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Diving With Seaventures Dive Rig, Mabul Sipadan, Celebes Sea, Malaysia
In this ongoing series, we speak with the people who run dive centres, resorts and liveaboards from around the world about their businesses and the diving they have to offer…
What is your name?
Pete Hamerton
What is the name of your business?
Seaventures Dive Rig
What is your role within the business?
Dive Team Manager
How long has the business operated for?
Since 1997
How long have you dived for, and what qualification are you?
I learnt to dive in 2003 and became an Instructor in 2009. I am currently a PADI IDC Staff Instructor, Tec Deep Instructor, TDI Advanced Trimix Diver and IANTD Full Cave Diver.
What is your favorite type of diving?
Other than teaching diving, I enjoy Caves, Deep Walls, Wrecks and Muck Diving.
If you could tell people one thing about your business (or maybe more!) to make them want to visit you what would it be?
Seaventures Dive Rig is the world’s first and only oil rig that has been re-purposed into a dive resort. We offer daily dive trips to Sipadan, regularly voted as one of the best dive locations in the world. And we offer daily diving at Mabul Island – macro-diving heaven! But it’s not just the diving that we love. The whole experience of living on a former oil rig is a one of a kind experience. Rooms are small but comfortable. There is an almost 360 degree view of the Celebes Sea with great sunrises and sunsets. We pride ourselves on having an extremely experienced, friendly, multi-lingual and safety-conscious dive team. Finally, we pride ourselves on providing superb customer service – both topside and underwater – and excellent food.
What is your favorite dive in your location and why?
The Rig’s house-reef is definitely a favourite if you love macros. Nudibranch, pygmy seahorse, frogfish, and the ornate ghost pipefish are just some that you will see under the Rig. Other than that we love Turtle Tomb and South Point. Both are famous dive sites at Sipadan. Turtle Tomb is a cave system that stretches for several hundred metres under Sipadan Island. It contains the perfectly preserved skeletons of about 20 dead Turtles and a dead Dolphin. We think they have found their way into the cave through a hole in the reef wall and were unable to find their way out. It’s an unforgettable dive and a really unique cave system.
South Point is an awesome wall dive on the South side of Sipadan Island. The wall starts at about 10m and stretches into the abyss – 600m below…! It’s great for recreational diving, Tec diving and Freediving (we are a PADI TecRec and Freediving centre). The wall is covered in vibrant soft and hard corals; we regularly see numerous Green and Hawksbill turtles and we regularly see different types of Sharks cruising past in the blue.
What types of diving are available in your location?
Recreational diving, Tec diving, Freediving, Rebreather diving, Wall diving, Macro diving, Drift diving and Night diving.
What do you find most rewarding about your current role?
Working with people and being in the ocean. Whether that’s a PADI Open Water student learning neutral buoyancy for the first time, guiding an experienced cave diver into Turtle Tomb, mentoring an Instructor candidate about to take their Instructor Exam or working with a diverse, dedicated, talented and multi-lingual group of colleagues.
At Seaventures we’re fortunate to have an awesome dive team who, between them, have over a hundred years of diving experience. I’m constantly impressed by our dedicated and hard-working team who always strive to show our customers the best of Mabul and Sipadan Islands, prioritise safety and make their guests smile. We also have some great customers from all over the world – and it’s a real pleasure to watch their faces as they come on to the rig for the first time (all of the team who aren’t diving personally greet arriving customers).
What is your favorite underwater creature?
Ornate Ghost Pipefish. I love their shape, colours and get a real sense of satisfaction whenever I find one….because they’re quite hard to find!
Are there any exciting changes / developments coming up in the near future?
Absolutely. We’ve just become a PADI Freediver centre and are really excited to start offering Freediving courses, as well as guided freediving, for our guests. We’re the first dive centre in the area to offer freediving and one of the few to offer Tec and Cave diving for our customers.
In addition, we’ve just finished our first Ocean Conservation week. As a busy dive resort, we’re acutely aware of some of the threats facing the ocean. We always try and educate our students and guests on the importance of preserving the marine environment – but we also want to have a set period every year where we relentlessly focus on this. We’re not only working with our guests and local community to educate them about some of the threats facing the marine environment, and what they can do to help, but we’re also looking at our business practices. For example, this year, we have stopped providing our guests with plastic bottled water. Instead, we’re providing re-fillable glass bottles. It may seem like a small change, but if you scale that up, that’s a significant reduction in the amount of plastic that we’re generating every year.
