Semporna

Mabul macro, a Sipadan permit day and Bohey Dulang

Book your Sipadan permit before your flights. Daily numbers are capped, so ask a Semporna dive operator for a date first and build four days around it: arrive and check gear on day one, dive Mabul and Kapalai on day two, dive Sipadan on your permit day, and keep the last day dry before flying.

Fly into Tawau and let the operator handle the road transfer.

Day one is a gentle start: check dive gear in the afternoon, then walk the waterfront at sunset past the Bajau stilt houses near the mosque and eat grilled fish at one of the seafood restaurants by the jetties.

On day two, take the boat out to Mabul and Kapalai for two or three reef and macro dives, where tiny frogfish, nudibranchs and ghost pipefish hide in the sand and rubble. Day three is the big one if your permit has come through: Sipadan, with its wall dropping away from the beach, turtles on almost every dive and big schools of barracuda and jacks. Without a permit, dive the reefs of the Tun Sakaran Marine Park instead.

Keep day four dry, since you need 18 to 24 hours before flying. Join a non-diving island-hopping trip, climb Bohey Dulang for the lagoon view, or spend the morning at Bukit Tengkorak, then eat nasi kuning and fresh juice in town before the transfer back to Tawau.

Nasi kuning, latok seaweed and waterfront grills

Semporna eats like a fishing port, cheaply and outdoors. Breakfast is nasi kuning, turmeric rice with chilli-cooked fish, sold from roadside tables. Snack stalls sell pisang goreng through the day, and after dark the waterfront street fills with smoke from grills cooking whole tuna. Look for latok seaweed too.

Mornings start with nasi kuning, rice cooked yellow with turmeric and served with chilli-cooked fish and vegetables, sold from tables by the road. It is the traditional Sabahan breakfast and usually gone by mid-morning.

Pisang goreng, banana fried in batter, sells by the piece, and putu, a steamed rice or cassava cake, is a local carb staple. Seaweed farming is big business offshore, and latok, a fresh seaweed that looks like tiny green grapes, is eaten raw with a squeeze of lime and chilli.

Whole grilled tuna and small fish come off the charcoal for very little, ayam panggang (grilled chicken) sits beside them, and Indonesian vendors ladle out bakso, a meatball and noodle soup. The seafood restaurants around the jetties are a step up: pick fish, prawns or lobster from the tanks and ask for them grilled or steamed.

Chinese restaurants turn up on almost every block. To drink, the restaurant at the start of the causeway does big mugs of fresh fruit juice, mango, honeydew or lychee, which is exactly what you want after a day on the boat.

Year-round diving, the Bajau Laut and the Regatta Lepa

Diving off Semporna continues all year. Highs stay at 30 to 32°C and rain is spread through the year, with September the driest month at about 125 mm. The Bajau Laut, the sea people of this coast, give the town its character, and the Regatta Lepa, a Bajau boat festival, is its big annual event.

March to October usually gives the calmest crossings and clearest water, and in the wetter months boats still run, with choppier rides.

The people of the sea are the reason this coast feels different. The Bajau Laut, often called sea nomads, have lived on and around these waters for generations, and their stilt villages stand on Mabul and in the shallows of the marine park. Children paddle out in small boats to meet passing dive boats. Many live without papers, which makes their position delicate, so photograph with permission and do not hand out money.

Semporna's big event is the Regatta Lepa, a festival of the Bajau community whose dates shift from year to year; in 2026 the main days fell on the last weekend of June. Lepa, the traditional single-masted boats, are dressed in long coloured sails and streamers and race and parade off the waterfront, with music, dancing and food stalls on shore. If your dates line up, book rooms well ahead, because the town fills.