neve
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Hi folks,
Here's it is. Please pardon my atrocious English and long-winded story. Just stop reading if you find it too much of a torture
-----
Perhentian Island Trip The Good, the Bad, and the Gorgeous
I recently spent a long weekend diving the Perhentian Islands Heres the trip report as promised in the previous thread, see http://www.scubaboard.com/t11292/s.html. Im not much of a writer, but I hope this is entertaining enough.
Thu, July 4, 2002
7.30pm. Leaves Singapore on Transnasional Super VIP 25-seater coach. Its a 10-hour bus ride to Jerteh, State of Terengganu, Malaysia. There were 5 of us leaving from Singapore, and one more leaving from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia:
1. neve the Rookie. Logged dives: 14. Last dive: May 2002
2. Sean the Manchester sea monster. Logged dives: 10. Last dive: 1999 (!!)
3. Eric the Young Gun. Logged dives: 4 (OW training dives!). Last dive: May 2002.
4. Janice the Girlie Spice. Logged dives: 40. Last dive: May 2002.
5. Clare the Dive Mascot alias water clown. Logged dives: 92. Last dive: Dec 2001
6. Vince the real McCoy. Divemaster certified and has gills (well, I think). Logged dives: 100+. Last dive: May 2002.
Fri, July 5, 2002
6am. Reaches Jerteh. We took two taxis to the Kuala Besut Jetty. The first boat to the island leaves at 8.30am, so we had a couple of hours to have breakfast and have a look around.
7am. A guy offered an earlier boat ride to the island. Vince, Eric, and Janice decided to leave first. Clare and I stayed back to wait for Sean.
8.30am. Still no sign of Sean. His mobile phone is off, and the first boat is leaving. sigh That means we have to take the later boat.
9.30am Seans shiny bald top glints under the morning sun at last!
10am Boat leaves jetty. The smell of water and the salty seabreeze is so invigorating! After 30 minutes of the speedboat ride, we arrived at the Rajawali resort on Perhentian Kecil Island where we will be staying for three days. Eric, Janice and Vince left a message saying they have reached the dive center on the other side of the island. Clare, Sean and I quickly changed into our swim togs, lugged our gear and hopped on the water taxi.
11am. Coral Sky Divers headquarters, Long Beach, Perhentian Kecil Island. Meeting the DM/Instructors for the very first time: Erika the owner/instructor, Jennifer the DM. They told us two groups were out diving at the time, so the place was somewhat deserted. We started assembling our gears and getting briefed about the dive.
12noon. Two dive-boatfuls of people approached shore. The closer they get, the lower my jaw dropped! Aside from two or three girls, the rest were gorgeous hunks (in manner of Baywatch)! I looked around to see Clare and Janices gazes transfixed on the glorious sight. We shamelessly continued to gawk while they shed their gear, peeled off their wetsuits, and revealed sinewy muscles and golden tans. (sorry if this sounds corny, but if you girls were there you would have done the same!) There were at least a dozen of them parading around in teeny-weeny skimpy Speedos. This is one heck of a welcome!
12.30pm Pre-dive briefing. One of the tanned hunks in Speedos joined us for the briefing. His introduced himself as Ben in a sultry French accent, and he was to join Jennifer as the second DM. If the dive sucks at least Ill still get to gawk at him!
1pm Getting on boat, heading to our first dive site: Twin Rocks (Terumbu Tiga in Malay). It was a 10-minute speedboat ride. The sea was flat and calm, the water turquoise and warm, the dive comp said it was around 34C. We got kitted up, and sat waiting on the sides of the boat. Holding on to my mask and reg, I rolled backwards into the water. It was heavenly! My first nitrogen fix in a month wow. A school of flyfish swimming very close to surface immediately greeted us. I descended slowly and equalized very often (coz I dont want to puke up a storm when I ascend later). Below us, an abundance of soft corals and (gasp!) a couple of jellyfish sway in the mild current.
When we reached 18metres (60ft), it was apparent that the site is a superb choice for a check out dive. The viz was good, about 20m. Several Napoleon wrasses cruise past, and a huge school of yellowtail barracudas formed a cloud above us. A lone porcupine puffer sensed our presence and scurried away, but then came back a few minutes later (maybe after deciding that were harmless after all). The puffer totally ignored us, even when Clare started humming (she does this all the time). The Titanic theme song she was humming made me smile, kind of goes with the atmosphere, I thought
There were plenty of interesting things to look at in this site: nudibranchs of various vibrant colours, clownfish, emperor angelfish, a couple of giant triggerfish (frisky fellas! Scared the hell out of me when it tried to bite our DM, Jen), some small and transparent cleaner shrimps, bannerfish, and batfish. A white-eyed moray eel was also present, quietly hiding in the crevices with its mouth agape.