As a center what is the biggest problem you face at the moment?
It’s not a quite a problem but more of a challenge. Our Rig is located 45 minutes away from the nearest town (although we’re only minutes away from Mabul Island and only twenty minutes from Sipadan) so everything has to be transported in by boat. As such, we try and anticipate guest’s needs by having a well-stocked shop on the rig. In addition, because we are located literally above the water, every decision we make to use, install or build something has to consider the environmental impact that will have.
How do you see the SCUBA / Freediving / snorkeling industry overall? What changes would you make?
The team at Seaventures has over a hundred years of diving experience between them. We have seen many changes in that time. A few that we are especially conscious of:
- A much greater focus and urgency on the threats facing the ocean, and, with the support of partners like Project AWARE, a means to address some of these.
- Increased popularity of Freediving and Tec (both of which we offer). Including the recreational rebreather market.
- Especially in South-East Asia and Australia, there has been a massive increase in the number of Chinese divers. This is great, and has significantly changed the market across every aspect of the business.
Markets evolve for a variety of reasons and in a variety of ways. Working in the dive industry, we have the ability to both shape and respond to some of those changes. We’ve seen a huge increase in the volume of divers and the speed at which we can get people into the water. That’s great. But we also need to make sure that students, from the very beginning, are learning and mastering good buoyancy skills and safety habits. This should be an integral part of their diving habits and is crucial for environmental and safety reasons.
What would you say to our visitors to promote the diving you have to offer?
Well, we dive every day at Sipadan and Mabul islands. They are both world-renowned dive locations that never fail to impress guests. And we are the world’s first oil rig that has been re-purposed as a dive resort. But on top of that, we strive to offer three things without fail: un-compromising safety standards; excellent standards of service and experience topside and underwater; and, like any business, sales.
On the last point, we take the time to listen to where customers are in their diving career and match the appropriate diving course or experience to them. If that’s a PADI DSD or a guided cave dive, we can offer it. We offer a wide range of diving courses and experiences, have an experienced and multi-lingual team, and have the benefit of a huge variety of diving options (Caves, Deep, Macro, Walls, Drift etc.)– so we don’t just blindly push the next course on to customers – we work out where they are and want to go with their diving, and try and help them get there.
Where can our visitors find out more about your business?
If you would like to know more about scuba diving and living on a former oil rig, email us at info@seaventuresdive.com or visit our website at www.seaventuresdive.com. We are also reachable at +6088 251 669 if you wish to speak to us.
You can also follow us on our social media pages for updates at:
https://www.facebook.com/seaventures
https://plus.google.com/107344633898864939260
https://instagram.com/seaventuresdiverig
https://twitter.com/Seaventures
Jake Davies boards Ghazala Explorer for an unforgettable Red Sea diving experience…
The second day’s diving was a day full of wreck diving at Abu Nuhas, which included the Chrisoula K, Carnatic, and Ghiannis D. The first dive of the day was onto the Chrisoula K, also known as the wreck of tiles. The 98m vessel remains largely intact where she was loaded with tiles which can be seen throughout the hold. The stern sits at 26m and the bow just below the surface. One of the highlights of the wreck is heading inside and seeing the workroom where the machinery used for cutting the tiles are perfectly intact. The bow provided some relaxing scenery as the bright sunlight highlighted the colours of the soft coral reef and the many reef fish.
Following breakfast, we then headed to the next wreck, which was the Carnatic. The Carnatic is an 89.9m sail steamer vessel that was built in Britain back in 1862. She ran aground on the reef back in 1869 and remains at 27m. At the time, she was carrying a range of items, including 40,000 sterling in gold. An impressive wreck where much of the superstructure remains, and the two large masts lay on the seafloor. The wooden ribs of the hull provide structures for lots of soft corals, and into the stern section, the light beams through, bouncing off the large shoals of glass fish that can be found using the structure as shelter from the larger predators that are found outside of the wreck.
The final wreck at Abu Nuhas was the Ghiannis D, originally called ‘Shoyo Maru,’ which was 99.5m long and built in Japan back in 1969 before becoming a Greek-registered cargo ship in 1980. The ship then ran aground on the reef on April 19th, 1983, and now sits at the bottom at a depth of 27m. Heading down the line, the stern of the ship remains in good condition compared to the rest of the hull. The highlight of the wreck, though, is heading into the stern section and down the flights of stairs to enter the engine room, which remains in good condition and is definitely worth exploring. After exploring the interior section of the ship, we then headed over to see the rest of the superstructure, where it’s particularly interesting to see the large table corals that have grown at the bow relatively quickly considering the date the ship sank. After surfacing and enjoying some afternoon snacks, we made sure everything was strapped down and secured as we would be heading north and crossing the Gulf of Suez, where the winds were still creating plenty of chop.
