Celebes Explorer, Malaysia

Excellent diving and guidance

“The food was plentiful and delicious with lots of seafood. The guide was good at spotting critters in the ocean and was a good ph…”

carolyn P, United States United States
Read 21 more reviews

The 29m liveaboard, M/V Celebes Explorer, is the only vessel who schedules year round diving cruises to the best sites in Sipadan, Malaysia. Sipadan is home to thousands of species of flora and fauna, many of which are found exclusively here. Celebes Explorer offers 8 basic cabins equipped with private bathroom and spacious wardrobe. Guests may relax in the lounge with mini bar and the spacious, partially covered sun deck with wooden chairs, tables and a beach mattress.

The food served onboard is a mix of Malay and Chinese influences, served buffet style. The MV Celebes Explorer offers guests up to 4 dives per day. Dives are typically relaxing drift dives and remarkable wall dives. A Celebes Explorer sea safari in Malaysia’s Sipadan takes you to places that are best visited via liveaboard. Regarded as one of the world's best dive areas with hundreds of coral gardens, sloping reefs, and unforgettable underwater landscapes, divers are guaranteed to see thousands of vibrant fish and corals.

A Celebes Explorer Malaysia liveaboard diving holiday is a fantastic adventure. Reserve yours today.


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Included: VAT

Excluded: Dive and snorkel equiptment rental (full set approx RM 200 per day), Nitrox (USD 17 per fill), Semporna jetty fee (MYR 10.60 per person), Sipadan permit fee - MYR 42.40 per dive day (from August 2018 this will increase to RM 148.40 per dive day), International and Domestic Air tickets, Alcoholic and canned beverages Transfer outside recommended flights (approx USD 150 - car for 5 guests)

Book now, pay later: You can easily place your booking online. We will then hold the spaces for you and you can confirm with a payment later.

* Extra fees are shown per person.

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Boat features

  • Camera Station
  • Aircon Cabins
  • Sun Deck
  • Indoor Saloon
  • Non-Diver (Snorkeler) Friendly
  • Warm Water Showers
  • Outdoor Dining
  • En-Suite bathrooms

Food & Drinks

  • Local Food
  • Buffet style
  • Beer available
  • Snacks All Day

If you have any specific dietary requirements whilst on-board your cruise, you can add this to your special requests on step 2 of the booking form. We advise limiting these requests to religious beliefs or food allergies.


Diving

  • DIN Adaptors
  • Nitrox available
  • Rinse Hoses
  • Dive deck
  • Tenders for diving

The crew speaks English.


Gear Rental

There is diving gear available on this boat. Please provide your rental needs on the booking form. See below for further details on inclusions and pricing. Show prices.


Drawings & Vessel Layouts

Celebes Explorer floorplan

Boat Specifications

  • Year built 2001
  • Length 29 meters
  • Beam 7.2 meters
  • Cruising speed 9 knots
  • Engines 2 x 500HP Cummins
  • Max guests 16
  • Number of cabins 8
  • Number of bathrooms 8
  • Tenders dive dinghy
  • Water capacity 20'000 liters
  • Fuel capacity 6'000 liters

Boat Navigation and Safety

  • Radar
  • Depth Sounder
  • GPS
  • Life Vests
  • Fishfinder

Celebes Explorer Reviews

  • 7.2 Good
  1. Vessel
    5.0
  2. Crew
    7.0
  3. Food
    8.1
  4. Diving
    8.9
  5. Value
    7.1
  • 9.6 Exceptional
  • carolyn P
  • United States United States
Wonderful diving and superb crew with friendly, uplifting attitude

The food was plentiful and delicious with lots of seafood. The guide was good at spotting critters in the ocean and was a good photographer when he took pictures of me while diving. All the staff were very friendly and most learned your name. The head person, Tom, was a delight with a funny personality and wonderful attitude. He made everything such fun! Cabin 3 still has some funny smells however. Grab one of the others instead!

Recommended for
Diving, food and crew members
  • 8.8 Fabulous
  • Angela W
  • China China
A great week of Sipadan daily

The boat is currently under maintenance, so we've been arranged into hotel accommodation with daily dive trip to Sipadan. Overall it's still convenient and comfort. A week of 3 dives daily in Sipadan has been gorgeous.

Recommended for
big school of Bumphead parrotfishes, barracuda shoal, nudibranchs
  • 6.4 Review score
  • Siu Cong M
  • Hong Kong Hong Kong
celebes explorer under repair

1) the experience in south point is magnificent where v see a school of giant humphead fish passed by, high visibiliy, no other divers 2) in my 4 days daily trip to sipadan, 3 days are grouped with other day trip divers which limits our dives to 3 only. in view of the charge, we are expecting 4 dives each on the 2nd and 3rd day

Recommended for
because celebes explorer under repair, therefore accepted the alternate arrangement of daily trip to sipadan and stay in hotel in semporna
  • 7.6 Good
  • Vincent C
  • France France
Unique façon de découvrir réellement Sipadan

Barracuda point

Recommended for
Faune sous marine, guide expérimenté et flexible, convivialite du groupe
  • 7.2 Good
  • adria G
  • Spain Spain
Amazing Sipadan!

One of the best ways to dive in Sipadan!

