Semporna

The bay and its islands have been settled for a very long time: burial caves and pottery on the islands off the town point to communities trading across the Sulu Sea for centuries, and the area lay within the reach of the Sulu sultanate, whose ships and fishing fleets moved freely between here and the southern Philippines. The Sama-Bajau, sea-going people whose language and customs spread along these coasts, have lived in and around the bay for generations, some of them historically spending most of their lives aboard boats.

Under the British North Borneo Chartered Company the settlement was administered from Tawau and Sandakan, and was long a minor place of fishing, copra and barter trade rather than a plantation town. Japanese occupation in the Second World War was followed by the return of British administration and the founding of Malaysia in 1963, and the coast then became known for an unsettled border, as people, goods and, at times, armed groups moved between Sabah and the Sulu islands.

Semporna's modern shape comes from two industries. Seaweed farming spread across the shallow waters in the later twentieth century and remains a mainstay of village income, and diving arrived when the reefs of Sipadan and Mabul became known internationally in the 1980s, the first resort opening on Sipadan in 1984. The island was declared a marine park in 2004 and its resorts were closed, accommodation moving to Mabul, Kapalai and the town, and the number of daily dive permits was capped. Security measures introduced after incidents on this coast now govern much of how boats and resorts operate.

The town is culturally closer to the Sulu archipelago than to the rest of Malaysia. Bajau, Suluk, Bugis and Malay communities predominate, Islam is the main religion, and the languages heard along the waterfront include Sama dialects, Suluk, Sabah Malay and Bahasa Malaysia. A smaller Chinese community runs shops and coffee houses in the centre. Among the Sama-Bajau, boatbuilding, fishing and diving skills are part of family life, and some Bajau Laut families still live afloat or in houses on stilts far from the shore, many of them without papers, an issue that shapes their access to schools and services.

The lepa, a single-masted wooden boat, is the emblem of that culture. Once a floating home, it is now decorated with bunting, carved finials and coloured sails for the Regatta Lepa each April, when crews compete and the seafront fills with music and dancing. Bajau dance and the kulintangan, a row of small gongs, accompany weddings and festivals.

Everyday manners are those of a small Muslim town: greetings matter, Friday prayers empty the shops at midday, and Ramadan changes the rhythm of eating. Visitors are common and welcome, and the dive industry employs a large share of young people, but the town is not built for tourism beyond its waterfront strip, and life on the water villages continues with little regard to it.

The Semporna district counted some 133,000 people at the 2010 census and the town itself about 35,000; most people live in villages on the islands and along the coast rather than in the town, which is small enough to cross in a few minutes. Houses on stilts extend the settlement out over shallow water, and boats do the work that roads do elsewhere: school runs, markets, deliveries and visits between villages.

Fishing and seaweed farming underpin the local economy. Long lines of floats marking seaweed plots cover the bays, and the harvest is dried on platforms and jetties before being sold for processing. Diving and island tourism provide the other main income, through boat crews, guides, resorts, dive shops and the market that supplies them, and the town's economy is sensitive both to travel advisories and to the weather.

The day starts before dawn at the fish market and slows through the hottest hours; the evening brings people to the seafront and the coffee shops. Water supply, electricity and waste are persistent problems, and rubbish in the shallows is a visible one. The status of undocumented and stateless families of Filipino descent, many born in the district, is the most difficult long-running question in local life, affecting schooling, healthcare and work.

Seafood is the whole basis of eating here, and it is generally cooked simply. Fish is grilled over charcoal with a rub of turmeric and salt and served with sambal and lime, or steamed with ginger; prawns, squid, crab and shellfish come from tanks at the waterfront restaurants. The bay's sea urchins are a local speciality, split open and eaten raw with lime, or used for tehe-tehe, rice cooked with sea-urchin roe and served in the shell. Latok, a green seaweed also called sea grapes, is eaten raw as a salad with chilli, shallot and lime, and bursts like tiny beads.

Bajau and Suluk cooking uses cassava as much as rice. Putu is grated cassava steamed into a crumbly cake and eaten with grated coconut or fish, and cassava also appears fried or boiled alongside a bowl of fish soup. Rice dishes lean on coconut milk and turmeric, and pickled or sour fruit cuts the richness.

In the shophouse streets, Chinese coffee shops serve the Sabah standards: wonton and beef noodles, ngiu chap, fried rice, kaya toast and thick sweet coffee, with roti canai and nasi campur from Malay stalls. Tropical fruit — mango, durian, langsat, watermelon — is sold at the market beside sacks of dried fish and seaweed, and iced sugarcane and coconut drinks are the usual answer to the heat.