Hidden Secret of Roach Reef

Diving Trip to Roach Reef Resort, Sabah 13-16 Oct, 08
On the 13th October 2008, Eunice, Lily and I decided to go for 4 days 3 nights dive trip to Roach Reef Resort (RRR), a man-made island located right at the edge of the Borneo Shelf. It is an hour speedboat ride from Tawau Yacht Club. A beautiful island, it is only an hour away from Sipadan island. Roach Reef surely is a paradise for divers and non-divers who are looking for exotic diving and relaxation. We flew via Air Asia from Singapore International Airport into KL for transit and made our way to our final destination, Tawau, Sabah. Yes, it was a long day of travelling and waiting at the airport. Due to the arrival in the evening, we had to stay in Tawau for a night. And oh yes! We had fantastic seafood dinner nearby our hotel.  Not to say the good food, it was cheap!! I assure you, I will bring anyone of you who are reading this now to eat there, well, if there is a chance of you travelling to Tawau with me.

Next morning we were picked up from the hotel, went for breakfast and headed to the yacht club for the boat ride to Roach Reef Resort. Far view from the island, Roach Island is magnificent, got a very warm welcome by the staff of the resort and checked into to our water villa room. We started our first check out dive shortly at the house reef. Roach reef is quite open in the ocean; therefore all of our dives are easy drift dive.

At RRR house reef, the first critter we spotted was the white “Leaf Scorpion fish” then lots of shy “Jaw fish”. At the sandy bottom of the reef, the whole reef was full of cute but shy “Spotted Garden Eels” hundreds and thousands of this eels roam the whole reef. It was not easy to take pictures of them as they go disappear immediately if you go too near to them or make any sound. There are many different species of Nudibranches, cleaner shrimps, crabs, and squat lobsters are also spotted easily! Reef is very healthy as they are fully covered with colorful reef fishes. At the mixture of reef and sandy area, I spotted a crocodile fish and flounder!

There is so much to see, so little bottom time! Wish I had a CCR so I could stay underwater for hours! The amazing sight which I would never forget is the Bumphead parrot fish dive, we got up as early as 6 am and went underwater no later than 6.30 am. I counted 28 giant bumphead waking up so early for their breakfast. Now I truly understand why we usually get to see bumphead at Raynes Rock, Aur at 7am.

2nd reef is further out of RRR, about 15min away. Though the current there was pretty strong, this dive site is really magnificent. I have never seen such an “untouched” reef before. The table corals are bigger than my queen size bed! Usually staghorn corals are being damaged, but the stghorn at 2nd reef is flawless!

Throughout the whole dive trip we had made a total of 7 dives, RRR House Reef, Viking Point, Lobster Point, Corner, Mid Point and 2nd reef. All dive site are amazing, it is not something I can express in my blog, so I suggest each of you to experience it yourself! Highly recommended!!!

I will surely go back to RRR again, in fact, I’m already planning to head back there on December 2008. Staff there is very friendly, though our dive guide, Ambrose is a new diver, he is willing to learn, we looked for things together and enjoyed all our findings together! I really appreciate him so much. Not forgetting the food at the resort, it was pretty good too! We never went hungry.

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