Semporna is a small and uninspiring town on the South East coast of Sabah. At night there is nothing to do but eat bad curry, wander the streets looking for a bakery to take the taste away and retire to the bar as soon as possible. It's monuments and tourist attractions are limited to a mosque and, at a push the waterfront market, which smells so overpoweringly fishy I'm surprised even the locals go there. So why (I hear you ask) would we want to go and spend three of our very precious days there?

Go go gadget dive boots!

I'll tell you why. Because Sipadan now has a naval base on it (to keep the pirates and the tourists separate) and we're not allowed to stay there... To elaborate, Sipadan is a tiny island, quite a nice one at that, with those swaying palm trees you see in the adverts, nice beaches and probably some great coconut smoothies. What makes it special is that it's not actually attached to Borneo, it was created on an entirely different tectonic plate from a massive column of rock that juts out from the ocean floor miles below. So while the other islands of the area are made of shallow sand sloping gently away, the coast of Sipadan consists of a ring of incredibly pristine coral reef which suddenly drops straight down 2000 metres to the ocean floor creating conditions for some of the best diving in the whole darn universe.

We arrived armed with our spanking new underwater case for the camera and were literally chomping at the bit to get down there and see what it was like for ourselves. Sipadan was our little dive holiday within the greater holiday that is our lives.

'Scuba Junkie' owns the majority of the tourist flesh that passes through this place. They run the local groovy hostel, and the bar next door. Who were we to argue with free internet, cable TV and air con AND diving every day. We signed up along with the Swedish sisters from Uncle Tans, embarking on their open water course (their budgets would never be the same again!) and spent a thoroughly enjoyable five minutes exploring the town, ear-marking the bad indian restaurant, bakery for after and mosque as we went. After a day of waiting and watching TV we were finally off to dive. Kitted up, camera safely sealed in its waterproof case, fins, mask, air... what could possibly go wrong?

25 turles and 15 sharks for my 50th dive

The dive was incredible. As soon as I jumped in I put my head down and was greeted by two enormous turtles and a white tip reef shark, just up to say hi before we actually submerged. Then the wildlife really came out. I stopped looking for turtles, Pacific greens, hawksbills, some more than six feet long like table tops, white tipped reef sharks, grey reef sharks, huge parrotfish, baracuda and triggerfish. The big stuff was everywhere and unmissable and amazing. What made it even better was that the little stuff was just as easy to find, nudibranches of all weired forms and acid colours crawling along the ocean vegetation, a big mantis shrimp with a punch powerful enough to break bones, sea stars of deep reds and vibrant blues. And then there was the beautiful, unspoiled, gloriously alive coral, like a submarine rainforest (without the bugs), teeming with millions upon millions of fish of every colour and shape flashing before your eyes. My mind went into meltdown mode. There was so much around I didn't know where to look. I don't think I took many pictures, there just wasnt time. This place just rocks.

Sh-sh-sh-sh... shucks, where's me camera?

After a long long hour on the surface we dived again, submerging right on top of a snoozing leopard shark! Obviously we got as close as we could snapping piccies before it got annoyed and zipped away. Again the water was full of movement and life, yet more turtles, reef sharks and fish, a massive school of batfish, garden eels, morays... the list is endless. Towards the end when we found a turtle with a shell nudging seven feet from end to end we tried to get a few pics. But the camera case, for some reason, had begun to steam up on the inside! This could very well not be good at all. We finally surfaced with a very worried Amanda, dried it out again, made sure all the seals were watertight and dived again.