The next morning, it was a short hop to Ras Mohammed Nature Reserve for the next couple of days of diving. The 6am wake-up call came along with the briefing for the first site we would be diving, which was Shark & Yolanda. The low current conditions allowed us to start the dive at Anemone City, where we would drift along the steep, coral-filled wall. These dives involved drifts, as mooring in Ras Mohammed wasn’t allowed to protect the reefs. As a dive site, Shark & Yolanda is well-known and historically had a lot of sharks, but unfortunately not so many in recent years, especially not so early in the season. However, there was always a chance when looking out into the blue.
The gentle drift took us along the steep walls of the site, with plenty of anemone fish to be seen and a huge variety of corals. It wasn’t long into the dive before we were accompanied by a hawksbill turtle, who drifted with us between the two atolls before parting ways. Between the two reefs, the shallow patch with parts of coral heads surrounded by sand provided the chance to see a few blue-spotted stingrays that were mainly resting underneath the corals and are always a pleasure to see. With this being the morning dive, the early sunlight lit up the walls, providing tranquil moments. Looking out into the blue, there was very little to be seen, but a small shoal of batfish shimmering underneath the sunlight was a moment to capture as we watched them swim by as they watched us.
Towards the end of the dive, we stopped at the wreck of the Jolanda where the seafloor was scattered with toilets from the containers it was carrying. This provided a unique site to make a safety stop, which was also accompanied by a large barracuda slowly swimming by, along with a hawksbill turtle calmly swimming over the reef as the sun rays danced in the distance.
For the next dive, we headed north to the Strait of Tiran to explore the reefs situated between Tiran Island and Sharm El Sheik, which were named after the British divers who had found them. We started on Jackson before heading to Gordons Reef, where we also did the night dive. All the atolls at these sites provided stunning, bustling coral reefs close to the surface and steep walls to swim along, which always provided the opportunity to keep an eye out for some of the larger species that can be seen in the blue. Midwater around Jackson Reef was filled with red-toothed triggerfish and shoals of banner fish, which at times were so dense that you couldn’t see into the blue. Moments went by peacefully as we enjoyed the slow drift above the reef, watching these shoals swim around under the mid-afternoon sun.
The night dive at Gordon’s Reef was mainly among the stacks of corals surrounded by sand, which was great to explore under the darkness. After some time circling the corals, we came across what we were really hoping to find, and that was an octopus hunting on the reef. We spent the majority of the dive just watching it crawl among the reef, blending into its changing surroundings through changes in colour and skin texture. It’s always so fascinating and captivating to watch these incredibly intelligent animals, in awe of their ability to carry out these physical changes to perfectly blend into the reef. Before we knew it, it was time to head back to the boat to enjoy a well-deserved tasty dinner prepared by the talented chefs onboard.
Check in for the 3rd and final part of this series from Jake tomorrow!
To find out more about the Northern Red Sea reef and wrecks itineraries aboard Ghazala Explorer, or to book, contact Scuba Travel now:
Email: dive@scubatravel.com
Tel: +44 (0)1483 411590
Photos: Jake Davies / Avalon.Red
The Shark Trust is excited to announce that, for two more days only, all donations, large or small, will be doubled in the Big Give Green Match Fund!
Donate to Basking in Nature: Sighting Giants
The Shark Trust is hoping to raise £10k which will be doubled to £20k. This will go towards Basking in Nature: Sighting Giants. And they need YOUR help to reach they’re goal.
The Shark Trust’s citizen science project is to monitor and assess basking sharks through sightings; encouraging data collection, community engagement, and promoting nature accessibility. This initiative aims to enhance health and wellbeing by fostering a deeper connection with British Sharks.
Campaign Aims
- Increase citizen science reporting of Basking Sharks and other shark sightings to help inform shark and ray conservation.
- Provide educational talks about the diverse range of sharks and rays in British waters and accessible identification guides!
- Create engaging and fun information panels on how to ID the amazing sharks and rays we have on our doorstep! These can be used on coastal paths around the Southwest. With activities and information on how you can make a difference for sharks and rays!
- Promote mental wellbeing through increasing time in nature and discovering the wonders beneath the waves!
Donate, and double your impact. Click Here
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