Whitetip Avenue
Whitetip Avenue is famous for its proliferation of sharks, mantas and turtles.
It's a wall dive and below 30m, there are a lot of sharks (grey and white tips) along with very nice sea fans and patches of black corals.
Whitetip Avenue is Sipadan's shark boulevard. The name undersells it: yes, whitetip reef sharks own the street — resting on ledges, cruising the wall in twos and threes — but below 30 metres the greys join in numbers, mantas make their passes, and the turtle traffic never stops, all against a deep wall dressed in fine seafans and patches of black coral. On a good day it's the island's most consistently sharky dive outside Barracuda Point's showpieces.
How to dive it?
The 17–40 metre profile tells you how to dive it: this is an Advanced Open Water wall where the depth band is the attraction. Our pattern here is the disciplined V — down the face early to the 30-metre shark layer while gas and no-deco time are rich, then a slow diagonal ascent that trades depth for the fan gardens and the mid-wall turtle lanes. Divers who rush the deep section miss the point; divers who linger there sensibly get the dive everyone else describes at dinner.
A note on the sharks themselves, for newer shark divers: whitetips and greys here are reef residents utterly uninterested in divers — the correct emotion is privilege, not caution, and after the third fly-past everyone's heart rate agrees.
Contact us to dive at Whitetip Avenue
- Depth
- 17-40 metres
- Visibility
- 30 metres (100 feet)
- Location
- East side of Sipadan, south of Barracuda Point and Coral Gardens.
| Dive site | Min depth | Max depth | Level | Dive Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Barracuda Point | 5m 16ft | 40m 131ft | AOW | Wall, Reef |
| Coral gardens | 10m 33ft | 23m 75ft | OW | Wall, Reef |
| Hanging Gardens | 5m 16ft | 40m 131ft | OW | Wall, Reef, Sharks |
| Lobster lairs | 25m 82ft | 40m 131ft | AOW | Wall, Reef, Big Fishes |
| North Point | 25m 82ft | 40m 131ft | AOW | Drift, Wall, Reef, Sharks |
| South Point | 20m 65ft | 40m 131ft | AOW | Wall, Reef |
| Staghorn Crest | 20m 65ft | 40m 131ft | AOW | Wall, Reef, Sharks |
| The Jetty | 3m 10ft | 40m 131ft | OW | Wall, Reef |
| Turtle Cavern | 14m 46ft | 23m 75ft | AOW | Cave, Reef |
| Turtle Patch | 5m 16ft | 12m 39ft | OW | Wall, Reef, Sharks |
| Turtle Tomb | 17m 56ft | 23m 75ft | Divemaster | Cave |
| West Ridge | 18m 59ft | 40m 131ft | OW | Wall, Reef, Sharks |
| Whitetip Avenue | 17m 56ft | 40m 131ft | OW | Wall, Reef, Sharks |
| Midreef | 5m 16ft | 40m 131ft | AOW | Wall, Reef |
| The Drop Off | 5m 16ft | 40m 131ft | AOW | Wall, Reef |
Divers: book your Sipadan permits in advance!