We had to dodge a number of jellyfish and the aggressive triggerfish, but all in all it was a nice, relaxed dive. We also saw a few more puffers, and also some unusual creatures that I have not seen before: the mappa pufferfish, and the highlight of the dive: the white tip reef shark! He was alone, cruising along the reefs looking for food. That truly made my day.
3.51pm After 61 minutes underwater, we ascended. On the way up, I started to worry about getting back on the boat. I have never done it before, so this first attempt was quite a laugh! I held on to the side of the boat, undid my weightbelt, my BC, and handed them to the boatman. I felt my heart pounding as I finned and pulled myself up the side a few times, just to gain momentum. One, two, three swing
and up I went, scrambling onto the boat and landing chest first on the wooden bench. Ouch
The rest climbed up, and Clare was the last one. To my surprise, she couldnt hoist herself up! She is barely half my size and I thought it would be piece of cake for her
NOT! I guess it really depends on how you fin up and how much strength you have in your upper body (yup, its the smug new me!! )
3.30pm Our second dive for the day at DLagoon. A nice, shallow dive, the maximum depth was 14m (46ft), 10 minutes boat ride, flat sea and great viz (25m). Again, lots of yellowtail barracudas and nudibranchs. There were also the mandatory porcupine puffers, completely uninterested and swimming about minding their own business.
As we look under the rocks, a Jenkins whipray nervously skitters. He stayed put for a while, just long enough for us to gawk at him and take pictures. We also saw several giant clams, which closed their shells just when we swim past.
Marine life is not very abundant here, but we had some rare sightings of a giant pufferfish feeding on soft corals, and a huge beaked coralfish following us everywhere. There were also some resident batfish and cleaner shrimps just hanging out, putting up a show for the divers.
Just before we ascend, Jen led us to a sandy-bottomed area, with one of two corals and not much of anything to see. We knew were heading for a treat, as Jen had briefed us before the dive about a family of fierce little panda clownfish. As we approached the soft anemone coral where the clownfish lives, Jen motioned us to kneel around the family home. The cute creatures, which jealously guard their home, chased after Jens fingers as she pretended to touch the nest. A family of five black-and-white panda clownfish constantly attacked Jens fingers to keep it away. Quite amusing to watch, almost like an underwater soap opera. It was an easy 61-minute dive.
Sat, July 6, 2002
8.30am We were up bright and early, in anticipation of the next dive in the best dive site in Perhentian: Tokong Laut (Temple of the Sea). We were told that this site has everything!
9.21am Doing a backroll entry is no longer a novelty to me. I was feeling a bit ill because of the slightly choppy sea, so I couldnt wait to get underwater. It was nice and calm down there, as we descended slowly to 23m (76ft). Viz was excellent, easily 20-30m.
The place really is Perhentians best dive site! Even as we were ascending, great schools of fishes surrounded us in spiral-like formations. Colourful hard and soft corals below are visible from 5m (16ft), and gin-clear water made the vision somewhat surreal. A guy from the dive center was videotaping us the whole time, so our awe-struck expressions were caught on tape!
Just 5 minutes into the dive, we saw a blue-spotted stingray silently waiting for unsuspecting preys. Another mappa pufferfish greeted us next, as he busily chew on corals. A spot-faced moray eel peeked from his hole, next to three napping bamboo sharks hidden under the rocks.
Not far from there, two white-eyed moray eels were mating, taking a playful bite at each other and totally ignoring the audience. A humphead parrotfish swims by, undisturbed by all the action around him. Also, some filefish and pipefish decided to make an appearance. Some yellow-spotted trevally, black-spotted puffers, and a titan triggerfish were also present.
Suddenly the cameraman motioned us to come and take a look. He was using his strobe to point into a cave, and as we peeked inside, a fat, red stonefish stared back at us. Several cleaner shrimps busily go about their duties all over the stonefishs head.
We swam about for a little while longer, and the light current made me feel a bit nauseous. I signaled to my buddy Clare and my DM Jen that I wanted to go up, so Jen accompanied me to the surface and then went back down. Quite a short dive, 42 minutes, but I saw everything I had come here to see!
