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Sipadan island is situated in the remote south-eastern of the Malaysian state of Sabah on the island of Borneo, and provides some of the best diving in the world. The remote location, coupled with the oceanic depths around the island make this a unique dive site. Unfortunately, due to terrorist activities around the island in 2000 which resulted in a number of western divers being held hostage for a considerable period of time, it is no longer possible to stay on the island. Resorts nearer the Borneo coast are thereby used, taking a small number of divers to the island.

In August 2007, a group of 8 technical divers from the UK ventured to the Pacific nation of the Solomon Islands to dive some of the World War 2 wrecks of the battle of Guadalcanal - once of the pivotal battles of WW2. Most of the wrecks were in the range of 50m to 80m, and most of the team were diving on rebreathers to allow extended bottom times on the deeper wrecks.

Operation Hailstone, the strikes on Truk, had been planned for April 1944, but the Americans had progressed through the Pacific faster than expected. On February 4th 1944, American photo intelegance from Truk Atoll showed the harbour being used as a forward anchorage for the Japanese navy and the US hoped for a significant presence of capital ships. The Japanese battleship Musashi was photographed at Truk in early February.

On 10th December 1941, just days after the Japanese struck Pearl harbour, the Royal Navy suffered its largest loss in a single engagement when it lost the capital ships HMS Prince of Wales, and HMS Repulse. Together with HMS Electra, HMS Express, HMS Tenedos and HMAS Vampire, they were known as Force Z and were sent to Singapore to disuade the Japanese from entering the war. Tragically, this was not the case, and over 840 officers and men were lost on these two ships.

The expedition to dive these two great battleships departed from Singapore on the 25th September 2005 on board MV Mata Ikan. The expedition was organised by Jack Ingle, and divers used both open circuit scuba, and closed circuit KISS rebreathers for the dives. HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse lie approximately 70nm off the East coast of Malaysia, and on the way to these sites we made a warmup dive on the supertanker Seven Skies.