Wen and I have spent the past few days in Semporna. It’s on the eastern tip of Sabah (Borneo) and, for most people, is a gateway to the diving on Malbu and Sipadan Islands.
We didn’t get our act together for Sipadan (only 120 people get to dive per day; you either go with a high-end resort or a local dive company that makes you dive many times on Malbu before giving you a Sipadan permit) so we did a day trip to Malbu Island.
(That’s not actually Malbu; it’s the mainland on the way and I just like the photo)
It’s an interesting place as it (and to a degree Semporna) is full of Filipinos; almost no Malaysians live there. They’re also Muslim Filipinos who have fled to Borneo because of Abu Sayaf in the southern Philippines. Now they live in stilted houses on the islands and offer homestays/teach diving:
The diving’s not bad. On one side of the island there are some man-made reefs where they’ve sunk various mesh containers into the ocean. Unfortunately, Wen couldn’t clear her ears, so I ended up doing all the diving by myself.
I saw moray eels and some of the biggest angel/sail fish I’ve ever seen. At one point a massive group glided by. The highlight was swimming through a school of over 1,000 Jackfish. At one point they completely enveloped our group and were performing figure eights around us.
In the afternoon we dived on the opposite side of the island where there are natural reefs. The coral was not stunning, but the wildlife was. I saw a weird fish that was camouflaged with the ground, maybe three inches long and had webbed iridescent blue wings (possible a dragonet?). There were multiple eels, crabs, scorpionfish and a lionfish.
The best part though, were the turtles. One was sitting under a piece of coral; I was able to swim down and stare into its eyes and look at its shell, flippers and beak. Just after seeing it a large turtle came gracefully swimming by, appearing from and then disappearing into the murk. As we were rising we saw another turtle and then one was swimming on the surface just as we were coming back in the boat. Beautiful animals.
Tourism is small potatoes in this sleepy city of 133,000 (only in Asia can you find sleepy cities of this size). The real business is fishing:
Most people do not fish on these major boats though; instead they’re literally living on and farming the sea. Stilt houses are everywhere, even in the middle of the ocean.
I was left with the sensation that these people are one typhoon away from having nothing and the government only tolerates it as they’re Filipino. I can’t help but think that in 15 years they’ll have moved everyone off the water and onto land or back to the Philippines.
Every day, the fish are brought into a central market in the Semporna harbour. The central market is also the main dock that the locals use to come into the mainland. There’s a fish auction hall, a few cheap restaurants and lots of stalls selling everything a local might need (food, clothing, sundries and dried sea things):
The harbour itself is great. It’s surrounded by numerous islands – some mountainous – and continually trafficked. Boats – almost every single one different as they’re all handmade – fly around taking people to and from all the different islands/stilt houses:
I wouldn’t recommend spending a lot of time in Semporna, but you can easily spend a day exploring it and another diving on Malbu.