1.50pm. The Sugar Wreck. It is a 30m-long cargo boat that sank during a monsoon just last year, with a cargo of sugar, and settled on its side on a clay bottom at 18m. The dive site is still unmapped; so all dives are exploratory, exterior only. You swim around dangling hawsers, cargo nets, pulleys and deck machinery. Many blue swimmer crabs and snapper have already taken up residence, as well as two fabulous hairy filefish. The ship is eerily dark and cavern-like from the outside. At this point in time, Clare is halfway through her humming rendition of Titanics theme song (again). Thousands of fishes of various species surrounded the us, unafraid of our bubbles. Some playful batfish even came very close, and fed on the bread that Eric and Clare brought down with them inside little plastic bags.
It was quite a difficult dive for me, as the current was quite strong (around 2-3 knots) so we had to descent following the mooring line. We were flailing about like rag dolls, but as soon as we got to 13m (42ft), the current disappeared. Some of us who were diving in shorties were also badly stung by jellyfish. They were everywhere! No amount of dodging could help us, because there were just too many of them.
We hovered close to the bottom for a while, just staring in amazement at the picturesque view of the wreck surrounded by hundreds of thousands of fish. As I looked down to the bottom, I spotted a family of three cuttlefish! The were also hovering off the bottom just like us probably hunting or just taking a nap. I used my tank banger to attract the attention of my buddies, and they were just as awestruck as I was. Eventually, one of them took off in a surprising burst of speed, followed by the other two soon after.
The highlight of this dive was when we spotted a one-eyed black-spotted pufferfish. It had one normal eye on its left side, and no eye (not even a hole) on the other. It was just smooth spotted skin, so we concluded it must have been born without a right eye. Kind of creepy!
After a while the current picked up again and we decided to ascend after 43 minutes. Again it was a rough ride to the top; we held on to the mooring line and did our 3-minute safety stop being jerked around by the current. As we surfaced, I felt my stomach turning and started dry-retching (I had not had any food all day) ugh! Not a pretty sight. We also had to scramble up to the boat quickly, because the pesky jellyfish were just everywhere!
Four of my buddies did a night dive that night, and saw a giant leatherback turtle. Eric and I stayed on shore, because he is not trained to do night dive and Im mildly claustrophobic.
Sun, July 7 2002
9.35am Mystery Reef. This was our only deep dive during the trip. Mystery Reef is a rocky reef in the middle of the sea, with a maximum depth of 30m (100ft). This reef lies very deep and is well known as a fish nursery. All types of fish can be found here in big schools, especially brown stripe snappers. There were literally thousands of them, blocking the view as we swim along. In the cracks between the rocks we saw dozens of bamboo sharks and coral cat sharks lying around everywhere. We also saw at least 4 lionfish and several razor fish among the black corals and porcupine and pufferfish among the rocks. Swimming around are fusiliers, trevallies, barracudas, batfish and the talang queenfish.
This site has more fish then any other site in Perhentian! The visibility was not so good, about 5m, but the fish life is definitely something I would go back for. We didnt stay long because it was quite deep, so we descended to 16m (52ft) and hung around to watch the huge schools of fish. Visibility improved to about 20m. Yellow-back fusiliers were swimming at a dizzying speed, and a dozen of mackerels swam through the crowd.
To our surprise, we looked down to see a medium-sized white tip reef shark swimming around at approximately 20m (65ft). We were wondering if its hunting (which was kind of strange because it was quite late into the day), but it seemed to be more disoriented. After a while, the shark swam deeper into the sea. We ended the dive after 23 minutes, and it was my last dive for the trip. Some of my buddies went for another dive at Stingray Alley, and told me stories about a huge group of stingrays just lurking around for them to see. They also got a manicure from the cleaner shrimps there.
This is by far my most trouble-free trip: no vomiting (well, almost), nice weather, and excellent dive sites. I would definitely go there again! Email me if you want to see pictures from the trip (on land). More underwater pictures coming!
Best of all, the trip only cost approximately SGD350 (USD197) per person, all inclusive. We took the overnight super VIP coach there and the overnight sleeper train back to Singapore. We each did a minimum of 5 dives and a maximum of 7 over three days, so it was not too stressful. I wonder why I waited so long to do this. The Perhentians are so much better than Pulau Aur!
Oh, we dove with Coral Sky Divers They were excellent!
Next trip: Aug 8-11.
Destination: to be decided. It's either Riau or Perhentian again.
Planning a Bali Dive Safari too... Nov 1-7. I wish I can just quit my job and dive!
