Situated on the east coast of the State of Sabah, the once sleepy little fishing
village of Semporna is now a bustling town. Thousands of divers pass through it as
their gateway to the reefs of the now internationally famous Pulau Sipadan and Pulau
Mabul.
As well as Pulau Sipadan, the Semporna
region has three further groups of islands spread over a large area that are of interest
to divers. The group to the north around Pulau Gaya, the outer group to the east
around Pulau Pandanan and the Ligitan group to the south are all in shallow water
on the continental shelf with beautiful corals and sandy patches. WWF and Sabah Parks'
scientists completed detailed surveys in 1980 and 1987, finding the species diversity
to be on a par with that of Australia's better known Great Barrier Reef.
Most of the islands in this region are flat and low-lying but 25km northeast of Semporna,
Pulau Bohaydulong, Pulau Gaya and Pulau Tetagan are mountainous. They are part of
a now flooded volcanic caldera with a high peak of 455m on Pulau Gaya.
The Ligitan group comprises Pulau Mabul, Pulau Kapalai and the Ligitan Reefs, which
are very large reefs on the edge of the continental shelf. South of the continental
Shelf, there is a trench more than 1000m deep before the sea floor rises again to
600m around Pulau Sipadan.
Although Pulau Sipadan and Pulau Mabul get all the attention, there are many other
unexplored reefs here that are potentially just as exciting and deserve more attention
from the diving fraternity.
