Groups & Charters

Group packages suit dive clubs, instructors bringing students, camera groups, company trips and families travelling together. The region offers distinct styles of accommodation to match your party. A club focused purely on diving will prefer an over-water rig or liveaboard while a mixed family group needs sandy beaches and shallower reefs.

A guaranteed Sipadan permit comes with the right combination of resort, dive package and minimum number of nights. Which dates can be guaranteed depends on the resort you choose. On a properly planned trip the chance of diving Sipadan is very high and the team steers you to the combination that fits.

Sabah Parks issues 254 Sipadan permits a day. Everyone in your party must hold an Advanced Open Water certification or equivalent to dive Sipadan. Rangers enforce this strictly at the island jetty by checking physical or digital certification cards against the daily manifest. Permits are issued against full names and passport numbers. They cannot be transferred or resold. If a diver falls ill the permit is forfeited.

Diving hours run from early morning until the afternoon. A Sipadan permit day gives 3 dives if you stay on Mabul or Kapalai or aboard the Celebes Explorer. If you stay on Mataking or Pom Pom a Sipadan permit day gives 2 dives. Timings depend on the operator schedule, the tide and the sea. Sipadan itself is closed every November to allow the marine ecosystem to recover.

Read the complete Sipadan permits guide for more details.

The Mabul resorts offer the best base for numbers and choice alongside excellent macro diving. Sipadan-Mabul Resort (SMART) provides a diver-first beach setting while Mabul Water Bungalows offers premium over-water villa suites. Both share the SMART-TEC dive centre and an open-air dining pavilion. Borneo Divers Mabul Resort operates a PADI 5 Star IDC centre and runs a sea-turtle hatchery on its beach. These properties sit roughly 15 to 25 minutes from Sipadan by boat.

Seaventures Dive Rig caters heavily to a divers-only party. The converted oil platform houses groups comfortably and offers technical diving facilities directly above a rich house reef. A hydraulic lift lowers divers to the water. The platform sits 20 minutes from Sipadan.

For mixed groups with families Mataking and Pom Pom provide sandy beaches and shallower reefs. Mataking operates a sea-turtle hatchery established in 2006 with a memorandum of understanding signed with WWF-Malaysia and the Sabah Wildlife Department in May 2026. It features 63 rooms across 6 categories and the Jamu Spa. Pom Pom runs two turtle hatcheries and offers water villas. These islands sit further from Sipadan with Mataking's boat run taking roughly 80 minutes across the Alice Channel.

If your club wants the ultimate private experience the MV Celebes Explorer operates as a full-boat charter. The thirty-five-metre steel motor yacht holds sixteen Sipadan permits daily so your entire group dives the island together. It features eight en-suite cabins and anchors on site.

The team arranges private transfers, private boats and private guiding through local contacts. Divemasters and instructors are available in several languages. Securing a private boat means your group dives at its own pace without waiting for other resort guests.

If your club focuses on photography the team can assign guides who look for macro species like flamboyant cuttlefish (Metasepia pfefferi) and frogfish (Antennarius spp.) across the Mabul reefs. For non-diving days the team arranges private visits connected with the Bajau Laut communities.

Barracuda Point (Sipadan)

Skill level: Advanced Barracuda Point is the dive most people come to Sipadan for. On a good morning the resident school of chevron barracuda (Sphyraena qenie) tightens into a column above the wall and you can hang in the current to watch it turn. Sabah Parks restricts this site to one dive per day per diver to manage environmental impact.

Mandarin Valley (Kapalai)

Skill level: All levels Kapalai offers expansive sandy slopes ideal for macro photography. The site comes alive at dusk when resident mandarinfish (Synchiropus splendidus) emerge to mate. Groups can spread out along the reef flat without crowding each other.

Garden of Eden (Mataking)

Skill level: All levels If your group stays at Mataking you will dive the surrounding coral gardens. The reefs here feature a blend of macro environments and sea-turtle populations bolstered by the local hatcheries.

A typical week for a club of 12 to 20 divers focuses on a Mabul base to balance Sipadan access with local diving. Read the travel information guide for full logistics.

• Day 1: Arrive at Tawau airport. Travel 70 to 90 minutes by road to Semporna then take the boat to Mabul.
• Day 2: The whole group dives the macro sites around Mabul and Kapalai.
• Day 3: Half the group takes their Sipadan permit day while the rest dive Kapalai.
• Day 4: The groups swap so the second half dives Sipadan.
• Day 5: Everyone dives Mabul before the twenty-four-hour no-fly interval begins.
• Day 6: Boat to Semporna and transfer back to Tawau.

Diving happens all year. Best visibility runs from March to October. Mid-February to mid-November is good diving with softer visibility at the ends. Mid-November to mid-February brings a mix of cloud, rain and sun. Water temperatures sit between 26 and 30 °C year-round.

Groups arriving with their own instructors find the inner islands ideal for training. Mabul and Kapalai lack the intense currents of Sipadan so they provide safe shallow slopes for Learn to Dive courses.

Any Open Water members must complete their Advanced upgrade before they dive Sipadan. Instructors can run the required deep and navigation dives on the local reefs early in the week so their students are certified in time for their permit day. Seaventures offers specialised technical facilities and cavern penetration courses for the Turtle Tomb system for groups wanting to train near Sipadan.

Group packages include your transfers, full board accommodation, weights, tanks and boat dives in principle.

Room configurations adapt to mixed parties. The team arranges twin shares, double rooms and family chalets depending on your numbers. Single travellers within a group can opt for a single supplement or share a twin room with another club member. Nitrox is available at most resorts including Mabul Water Bungalows, SMART, Borneo Divers and Mataking. The Celebes Explorer supplies nitrox on board.

To start planning the team needs your approximate dates and the total number of guests. State the certification levels of the divers and your room preferences. Mention whether you want a full boat charter or prefer to join the regular resort boats.

• Sipadan Classic
• Sipadan Liveaboard Week
• Learn to Dive
• Seaventures Dive Rig
• MV Celebes Explorer

Send your dates, the names of everyone coming and your certification levels. The team comes back with what can be arranged.