Recommended for
Divemaster guide - Area - value for money
  • 6.4 Review score
  • Don C
  • Australia Australia
Celebes headed for Hades

The happy helpful and plentiful crew helped with this trip. The Celebes Explorer is a tired and sad boat. Cabins are in poor condition but clean enough... if one ignores the mould and water soaked woodwork. Warm water in shower adequate. Power failure in cabins a daily reality.. A new boat is currently being built with an expected delivery date of late this year. Good home style cooking for meals but this is not your soup, selection of mains and dessert liveaboard. Three mains a greens and fruit (melon or watermelon) dishes on offer each meal. Plenty of it and toast and jam on permanent offer. I drink my tea and coffee black which was just as well. Dive guide knew the sites well and good weather and mild currents made for easy diving. No real need to dive deep as most of the interesting stuff is 15m up.

Recommended for
Loads of turtles, reasonable viz, nice schools of Barra and bumpheads
  • 6.0 Review score
  • Lee K
  • Canada Canada
Do your research, Know what you are getting into, be very cautious and speak up if you feel unsafe.

I would add one more highlight: and that, is of course the people you meet on board, we had a nice time. I chose to take a main deck room, with single occupancy and paid the 50% surcharge. At 63 I prefer not to share. Now, I had read all of the reviews and they are quite correct; I was in room 1, top deck with a 2 ft by 3 ft window not quite a double bed. The house keeping staff did a great job on getting the room ready for me. Absolutely no complaints or concerns with the staff. (actually, not at any time during the trip). My toilet did not work without filling a bucket of water and using this as your flush. My shower did not work when others were using the showers below. But none of this mattered, I knew what I was buying and chose to do it and a happy that I did. Others, below my deck, experienced similar issues that you have already read in past reviews. Now: here are my real concerns. 1) This is one of the very worst places in the world to dive! The coral is mostly dead; Which means that the fish and aquatic animals are disappearing. This, very large reef is dying and someone is selling it as if it was pristine. The waters are so polluted that you can see debris, over every surface, all of the time. There are so many other majestic places in the world to dive, I suggest you look else where. 2) Should you choose to book with the Celebes Explorer, and you are given Raf as your dive master, my advise to you is to immediately ask for a replacement. I have been diving since 2009 and have logged over 100 dives and his behavior is unsafe. He does not look to ensure you are all accounted for at all times. In fact he, in a 45 minute dive will look to see who is there 2 to, maybe, 3 times. He does not ask what your O2 level is. He dives erratically both vertically and horizontally, meaning, if you do not have a dive computer you can not dive with any level of comfort. He constantly plays with shells, small fish and then moves off. There was one time when the three of us, divers, had to work our tails off, against the current to try to get to him as he was oblivious to us and how the current was pulling us away as he had his silver rod in the ground and was not "currenting" along with us. He said to stay together and he was useless. I chose not to dive 2 dives as I felt he was unsafe. We spoke of this to each other and agreed that we would look out for each other as he was not. Ok, Ok, Ok! Some of you are saying, "then why did you not say something to someone?" and rightly so. I guess we felt we could cope. I do regret not getting two of my dives in, but this was a risk I could not take. Lee Koran

Recommended for
1) Swimming with the schools of fish off of Barracuda reef and with the schools of Barracuda at the end of this dive. The number of sharks and green turtles.2) The, on-board, staff were amazing.
  • 8.4 Very good
  • GuangHui C
  • Australia Australia
Great liveaboard Experience, made possible with the great crew

For me this was my first ever liveaboard experience, and I must say I'm hungry for the next one. The Celebes Explorer, although a bit old and run down, is more than certainly made up for by the liveliness and hospitality of both the boat crew and Divemaster Basher. He was knowledgeable about the dive spots we visited everyday and made sure we were able to best experience the various sights around Sipadan island. Three square meals a day were provided, no complaints and it was a nice touch having fresh cut fruit provided with every meal. Be prepared to ratchet down your plates when eating during choppy seas! Also, bring your hard drive with movies on it to share with the crew, as they have a penchant for good old action movies whilst eating meals. Other than that, a very good experience aboard the boat and would love to return again. Also, email communication with the Dive operator was superb, Tania was able to respond in a timely matter to whatever queries I had about the trip. Highly recommended!

Recommended for
Dive Master, Food, Adherence to schedule
  • 8.0 Very good
  • Aimee K
  • South Korea South Korea
Everthings are good

Sipadan

Recommended for
Cabin, Guides, Service
  • 5.6 Review score
  • gary P
  • Australia Australia
If you want to dive Sipadan every day book this boat, dont expect luxury or anything else

If you don't mind ruffing it a lot, don't book this boat. The boat is old and worn, it smelt in the cabins and a lot of diesel fumes around the boat. My aircon died after 2 days, then one of the gen sets died. The toilets flushed sometimes and the shower had its own mind if it wanted to work. The food was plentiful and was similar every day.. now for the good news, the boat is due to be replaced later this year. The crew and DM's were good and the diving was great. By booking this boat I got to dive Sipadan every day, not like those in resorts at Mabul who had to go into a raffle to see who goes diving at Sipadan

Recommended for
Best things about the boat were access to Sipadan