Hanging Gardens
Hanging Gardens is a wall named for terraces of pastel Dendronephthya soft corals hanging from the ledges. Crevices hold sweetlips, gobies, hawkfish, moray eels and groupers; green and hawksbill turtles and ribbontail stingrays are common, and scalloped hammerheads and grey reef sharks cruise offshore. Guides rate it open-water friendly with mild to moderate currents.
Facts
- Region: Malaysia – Sipadan & Semporna
- Area: Sipadan Island
- Depth: 5–40 m
- Level: intermediate
- Current: moderate
- Type: wall
- Coordinates: 4.1156, 118.6261 (approximate)
- Highlights: soft coral, sweetlips, frogfish, nudibranch, moray eel, turtle, ribbontail stingray, hammerhead shark
- Permit: A Sabah Parks permit is required for every day on Sipadan. Independent diving is not allowed: permits are booked by licensed dive operators/resorts and issued at Sabah Parks' discretion; the daily quota is shared between operators (176 per day since 2019 per Wikipedia and Scuba Junkie; some 2026 operator notices cite about 252 – confirm). Divers need at least Advanced Open Water. Park fees on the Sabah Parks site: scuba diving RM 350 (foreigners) / RM 250 (Malaysians) plus a conservation fee of RM 100 / RM 50. Dive operators can book up to six months ahead. Sipadan was closed to divers for all of November 2023 and some operators state this is repeated every November – check before booking.
- Issuer / contact: Sabah Parks – Sipadan Island Park
- Phone: +60 88-523500
- Email: hello@sabahparks.org.my
- Website: https://www.sabahparks.org.my/contact-us
- Sabah Parks head office (Kota Kinabalu); Sipadan Island Park office in Semporna: +60 89-782039. Permits are booked by licensed dive operators, not by individual divers (https://www.sabahparks.org.my/services/diving-sipadan.
- Unverified: Published guides name this site but do not give its position; the marker is placed roughly off the island and does not show the real side or spot.
- Tips: Look into the cracks for frogfish and nudibranchs; watch the blue for sharks.