Derawan Dive Lodge

Note: Scuba diving in Derawan can be easily combined with Sipadan island (Tawau airport, Sabah, Borneo, Malaysia).

More about Derawan Dive Lodge

Derawan Dive Lodge sits on a private white-sand beach on Derawan island, off the coast of East Kalimantan in Indonesian Borneo. It's a small place — about ten rooms split between wooden beach chalets, sea-view villas and a couple of family units, all air-conditioned — and the size is the charm: it runs like a boutique lodge where the dive team knows your name by the second morning.

The diving is the reason to make the journey. Derawan sits in the Coral Triangle, and from the lodge's own jetty the Tasik Divers centre (PADI 5-star) runs two 14-metre dive boats, with Nitrox available. Within range you get a genuinely unusual spread: wall dives and wreck dives, shore diving on the house reef, mantas at Sangalaki, and the famous stingless jellyfish lake on Kakaban — one of only a couple of its kind in the world. Green turtles nest on Derawan itself; seeing them cruise the reef edge is an everyday event here, and on lucky nights they come up the beach in front of the lodge.

Book your stay at Derawan Dive Lodge

The open restaurant serves mostly Indonesian food — a lot of fresh fish, with Manadonese influences — and vegetarian options are easy to arrange.

An honest note on logistics: this is Indonesia, not Malaysia, so it's a separate leg from Semporna — but the two combine well. Many of our divers pair Sipadan with Derawan in one Borneo trip via Tawau, and we can organise the connections. Contact us to plan it.