Here's it is. Please pardon my atrocious English and long-winded story. Just stop reading if you find it too much of a torture
-----
Perhentian Island Trip The Good, the Bad, and the Gorgeous
I recently spent a long weekend diving the Perhentian Islands Heres the trip report as promised in the previous thread, see http://www.scubaboard.com/t11292/s.html. Im not much of a writer, but I hope this is entertaining enough.
Thu, July 4, 2002
7.30pm. Leaves Singapore on Transnasional Super VIP 25-seater coach. Its a 10-hour bus ride to Jerteh, State of Terengganu, Malaysia. There were 5 of us leaving from Singapore, and one more leaving from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia:
1. neve the Rookie. Logged dives: 14. Last dive: May 2002
2. Sean the Manchester sea monster. Logged dives: 10. Last dive: 1999 (!!)
3. Eric the Young Gun. Logged dives: 4 (OW training dives!). Last dive: May 2002.
4. Janice the Girlie Spice. Logged dives: 40. Last dive: May 2002.
5. Clare the Dive Mascot alias water clown. Logged dives: 92. Last dive: Dec 2001
6. Vince the real McCoy. Divemaster certified and has gills (well, I think). Logged dives: 100+. Last dive: May 2002.
Fri, July 5, 2002
6am. Reaches Jerteh. We took two taxis to the Kuala Besut Jetty. The first boat to the island leaves at 8.30am, so we had a couple of hours to have breakfast and have a look around.
7am. A guy offered an earlier boat ride to the island. Vince, Eric, and Janice decided to leave first. Clare and I stayed back to wait for Sean.
8.30am. Still no sign of Sean. His mobile phone is off, and the first boat is leaving. sigh That means we have to take the later boat.
9.30am Seans shiny bald top glints under the morning sun at last!
10am Boat leaves jetty. The smell of water and the salty seabreeze is so invigorating! After 30 minutes of the speedboat ride, we arrived at the Rajawali resort on Perhentian Kecil Island where we will be staying for three days. Eric, Janice and Vince left a message saying they have reached the dive center on the other side of the island. Clare, Sean and I quickly changed into our swim togs, lugged our gear and hopped on the water taxi.
11am. Coral Sky Divers headquarters, Long Beach, Perhentian Kecil Island. Meeting the DM/Instructors for the very first time: Erika the owner/instructor, Jennifer the DM. They told us two groups were out diving at the time, so the place was somewhat deserted. We started assembling our gears and getting briefed about the dive.
12noon. Two dive-boatfuls of people approached shore. The closer they get, the lower my jaw dropped! Aside from two or three girls, the rest were gorgeous hunks (in manner of Baywatch)! I looked around to see Clare and Janices gazes transfixed on the glorious sight. We shamelessly continued to gawk while they shed their gear, peeled off their wetsuits, and revealed sinewy muscles and golden tans. (sorry if this sounds corny, but if you girls were there you would have done the same!) There were at least a dozen of them parading around in teeny-weeny skimpy Speedos. This is one heck of a welcome!
12.30pm Pre-dive briefing. One of the tanned hunks in Speedos joined us for the briefing. His introduced himself as Ben in a sultry French accent, and he was to join Jennifer as the second DM. If the dive sucks at least Ill still get to gawk at him!
1pm Getting on boat, heading to our first dive site: Twin Rocks (Terumbu Tiga in Malay). It was a 10-minute speedboat ride. The sea was flat and calm, the water turquoise and warm, the dive comp said it was around 34C. We got kitted up, and sat waiting on the sides of the boat. Holding on to my mask and reg, I rolled backwards into the water. It was heavenly! My first nitrogen fix in a month wow. A school of flyfish swimming very close to surface immediately greeted us. I descended slowly and equalized very often (coz I dont want to puke up a storm when I ascend later). Below us, an abundance of soft corals and (gasp!) a couple of jellyfish sway in the mild current.
When we reached 18metres (60ft), it was apparent that the site is a superb choice for a check out dive. The viz was good, about 20m. Several Napoleon wrasses cruise past, and a huge school of yellowtail barracudas formed a cloud above us. A lone porcupine puffer sensed our presence and scurried away, but then came back a few minutes later (maybe after deciding that were harmless after all). The puffer totally ignored us, even when Clare started humming (she does this all the time). The Titanic theme song she was humming made me smile, kind of goes with the atmosphere, I thought
There were plenty of interesting things to look at in this site: nudibranchs of various vibrant colours, clownfish, emperor angelfish, a couple of giant triggerfish (frisky fellas! Scared the hell out of me when it tried to bite our DM, Jen), some small and transparent cleaner shrimps, bannerfish, and batfish. A white-eyed moray eel was also present, quietly hiding in the crevices with its mouth agape.
