The Huts are very nicely designed and decorated. They each have two beds, and a private bathroom with a hot water shower. There is a limited fresh water supply on the Island, so the showers are brackish. Since the resort has only been in operation a few months, everything is nice and new. It's also spread out much more than Sipadan. It's kind of like the difference between Disneyland and Disneyworld, the same basic stuff is at both, but one is more spacious. The food is good, but a little different than Sipadan. More traditional Indonesian dishes than the mix of Malaysian, Oriental and Western food we have at Sipadan.
There is no shore diving like Sipadan, because the reefs start out a long ways from the Island. Since there is so much shallow reef here, there is a different selection of marine life than we normally see on the Walls of Sipadan. My first dive was at Manta Run. We saw a number of Mantas cruising the surface, so the guests snorkeled with them. I put on a tank and hung out just below the surface so that I could get a better angle for video. We probably saw about a dozen or so Mantas, and the most interesting part for me were the black ones. They have several here that are totally black, top and bottom. Mantas usually look like Stealth Bombers, but the Black ones REALLY look like them. After we'd had enough of the Mantas, we did a dive on a shallow flat reef with beautiful corals and lots of reef fishes. I saw Crab Eye Gobies, Blue Ribbon Eels, Vermiculated angels, some unique Nudibranchs and Flatworms. In the afternoon we dove at Turtle Town. I saw two Octopi, a popcorn crab, a school of striped catfish, and several Nudis, and a couple of really tame Giant Cuttlefish. After the dive, we went looking for surface Mantas again and found about a dozen. Not a bad day of diving.
Which is better, Sangalaki or Sipadan? It's impossible to say. They both have much to offer, and are different in many ways. Sipadan has the most convenient shore based diving in the world. It's like a liveaboard with a beach. It has huge quantities of exceptionally tame marine life. Turtles abound, Sharks are plentiful. Schools of fish, large and small, are completely tolerant of divers swimming amongst them. It's like being in the worlds biggest best stocked aquarium. Sangalaki has an incredible variety, and it has a very appealing wild and unexplored quality about it. Indeed, there are huge areas dozens of times larger than Sipadan that are virtually unexplored. You can easily forgive a fish for being shy when you remember that it may have only seen a few divers before. So which is better, Sipadan or Sangalaki? You just gotta do both and see for yourself!
