Luko
Contributor
I also dived Sipadan in those days before 2004, but afterwards too : I agree before you had to go through KK but then the new Tawau airport was built so it could be flewn directly from KL or SIN, that became a faster way to get to Mabul.My one trip was a very long time ago. At the time, i couldn't fly direct into Tawau and had to fky to KK stay over a night and then fly out very early a.m. to Tawau. We were picked up in a van at Tawau airport, long drive but I was still excited about thst sort of thing back in the day. We were dropped at a pier/port kinda thingie, where we rgen waited quite awhile longer again for our boat. In those days, one could still stay on Sipidan, though it was in the last days of that period. So, my outbound was to Sipidan. Half way through the trip, I moved over to Mabul so my boat back to Semporna was from Mabul and for some reason, I remember that much better than the boat from Semporna to Sipidan.
Usually passengers from early morning flight arrivals get picked up at 9:15AM along with the ones who chose to stay downtown the night before, it's a 2 hrs ride to Semporna and you're in Mabul for lunch around 1PM, afternoon dive at 3PM.
At least that's how Borneo Divers managed the pickups if I remember well.