We had to dodge a number of jellyfish and the aggressive triggerfish, but all in all it was a nice, relaxed dive. We also saw a few more puffers, and also some unusual creatures that I have not seen before: the mappa pufferfish, and the highlight of the dive: the white tip reef shark! He was alone, cruising along the reefs looking for food. That truly made my day.
3.51pm After 61 minutes underwater, we ascended. On the way up, I started to worry about getting back on the boat.
I have never done it before, so this first attempt was quite a laugh! I held on to the side of the boat, undid my weightbelt, my BC, and handed them to the boatman. I felt my heart pounding as I finned and pulled myself up the side a few times, just to gain momentum. One, two, three swing
and up I went, scrambling onto the boat and landing chest first on the wooden bench. Ouch
The rest climbed up, and Clare was the last one. To my surprise, she couldnt hoist herself up! She is barely half my size and I thought it would be piece of cake for her
NOT! I guess it really depends on how you fin up and how much strength you have in your upper body (yup, its the smug new me!! )3.30pm Our second dive for the day at DLagoon. A nice, shallow dive, the maximum depth was 14m (46ft), 10 minutes boat ride, flat sea and great viz (25m). Again, lots of yellowtail barracudas and nudibranchs. There were also the mandatory porcupine puffers, completely uninterested and swimming about minding their own business.
As we look under the rocks, a Jenkins whipray nervously skitters. He stayed put for a while, just long enough for us to gawk at him and take pictures. We also saw several giant clams, which closed their shells just when we swim past.
Marine life is not very abundant here, but we had some rare sightings of a giant pufferfish feeding on soft corals, and a huge beaked coralfish following us everywhere. There were also some resident batfish and cleaner shrimps just hanging out, putting up a show for the divers.
Just before we ascend, Jen led us to a sandy-bottomed area, with one of two corals and not much of anything to see. We knew were heading for a treat, as Jen had briefed us before the dive about a family of fierce little panda clownfish. As we approached the soft anemone coral where the clownfish lives, Jen motioned us to kneel around the family home. The cute creatures, which jealously guard their home, chased after Jens fingers as she pretended to touch the nest. A family of five black-and-white panda clownfish constantly attacked Jens fingers to keep it away. Quite amusing to watch, almost like an underwater soap opera. It was an easy 61-minute dive.
Sat, July 6, 2002
8.30am We were up bright and early, in anticipation of the next dive in the best dive site in Perhentian: Tokong Laut (Temple of the Sea). We were told that this site has everything!
9.21am Doing a backroll entry is no longer a novelty to me. I was feeling a bit ill because of the slightly choppy sea, so I couldnt wait to get underwater. It was nice and calm down there, as we descended slowly to 23m (76ft). Viz was excellent, easily 20-30m.
The place really is Perhentians best dive site! Even as we were ascending, great schools of fishes surrounded us in spiral-like formations. Colourful hard and soft corals below are visible from 5m (16ft), and gin-clear water made the vision somewhat surreal. A guy from the dive center was videotaping us the whole time, so our awe-struck expressions were caught on tape!
Just 5 minutes into the dive, we saw a blue-spotted stingray silently waiting for unsuspecting preys. Another mappa pufferfish greeted us next, as he busily chew on corals. A spot-faced moray eel peeked from his hole, next to three napping bamboo sharks hidden under the rocks.
Not far from there, two white-eyed moray eels were mating, taking a playful bite at each other and totally ignoring the audience. A humphead parrotfish swims by, undisturbed by all the action around him. Also, some filefish and pipefish decided to make an appearance. Some yellow-spotted trevally, black-spotted puffers, and a titan triggerfish were also present.
Suddenly the cameraman motioned us to come and take a look. He was using his strobe to point into a cave, and as we peeked inside, a fat, red stonefish stared back at us. Several cleaner shrimps busily go about their duties all over the stonefishs head.
We swam about for a little while longer, and the light current made me feel a bit nauseous. I signaled to my buddy Clare and my DM Jen that I wanted to go up, so Jen accompanied me to the surface and then went back down. Quite a short dive, 42 minutes, but I saw everything I had come here to see!
