njcfm

dove in December 2012, there were some rumors someone saw one but no proof and not confirmed by dive guide. 

njcfm, which resort did you stayed at? The first time I was in Sipadan, I stayed at Seaventure, the oil rig across from Mabul. The 2nd time, I stayed at the island of Mabul, and the dive operator is "Borneo Divers". There are now about 4 dives operators/resorts on the island of Mabul, I don't know the name of the two. The nice one has above water houses. The more info I have, the more I can tell my friends in Sabah as I have a few diver master friends around there that help organize/refer divers to Sipadan area.

 

So you witness turtle riding while you're with Sipadan Mabul Dive Resort?

yes, it was a large group of tourists probably 20 people, they had a hired videographer with them on the dive and I believe it was even filmed.  I'll see if I have any pictures of it specifically, my wife and I were both appalled by the actions of the group, the lack of action by the dive master and overall the way the resort was run, since we weren't part of a large group we basically got poor service the entire time.  The dive masters we had were helpful and followed the rules (the 40min dive thing was really annoying and they wouldn't budge) however the large group basically got to do whatever they wanted.  We would request a site, it would get put up on the board and the large groups site would be changed to the same site we wanted to go to 30min later, which meant a crowded site.  We would even wait until their site was already up and ask for ours to be changed, no luck, it was like all boats from the resort had to go to the same sites.

basically SMART was a decent resort, clean room, helpful staff, ok food (catered towards an asian diet), the dive masters we had were very nice, the boat captains were friendly and helpful.. The rules of the resort were very restrictive and by far the most limiting of ANY resort we have ever been too.  When compared to the two other resorts we stayed with on our trip, smart came in last place, hands down. 

If we ever go back to Sipadan, we won't stay at SMART again.  

here is the only picture I could dig up (10-17 doesn't have much reach).. basically the large group near a large coral with turtles laying on it, as the turtles were swimming away from them members of the party grabbed onto the shells and rode them.

Sylar, would you mine share which dive operator you used? I think one of the things we could help is only use responsible dive operators. I don't know which dive operator njcfm is referring to, but we all should do our part and only support responsible dive operators.

Sorry, about the Asian tourists comment, however that is the only way I could describe the group, none of the the Scandinavian,  American, European, or Australian guests had any of the issues. SMART was also VERY strict on limiting dives to 40 minutes, no matter how much air you had left or how deep the dive was.

Basically I wouldn't suggest Sipadan Mabul Dive Resort

I'm sure other operators are more responsible and treat their guests better.

sipadan was our least favorite of the locations we visited in Indonesia and Malaysia . the Asian tourists have zero respect for animals/reefs/other guests.

Seeing a group of tourists grabbing and riding turtles and the dive masters doing nothing about it is pretty upsetting. Keep in mind this was in December of 2012. 

prices? pics?

what regulators?