Southeast Asia · Malaysia
Kota Kinabalu & Tunku Abdul Rahman Park
Easy macro and training dives in a marine park on Kota Kinabalu's doorstep
Photo: Mx. Granger · CC0
Five islands in Gaya Bay, 20 to 30 minutes by boat from downtown Kota Kinabalu and gazetted as Tunku Abdul Rahman Park in 1974. The diving is sheltered and mostly shallow: sandy training bays and coral slopes off Sapi, Manukan, Mamutik and Gaya, with squid, cuttlefish and nudibranchs year-round at Coral Garden, and deeper reef off Sepanggar Island to the north-east, outside the park, where Nexson Reef tops out at 24 m and slopes to 35 m. Visibility runs 5 to 15 m and can fall below 3 m after heavy rain. It is training and macro diving on a city's doorstep, not a stand-in for Sipadan.
About diving in Kota Kinabalu & Tunku Abdul Rahman Park
Centres sit either downtown, where Scuba Junkie KK works from Wisma Sabah and Borneo Dream from Plaza Tanjung Aru, or inside the park, where Downbelow runs from the Beach House on Gaya Island beside the Sabah Parks headquarters. Boats leave Jesselton Point jetty or Sutera Harbour Marina and reach the islands in 20 to 30 minutes, and several sites off Sapi, Manukan and Sepanggar are shore entries. Sapi and Mamutik are the busiest islands, shared with snorkel and beach traffic, and the training bays are buoyed off to keep boats out. Sabah Parks charges a daily entrance fee plus a separate scuba fee; published diving-fee figures disagree, so ask the centre.
The park is 50 square kilometres of islands, reef and sea, and Gaya has some of the best coral in it. Most of the diving is sand and gentle slope: Coral Garden on Sapi's flank holds squid, cuttlefish and nudibranchs year-round, with Arthur Reef's lobsters on the slope beyond. Mid Reef, between Gaya and Mamutik, has a low to moderate current at about 5 m, and Sulug's north shore has a reef operators rate among the park's best. Depth lies north-east, off Sepanggar Island: Fendy Rock's sand slope for macro, and Nexson Reef, a free descent to a reef top at 24 m that slopes on to 35 m. Visibility runs 5 to 15 m, 4 to 10 off Mamutik where courses run, and heavy rain sometimes drops it below 3 m.
This suits course divers, the newly certified wanting easy dives, and macro divers with a day or two in Kota Kinabalu; operators sell it as near-perfect water for learning, with no current in the bays. It is secondary diving by Sabah's own standards, worth a visit rather than a trip. Divers after big animals, walls and current should go to Sipadan on the east coast instead, and at least one Kota Kinabalu operator packages the two together. Wrecks are a footnote: Wikivoyage lists a technical wreck in 50 m inside the park, thought to be the Japanese Nittetsu Maru, which no operator page confirms, and the wartime wrecks at Usukan Bay are a separate two-hour trip 30 nautical miles north.
When to dive Kota Kinabalu & Tunku Abdul Rahman Park
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fair | Fair | Fair | Good | Good | Good | Good | Good | Good | Good | Good | Good |
Open all year with no closure; plankton and jellyfish spoil late January to mid-March, jellyfish are about October to May, and heavy rain cuts visibility.
Best months: April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
Dive types & marine life
Reliable life is small: squid, cuttlefish and nudibranchs year-round at Coral Garden off Sapi, nudibranchs, pufferfish and lobsters on Arthur Reef, and macro on Fendy Rock. Gaya's reef holds black-blotched porcupinefish and two-lined monocle bream. Turtles and reef sharks are one operator's report, not promises; two operators mention whale sharks, one calling a January-February handful rare.
- Reef
- Coral garden
- Muck & macro
- Sea turtles
- Reef sharks
- Nudibranchs
- Octopus & cuttlefish
- Squid
- Macro critters
Notable dive sites in Kota Kinabalu & Tunku Abdul Rahman Park
Sand slope
Walk-in dive off the Mari Mari Resort beach, sand and mud to 18 m at high tide
Reef
A free descent in open water to a reef top at 24 m, sloping on to 35 m
Sulug Island, North
Coral reef off Sulug's northern shore, rated one of the best sites in the park; operators run daily trips
Coral Garden, Sapi Island
Easy reef beside Sapi with little or no current; squid, cuttlefish and nudibranchs year-round
Mid Reef, Mamutik Island
Reef between Gaya and Mamutik islands with a low to moderate current at about 5 m
Fendy Rock
Sandy slope five minutes off Sepanggar Island, suited to newly certified divers and macro hunters
Getting there
Kota Kinabalu International Airport serves the city. Centres are downtown, Scuba Junkie KK at Wisma Sabah and Borneo Dream at Plaza Tanjung Aru, or on Gaya Island itself in Downbelow's case. Dive boats leave Jesselton Point jetty or Sutera Harbour Marina for the islands, 20 to 30 minutes out; public speedboats run from Jesselton Point roughly 8:30am to 4:15pm, about 20 minutes to Manukan.
Photos from Kota Kinabalu & Tunku Abdul Rahman Park
Kong · CC BY-SA 2.0
Ditch Townsend · CC BY-SA 4.0
diego_cue · CC BY-SA 3.0
Gossipguy · CC BY-SA 3.0
Photo credits
- Wooden jetty leading over turquoise shallows to Gaya Island's forested shore by Mx. Granger, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
- Coral catshark resting on the reef, its body covered in pale spots by Kong, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
- Blacktip grouper hovering over coral with a smaller reef fish nearby by Ditch Townsend, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
- White sand beach curving around a headland on Sapi Island under a blue sky by diego_cue, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
- Palm trees framing a view of Sapi Island across calm water from Kota Kinabalu's shore by Gossipguy, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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