1.50pm. The Sugar Wreck. It is a 30m-long cargo boat that sank during a monsoon just last year, with a cargo of sugar, and settled on its side on a clay bottom at 18m. The dive site is still unmapped; so all dives are exploratory, exterior only. You swim around dangling hawsers, cargo nets, pulleys and deck machinery. Many blue swimmer crabs and snapper have already taken up residence, as well as two fabulous hairy filefish. The ship is eerily dark and cavern-like from the outside. At this point in time, Clare is halfway through her humming rendition of Titanics theme song (again). Thousands of fishes of various species surrounded the us, unafraid of our bubbles. Some playful batfish even came very close, and fed on the bread that Eric and Clare brought down with them inside little plastic bags.
It was quite a difficult dive for me, as the current was quite strong (around 2-3 knots) so we had to descent following the mooring line. We were flailing about like rag dolls, but as soon as we got to 13m (42ft), the current disappeared. Some of us who were diving in shorties were also badly stung by jellyfish. They were everywhere! No amount of dodging could help us, because there were just too many of them.
We hovered close to the bottom for a while, just staring in amazement at the picturesque view of the wreck surrounded by hundreds of thousands of fish. As I looked down to the bottom, I spotted a family of three cuttlefish! The were also hovering off the bottom just like us probably hunting or just taking a nap. I used my tank banger to attract the attention of my buddies, and they were just as awestruck as I was. Eventually, one of them took off in a surprising burst of speed, followed by the other two soon after.
The highlight of this dive was when we spotted a one-eyed black-spotted pufferfish. It had one normal eye on its left side, and no eye (not even a hole) on the other. It was just smooth spotted skin, so we concluded it must have been born without a right eye. Kind of creepy!
After a while the current picked up again and we decided to ascend after 43 minutes. Again it was a rough ride to the top; we held on to the mooring line and did our 3-minute safety stop being jerked around by the current. As we surfaced, I felt my stomach turning and started dry-retching (I had not had any food all day) ugh! Not a pretty sight. We also had to scramble up to the boat quickly, because the pesky jellyfish were just everywhere!
Four of my buddies did a night dive that night, and saw a giant leatherback turtle. Eric and I stayed on shore, because he is not trained to do night dive and Im mildly claustrophobic.
Sun, July 7 2002
9.35am Mystery Reef. This was our only deep dive during the trip. Mystery Reef is a rocky reef in the middle of the sea, with a maximum depth of 30m (100ft). This reef lies very deep and is well known as a fish nursery. All types of fish can be found here in big schools, especially brown stripe snappers. There were literally thousands of them, blocking the view as we swim along. In the cracks between the rocks we saw dozens of bamboo sharks and coral cat sharks lying around everywhere. We also saw at least 4 lionfish and several razor fish among the black corals and porcupine and pufferfish among the rocks. Swimming around are fusiliers, trevallies, barracudas, batfish and the talang queenfish.
This site has more fish then any other site in Perhentian! The visibility was not so good, about 5m, but the fish life is definitely something I would go back for. We didnt stay long because it was quite deep, so we descended to 16m (52ft) and hung around to watch the huge schools of fish. Visibility improved to about 20m. Yellow-back fusiliers were swimming at a dizzying speed, and a dozen of mackerels swam through the crowd.
To our surprise, we looked down to see a medium-sized white tip reef shark swimming around at approximately 20m (65ft). We were wondering if its hunting (which was kind of strange because it was quite late into the day), but it seemed to be more disoriented. After a while, the shark swam deeper into the sea. We ended the dive after 23 minutes, and it was my last dive for the trip. Some of my buddies went for another dive at Stingray Alley, and told me stories about a huge group of stingrays just lurking around for them to see. They also got a manicure from the cleaner shrimps there.
This is by far my most trouble-free trip: no vomiting (well, almost), nice weather, and excellent dive sites. I would definitely go there again! Email me if you want to see pictures from the trip (on land). More underwater pictures coming!
Best of all, the trip only cost approximately SGD350 (USD197) per person, all inclusive. We took the overnight super VIP coach there and the overnight sleeper train back to Singapore. We each did a minimum of 5 dives and a maximum of 7 over three days, so it was not too stressful. I wonder why I waited so long to do this. The Perhentians are so much better than Pulau Aur!
Oh, we dove with Coral Sky Divers They were excellent!
Next trip: Aug 8-11.
Destination: to be decided. It's either Riau or Perhentian again.
Planning a Bali Dive Safari too... Nov 1-7. I wish I can just quit my job and dive!
right ?? 
