BORNEO – Arenui the Boutique Liveaboard

DISCOVER INDONESIAN BORNEO
WITH
ARENUI LIVEABOARD

Borneo: Where Adventure Meets the Giants of the Deep!

Borneo, a hidden gem of the diving world, offers an exciting and increasingly popular dive destination with a variety of marine life and unique underwater experiences. Known for its stunning natural beauty and rich biodiversity, Borneo promises a diving adventure like no other with Arenui. This vast island, shared by Brunei, Malaysia, and Indonesia, is the third-largest in the world and offers some of the best marine life encounters on Earth.

The island of Sangalaki, part of the Derawan Archipelago, is famous for its large gatherings of manta rays, particularly during the full moon when nutrient-rich waters attract these majestic creatures. This pristine island, also a breeding ground for green turtles, is designated as an Indonesian Marine Park, ensuring its natural beauty and biodiversity are preserved. Borneo’s rich waters also offer the chance to encounter whale sharks, drawn by schools of anchovies caught by local fishing boats that use lights to attract them at night.

East Borneo is lined with a string of small islands, where the influence of murky river deltas fades, and visibility improves. This area is home to two large atolls and a unique island with a landlocked lake fringed by mangroves, where four species of stingless jellyfish coexist. Along the edges of the continental platform, you’ll find diverse dive sites, including walls, slopes, and sandy plateaus decorated with huge barrel sponges, large sea fans, and thriving hard coral gardens.

On a great week, divers on this route can witness the “big five”: thresher sharks, hammerheads, grey reef sharks, manta rays, and whale sharks. Borneo also teems with other incredible marine life, from turtles nesting on sandy shores to huge schools of jacks and barracudas patrolling the waters. For the adventurous, diving at Kakaban Island offers a unique experience—swimming in a saltwater lake filled with stingless jellyfish—and exploring the island’s surrounding walls. In the shallow waters of Samama, you’ll find a wealth of macro life hiding in plain sight.

One of Borneo’s advantages is its calm seas and clear skies from April to September, with little to no rain. Imagine diving among vast hard coral formations so dense they grow over one another, alongside massive sponges, feather stars, and vibrant schools of reef fish such as butterflyfish, fusiliers, and zebra fish. The underwater world here is buzzing with life and energy, creating an exhilarating experience for divers of all levels.

OCEAN LIFE FOCUS

In Borneo, you’ll discover a spectacular array of marine species, including butterflyfish, angelfish, damselfish, anthias, flatworm gobies, and reef sharks. Large schools of barracuda, manta rays, and whale sharks are frequent highlights, alongside encounters with green turtles. If you’re lucky, you might spot the elusive thresher shark or even hammerheads! Nudibranchs, sea slugs, and flatworms contribute to the colorful diversity of macro life. Other sightings include Napoleon wrasse, cuttlefish, frogfish, crocodile fish, and the stunning mandarin fish. Keep an eye out for ghost pipefish, eagle rays, and leopard sharks!