The beautiful water around Borneo is known as one of the top diving areas in the world.
We travelled here to learn to dive and fell in love with the underwater world, the island village built on stilts and the beautiful local kids who always wanted to play.
Diving at Mabul island
Nearby Sipadan island is a gazetted marine park with all accommodation closed in 2004 so most people who want to dive at Sipadan will stay at Mabul.
The island itself is quite small and there is not a lot to do onshore. It’s great to have a wander around though because the village is so primitive, it’s a real eye-opener.
The bungalows are built on stilts, most of them over water, with some lining the coastal pathway. There is a school, mosque, basketball court and police compound.
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Playing with local children at Mabul
The children run freely around the village and along the jetties.
The kids precariously prance along the edge of the jetties. Some fall in, others jump in. This is normal life for them.
I did notice some of the kids were a bit wary of tourists and didn’t really like their picture being taken if you hadn’t built a rapport with them first.
The locals don’t speak English. I know a bit of Bahasa Indonesia, and the Malaysian language is quite similar so with a bit of study on the ‘Google Translate’ app, I learnt enough to have some basic conversations with the kids.
It was a beautiful experience swimming in the crystal-clear water around our bungalow with the local village kids who come down the diving school jetty at playtime.
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The main industry is fishing. There are some families of sea gypsies who live in small rickety boats offshore. Others paddle around the dive resorts selling seafood to tourists.
You can see the poverty in some of the kids with unwashed faces and head lice, but there is a lot of love on this island and I suspected the ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ mentality was true here.
They were the sweetest kids and it was really special to build a little bond with some of them during our stay.
Pollution at Mabul island
Pollution is a problem here with some areas of the shoreline littered with plastic. Some of it is from locals and other trash washes up from the ocean.
There is greater education building, teaching locals that the imported plastics are not biodegradable like their food scraps and can’t be thrown into the sea.
Some of the dive schools do beach clean ups too which is nice to see.
One word of warning too: the toilets are not plumbed to a sewer so when you flush, it drops into the sea. I only learnt this when I saw a floating turd one day while loading the dive boat. The evening before I had been swimming in that water around the jetty with the local kids haha oops!
Is Mabul island safe for tourists?
Despite the current political situation, we always felt safe during our stay.
The tiny islands in this area are targeted by criminals and there are stories of human trafficking, smuggling of drugs and illegal petrol, and kidnappings.
Being close to the Philippines, Filipino pirates are a very real threat.
In 2014, there was a shooting with one local police officer shot and killed and another kidnapped.
But the security is noticeably high to mitigate this risk.
Every evening, a group of local police officers come to Big John’s jetty to stake out and keep watch all night so it’s probably one of the safer places you can be. More on Big John’s accommodation where we stayed further down.
I was told there is also a number of refugee families from the Philippines who don’t have any documents but have come to Mabul to live a safer life.
The island felt safe to me too and I never felt uneasy thinking about the offshore threats.
I am personally not one to overly focus on the negatives because there is risk everywhere you go – just look at the big terror attacks at bustling European cities.
You can’t avoid risk anywhere so it’s good to be aware of it, but I wouldn’t avoid the area because of it.
Where to stay at Mabul island
Asha researched the best place to do our diving certifications at Mabul and we decided on Big John’s Scuba, as part of an all-inclusive diving package and boy was that a great choice!
There are a handful of dive schools on Mabul island with their own accommodation on site.
From what I could gather they were a similar format to Big John’s where you get included food and all sit together in a big mess style dining area for each meal.
This is recommended because there are not really any restaurants or cafes – though there is an ice cream shop!
I’m usually an independent traveller but I really enjoyed this style of accommodation for a diving trip because it really builds the camaraderie with your fellow divers.
It enhances your diving experience when it’s with people you know, trust and have fun with.
Learning to dive at Mabul island in Borneo
We got so lucky that we had not one but two diving instructors – Mark Booth and Tina Fitzgerald – all to ourselves.
They became like our family during our stay and we had such a great experience on our Open Water Dive course that we decided to stay on and complete our Advanced qualification too.
Their teaching style was relaxed and they were upfront about what parts in the thick manuals were the important lifesaving parts that we needed to read closely.
Sitting with Mark and Tina chatting, laughing and building a friendship over each meal was particularly special. Most of the other guests were snorkellers so it kind of felt like we were the cool kids sitting at the big table with the adults. Smug AF I know but it was great.
The onsite accommodation was full with a huge Chinese snorkel tour group so they arranged for us to stay next door at a private homestay run by a lovely local couple.
This turned out to be even better because we had a quiet little platform outside our room to enjoy the epic view from our little overwater bungalow.
And you know how much I love homestays!
You can see in my Mabul travel video (at the top of this post) the rickety timber jetties that we carefully walked along to navigate between our room and the diving school next door. It was really cool!
Big John prides himself on his cooking and we certainly weren’t disappointed.
He’s also very philanthropic, giving food to some of the poorer kids and helping with their schooling.
How to get to Mabul island
Mabul is off the coast of Borneo in the Sabah region.
We flew from the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur to the capital of Borneo, Kota Kinabalu.
From Kota Kinabalu we took a smaller flight to Tawau airport.
From Tawau airport we were picked up by Big John’s driver and driven to Semporna, which is right by the harbour, for a one-night stay.
The next morning we were dropped off at the dive company’s office jetty to catch the speed boat over to Mabul island.
I would highly recommend this place if you’re a diver. Mark and Tina were absolutely wonderful people and great instructors and the local divemaster Ray was a very warm person too.
Any questions, just ask me in the comments of my Mabul YouTube video .
