Hello!
I'm new here, hope someone can help with some advice.
My boyfriend and I want to do some diving for a week in mid-September this year, and for work reasons it needs to be somewhere relatively easily accessible from Singapore or KL. Have mainly been looking at Tioman (Swiss Cottages/Tioman Dive Centre?) and Sipadan (in particular Kapalai resort), but also a little at Perhentian Islands, around Kota Kinabalu, or other areas near Sipadan.
We both did our OW last September in Bali and haven't dived since, so feel like we might need a little refresher before heading straight into it again. We're thinking we'd like to do our Advanced Open Water course to get a little better, and then just do some fun dives. I would like to see turtles, and lots of fish! Since we're not very experienced, having good instructors/guides and equipment is really important to us.
Sipadan looks absolutely amazing (I know they're very strict with permits), but I'm nervous we're not really good/confident enough yet to fully appreciate it. Maybe we could arrange to do our AOW and some more diving nearby, and finish with diving at Sipadan? Or would people advise waiting until we're a bit more experienced before heading to Sipadan?
Of Sipadan resorts, Kapalai looks amazing, but I've seen some negative reviews about the dive instructors/guides/equipment, and I can't work out if they do PADI courses? Is there enough good diving outside of Sipadan and muck diving to keep us amused for the rest of the week?
Or can you recommend somewhere else we should consider? Budget-wise, it's a fairly rare holiday for us, so we're not restricted to backpacker budgets, though don't want to go too crazy. Tioman did look fairly cheap, which was good! One more factor is that my boyfriend really doesn't do lying on a beach/sunlounger for longer than an afternoon, so something else to do, even just a little walking around sightseeing, restaurants, or a couple of other activities might be a plus.
Many thanks in advance for any advice you can offer...
Claire xxx
I'm new here, hope someone can help with some advice.
My boyfriend and I want to do some diving for a week in mid-September this year, and for work reasons it needs to be somewhere relatively easily accessible from Singapore or KL. Have mainly been looking at Tioman (Swiss Cottages/Tioman Dive Centre?) and Sipadan (in particular Kapalai resort), but also a little at Perhentian Islands, around Kota Kinabalu, or other areas near Sipadan.
We both did our OW last September in Bali and haven't dived since, so feel like we might need a little refresher before heading straight into it again. We're thinking we'd like to do our Advanced Open Water course to get a little better, and then just do some fun dives. I would like to see turtles, and lots of fish! Since we're not very experienced, having good instructors/guides and equipment is really important to us.
Sipadan looks absolutely amazing (I know they're very strict with permits), but I'm nervous we're not really good/confident enough yet to fully appreciate it. Maybe we could arrange to do our AOW and some more diving nearby, and finish with diving at Sipadan? Or would people advise waiting until we're a bit more experienced before heading to Sipadan?
Of Sipadan resorts, Kapalai looks amazing, but I've seen some negative reviews about the dive instructors/guides/equipment, and I can't work out if they do PADI courses? Is there enough good diving outside of Sipadan and muck diving to keep us amused for the rest of the week?
Or can you recommend somewhere else we should consider? Budget-wise, it's a fairly rare holiday for us, so we're not restricted to backpacker budgets, though don't want to go too crazy. Tioman did look fairly cheap, which was good! One more factor is that my boyfriend really doesn't do lying on a beach/sunlounger for longer than an afternoon, so something else to do, even just a little walking around sightseeing, restaurants, or a couple of other activities might be a plus.
Many thanks in advance for any advice you can offer...
Claire xxx