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Mandarin Valley, Mandarin Garden or Mandarin Alley lies to the left of the jetty and consists of a shallow sloping reef of maximum 18m deep. It's a very slow dive where one must search amongst the ruble and coral for small critters such as Harlequin Ghost Pipefish, Frog Fish, Stone Fish Octopus and the famous but very rare Mandarin Fish.

The most well-known feature of this dive site is Turtle Cave, a giant cavern in 20 meters of water that goes all the way through the island. Early divers in the cave found turtle skeletons resting in the silty bottom, unfortunate souls who entered the cave, became lost, and drowned before being able to make their way out again. You must have proper training to fully enter this cave, but even swimming just a few meters into the cave can be a thrilling experience, as you look back and see a blue panorama framed by the cave walls.

George can often be seen here—a resident barracuda over two meters long who makes the cave his home. When you're lucky, you'll be accompanied inside the cave by a few passing white-tip reef sharks. But Turtle Cave isn't the only highlight of this dive: a resident school of bigeye trevally—numbering in the thousands—hang out just 100 meters from the mouth of the cave, greeting divers as they ascend from and offering a beautiful end to one of the defining dives of Sipadan.

One of the top dive sites at Sipadan—indeed, the world—Barracuda Point derives its name from the resident barracuda that often appear in the thousands, forming a vortex large enough to block out the sun. The dive starts out as a classic wall dive before coming to a channel in 18 meters of water which frequently has strong currents pushing through it. Its at one end of the channel that the barracuda often hang out and, when they are there, a large portion of the dive is often spent holding onto a rock in the channel and starting off into the blue in awe.

Reef sharks are attracted by the strong currents, and can often be found resting on the channel bottom. The channel floor is teeming with macro-life, from spotted garden eels and morays to scorpion fish, lion fish, octopus, and more. The shallows at Barracuda Point feature some of the most beautiful coral on the island, where you can often find turtles snacking on sponges or just sleeping the day away.

The Jetty of Kapalai was named the 5th best dive site in the world last year. This is Kapalai house reef and is where the 5 wrecks are located. This dive site offers a good mix of both large pelagic and small critters!

At Mid Reef, go down the ball line to around 25m where the current can be very strong so this is a dive site for the more experienced diver. This dive site is famous for its pigmy seahorses.