homestay & backpacker accommodations which also arrange diving. All of the resorts/homestays can arrange a day trip to the nearby island of Pulau Sipadan. Be warned that there is a permit system for Sipadan and all permits may be booked months in advance. Diving is good around Mabul itself there is a good wall at Panglima and the best muck diving sites are called Paradise. There is good diving at Kapalai especially the house reef.

Getting There

From Kota Kinabalu, take a 55-minute flight to Tawau and enjoy an hour’s drive to Semporna. From Semporna, Sipadan is another 40 minutes by speedboat. Be sure to pre-arrange transportation with your respective resort/dive operator.

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Tun Sakaran Marine Park

For the marine enthusiast, the blue-green mesmerizing beauty of the Tun Sakaran Marine Park beckons with a hundred and one promises of a wonderful experience both above and underwater. Lying 20 kilometers (approximately 2-hour boat ride away) off the Semporna mainland, The Tun Sakaran Marine Park is the largest marine park in Sabah. At 350 square kilometers, it also has the largest concentration of coral reefs in Malaysia.

This Marine Park, which is also known as the Semporna Islands Park, comprises of eight islands—Bohey Dulang, Bodgaya, Sebangkat, Selakan, Mantabuan, Sibuan, Maiga, as well as the Church Reef and Kapikan Reef. Bohey Dulang and Bodgaya islands are extinct volcanic remnants while Sebangkat and Selakan are two islands of raised limestone platforms.

Although the islands of Tun Sakaran Marine Park are lesser known compared to Sipadan Island; the marine park is said to have an even higher level of biodiversity than in Sipadan. Whereas Sipadan has a collection of bigger fish and an abundance of turtles, sharks, and other marine lives inhabiting its waters; Tun Sakaran Park has more biodiversity in terms of species and habitats.

Tun Sakaran Marine Park is not equipped with facilities for tourists; however, visitors are welcome to explore the marine park’s dive sites with their snorkels and scuba gears. Divers have reported many sightings of eagle rays, turtles, barracuda, bumphead parrotfish, and plenty of nudibranchs. There are large walls and a cornucopia of macrolife in the Bodgaya lagoon, while the sandy areas are home to big gorgonian fans and sea pens.

Not a water buff? Take some time to tour the Tun Sakaran Marine Research Unit in Bohey Dulang Island where the giant clam spawning and seaweed farming centre is located. This centre cultivates seven species of giant clams - two of which are already extinct - to be released back into the sea after 6-7 months.

*Prior to visit, visitors need to obtain a permit from Sabah Parks.

Getting there

The journey to from Tawau to Semporna by road takes approximately one hour. The transfer to Tun Sakaran Marine Park by speedboat takes about 45 minutes - 1 hour.

ref: http://www.sabahtourism.com/

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