Scorpion fish, You don't want this with your chips

This time we were a while away from Sipadan having picked up a woman from her stilted ocean resort for our last dive. Our change of location really showed. Visibility was down to only a few metres, the fish and coral had dissapeared and our idiot divemaster (a Scottish guy more in it for his own diving pleasure than to lead other people) managed to get lost after he'd left a sunken fishing boat headed in the wrong direction. Mostly we saw the sandy bottom of the sea before he realised his mistake and we spent ten minutes getting back on track. To pile on further misery the condensation in the camera case had turned into a small puddle sloshing around at the bottom. This was definitely not good. After leaving the water for the last time that day we took out a rather soggy camera, left it near the engine to dry and booked a second day diving. Bad last dive and malfunctioning camera case aside, Sipadan is an absolutely incredible place to dive. There was no way we could possibly not dive again. We'd just have to do it without taking anymore pictures.

Wooden spoon winner in the reef fish beauty contest

Thankfully our dive master changed the next day (the scottish guy had chosen fins a size too small the day before and couldn't dive again because of his blisters!). Vic was young, English and a total barrel of energy. She was loving it, and not just for herself. One of the good ones who lives to pass on knowledge, help her fellow diver and point out groovy little fishies at the bottom. We'd spent the early hours with the camera case in a bowl of water to see what would happen... It wasn't good. On top of that Amanda had tried to take a photo after the camera had dried out from the day before and the flash exploded, refusing to work ever again. Not only were underwater pictures out of the question, photo's in the dark were also impossible now.

A whirlwind of baracuda above our heads

But hey, whatever. We were in Sipadan with a wetsuit on. Really, nothing else mattered but the days diving. First stop 'Turtle patch', suffice to say, there were an uttely enormous amount of turtles here, and everything else for that matter, then barracuda point, which was unbelievable. One minute we were happily swimming along the coral wall, the next we were surrounded by a massive school of six foot barracuda's, swirling in a calossal vortex of fish only a few metres above our heads. It was a biblical sight that seriously brought a lump to my throat. I thought I was going to hyperventilate with the sheer unadulterated joy of it. There were sharks too, turtles and all the usual Sipadan stuff that for any other place would make a fantastic dive on its own. Those baracudas schooling like a giant fishy tornado will remain with me forever though as one of the most incredible things I've ever been fortunate enough to witness.

The one that got away

Our lasty dive on Sipadan was at 'Turtle cave'. About 25 metres under the sea, down a cliff that drops off to about three kilometres of sheer rock is a cave which sometimes sees turtles and dolphins having a curious look inside. It's quite big and unfortunately they sometimes get lost, trapped and drown. A dive inside reveals the many skeletons of these poor creatures. We did'nt get to go that far inside unfortunately (not having torches and a cave diving speciality) but we did swim past the entrance (complete with "Danger you will get lost and DIE" signs, presumably for the dolphins). As the minutes drew on to almost a full hour underwater Vic spotted below us the slow, gracefull wingbeats of a huge manta ray swimming silently past. This was the last straw. I have never seen a manta diving, only snorkelling, it was awesome. (I guess it takes some effort to get the tanks on their backs.. Boom Boom!)

Found him! Of course, it's Sipadan

Sipadan is by far the best place in my knowledge to dive anywhere, ever. Words cannot do the experiences we had there any justice. By now I have dived all over the place, seen quite a lot of stuff on several occasions in many of those places, but never all at once in the same dive. It really is something else, something very, very special.

With the diving done we cleaned up our kit, had a row with Scuba junkie for loosing Amanda's underwear in the laundry, had a bite to eat and caught a night bus back to Kota Kinabalu, all within a few hours of being back on dry land. Not diving again in the morning (unfortunately) there was really nothing at all to keep us in Semporna. At 100 squid a day we just had to stop. We'd met a few people there who had come for a few days for their open water course and were still there almost a month later signing up for the divemaster training. I think you have realised by now, it really is that good. Darkness fell as we rumbled off through the acres of palm oil plantations that used to Borneos rain forests I wondered whether I would ever be able to dive again. It seemed that I'd already experienced the best diving I would ever see. What was left remarkable to do?

Pondering such deep thoughts, and whether the tea would be hot when we arrived at the capital at four the following morning we trundled on in cotton silence into the night.