Sipadan and Mabul Island Diving Report (Parts 1,2,3,4)

[bob.s]

i also witnessed lots of the the japanese divers hanging onto the corals in sipadan...once the guy next to me was hanging onto a soft coral and 4 inches away was a big rock..i just dont see why this has to happen..the divemasters should definetly inform people during thier briefing and then when they see this happening at least inform the person not to do it...your not going to catch everyone....but it would help to preserve such a fantastic place..

 

[alcina]

A gentle reminder:

It is sufficient to say "divers" - I doubt their bad behaviour is solely indicative of their country...I've seen good and bad divers from every country. Please watch the broadbrush stereotypes...

 

[parpy]

When i was at Sipadan at the end of septemeber 2004 i met this bunch of Koreans... arrogant and noisy people, think that they own the whole island. anyway i saw 2 people from their group PLUCKING staghorn corals while cruising through the dive site. another incident was one of them pulled the feather star out and passing it to his other group members!!! all done with their gloves on.... man i was damn pissed off.... i told the DM and the same answer was given.... sighhh

you do know that koreans draw their map with their country at the center of the world rite?

 

[Damselfish]

A gentle reminder:

It is sufficient to say "divers" - I doubt their bad behaviour is solely indicative of their country...I've seen good and bad divers from every country. Please watch the broadbrush stereotypes...

well, one can go too far with PCness - it may not be indicative of a country, but it may be indicative of typical training (and messages sent or not sent in training) in some countries. If that is the case a constructive conversation about that would not be a bad thing. That's how things start to get fixed.

 

[Damselfish]

you do know that koreans draw their map with their country at the center of the world rite?

One could argue that makes sense for them. There's no one correct way to draw a map of the world, many people are just used to seeing a certain type.

 

[nipi]

A gentle reminder:

It is sufficient to say "divers" - I doubt their bad behaviour is solely indicative of their country...I've seen good and bad divers from every country. Please watch the broadbrush stereotypes...

I have to agree with damselfish. It is true that there are good and bad divers from every country but 99% of the divers I saw hanging on to the reef were Japanese (or as others have commented maybe Korean) so the question is why do many divers of those nationalities hang on when it appears that (I would guess) only a few divers of other nationalities would.

 

[Scuba Susie]

After reading this entire thread, I am a little apprehensive about my groups dive trip to Sipadin/Mabul this May. I am not sure I will be able to hold my tongue if I see someone, of any nationality, "riding a turtle". It will be difficult for me not to quietly, turn off someones' air, if I see them plucking feather pens and passing them around for "entertainment". I might even go so far as to spiking someone's drink at the resort with ex-lax if I see them laying on coral. I am a DM that was raised to respect and protect the ocean environment. How did you all stand by and not go mad with anger at the attrocities you saw. I am sure you did your damndest to report it but DANG! I bet you wished you could have inflicted some near fatal attack of the runs or something! I hope and pray my group doesn't see this kind of behavior because I am not sure what I would do. And your right, they could be black, white, japanese , korean, scandanavian, male or female and I would feel exactly the same way towards them. I guess the best way to stop this crappy diving technique is to educate and lead by example. But the ex-lax idea sounds a lot more vindictve and effective(for the short time).
Here's to better divers...in every country.

 

[the_cat_keeper]

I've just got back from a dive trip at Sipadan-Mabul-Kapalai yesterday. Except for 2 dives at Paradise where we met other divers, we were the sole group of divers (there were 6 of us + 1 DM) throughout the dives. One of two groups we met was Japanese... I didn't notice any "destructive behaviour" but thought it was kind of cute that the DM showed the group the marine creatures by writing on a slate (instead of hand signals).