Ten dives, four days, three nights, dozens of sharks, scores of turtles, and countless numbers of jacks, barracuda, and multi-coloured reef fish. This was our experience at Sipadan Island, the jewel in the crown of Malaysia's diving offerings, with a well-deserved reputation as one of the best dive sites around.

There wasn't anything that we had hoped to see that we didn't see, with the one exception of the hammerhead shark. From depths between 2 meters to 42 meters, we were treated to an endless array of macro creatures, pelagics, and other fish that we hadn't seen before. The underwater world around this unique island is teeming with life, and although Sipadan's resorts are usually pretty busy with divers, the little extra diver traffic has no impact on how amazing the experience is diving there.

For one day, I rented a simple Olympus digital camera with an underwater housing to take shots while diving. The underwater pictures below are from this camera; it did a reasonable job, at least for a basic point and shoot. Shooting underwater for the first time, I definitely gained an appreciation of the challenges involved with underwater photography. We hired the services of another videographer, who did a great job capturing our experiences on two of our dives.

We definitely had a fantastic stay at Sipadan thanks to the staff at Palau Sipadan Resort, one of six resorts that operate on the island. Accomodation was comfortable in simple beach-facing, fan-equipped cottages. Each meal was incredible, as was the service. Special thanks to Jinky, our Divemaster, and Mike, our videographer and all-round camera guy! We'll be back again, hopefully sooner rather than later.