cybertia:
Hello! Just an update from our trip to Perhentian Besar in July ... it was amazing!!! can't wait to go back ...
Yes, Perhentian's a great diving site! However, I think Monsoon starts in Oct. You might better wait till next Apr if thinking of diving there..
I dived with Coral Sky when I was there. They were really good and professional!
To add on, sharing some of my personal experience.
(Pardon the grandma story, skip this if u r in no reading mood!)
For the waters, there were virtually no current at 5 sites we dived at except for 1. The visibility ranges from bad to v good, most of the time good (in fact for bad it was only at 1 dive site, but that cleared as we moved around to another place).
Dive 1: Shark Point
Accordingly, there used to be quite a few reefsharks around this this divesite, hence the name of the site but over the years they have been fished out. Fortunately the dive site is still beautiful with lots of corals.
Site Description : Deep reef
Maximum depth : 23m
Visibility : Bad to Good
The viz was bad (only about 3-5m) at the point of descent. We move around a while among the sparse hard corals, trying to get orientated from the first dive of the day, all the while enduring the bad visibility.
After we passed a boulder however, the debris cleared, and we were in the clear blue waters! Hurray!
Spied several species of marine life, diamond trevallies, pufferfishes, boxfishes, sweetlips, batfishes etc.
More stuff did we see on my last few bar of air left in my tank. We came by a reef of abundant corals and that’s when we started seeing more of the interesting stuff.
Lots of anemones here and Nemo and family were out staring curiously at us as we fin by.
Lots of puffer fishes and box fishes here too.
Just finning around happily when I thought I saw some ‘torpedoes’!
School of barracudas! Cool! There’s about 30 of them swimming in a straight line formation. They partially swirl near to us. It’s an awesome sight! Guess that’s the highlight of the day!
Dive 2: Batu Nisan
Site Description : A coral garden along the shore and a small outer reef
Maximum depth : 16m
Visibility : Very good
Lots of colorful anemones inhabited by clownfish on this reef.
Nemo came out of the anemone to welcome and peered at us curiously whenever we swam by one cluster.
Spotted a blue-spotted stingray (pardon the pun..) hiding among the sand.
Fishes spied in this dive include blackspotted porcupine fishes, fine spotted and masked porcupine fishes, a giant trigger fish (Eeeeew), the usual pretty angel fishes and tons of the parrot fishes, and an undentified big eye fish (looking all innocent and sweet!)
Dive 3: Twin Rocks (Trumbu Tiga)
One of the better and exciting dives we had!
Site Description : A jumble of large boulders coming all the way up to the surface
Maximum depth : 19m
Visibility : Good to very good
Exciting dive as we swam through a huge crevice hole!
Some currents here, and nearly got drift away but fin in to the rocks in time.
There are lots of nice rocks and pretty corals here.
Fishes spied in this dive include blue spotted porcupine fishes, fine spotted and masked porcupine fishes, cube boxfish, yellow margin trigger fish (I swam too close to this one without even realising it...phew..), a lone giant trigger fish, western clownfish, the pretty angel fishes again, batfishes, yellow tailed trevally, a juv blue spotted stingray, and some connesal shrimps too (Hmmm..)
We encountered some currents on several occasions at this site though.
Dive 4: Stingray Alley
Most awesome dive of the trip!
Site Description : Coral garden and sandy bottom dive
Maximum depth : 15m
Visibility : Very good
This dive starts over a coral reef along the shoreline and then turns over to some big Porite corals standing alone on a sandy bottom.
I was playing with Nemo happily (yes I have a certain obsession with them) when I noticed out of corner of eye that them looking underneath a huge piece of rock intentily…
A huge stingray! It's a Jerkins Whipray with a long whip tail. And it's about 2m wide in diameter. Awesome!
Moving on, we spied a long snouted pipefish in the sand. Saw a blue spotted stingray being harassed by a fish and was trying its best to bury itself in the sand.
Fren was harassing something else too. Finning close, it's a Indian Walker, a kind of scorpionfish which was mentioned in debrief earlier on. We came by a huge rock, and put our fingers underneath and stop moving. Cleaner shrimps! Them curious creatures would come and 'clean' your fingers if you put them on the sand and are patient enough to wait for them to come up and explore or 'clean' your fingers. One shrimp on each finger (very good service, I must add..), and pretty itchy too. A unique experience! Was ready to move out when fren tugged at my arm. Following her glance underneath a rock, I noticed a pair of eyes, It's a grey bamboo shark nestled among the rocks! We hovered around waiting for it to come up but no, it stayed put.
Moving on, we came to the sandy bottom area.
The usual fishes spotted were giant trigger fish, Western clownfish (my fave friendly curious Nemo!), angel fishes and batfishes, sweetlips, etc.
Just as we were about to surface, we checked underneath a hugh rock again. Guess what we found.. a huge black stingray hiding underneath the rock! This one's a slightly darker shade compared to the Jerkins Whipray we saw earlier on. Later identified it as a blotched fantail ray. This one's about 2-3m in diameter.
Wow! This had to be the best dive of this trip, judging from the quality and quantity of stuff seen here!
Dive 5: D’Lagoon
D'Lagoon is one of the most beautiful coral gardens in Perhentian. All types of hard corals grow abundantly here and the formations are stunning.
Site Description : A hard coral garden..
Maximum depth : 15m
Visibility : Good
Saw huge Napoleon fishes a few times during the dive! Glimpse a school of baracuda (but this one not as large and impressive as the first school we saw on our first dive at Shark Point yesterday). Otherwise, saw the usual stuff we saw in our earlier dives, porcupine fishes, yellow margin trigger fish and giant trigger fish (yelps), panda clownfish, wester clownfish (fave Nemo yeah yeah ) beaded coral fish, lots of sea urchins here, bat fish, yellow tail spine fish (those big eyed fishes) , blue spotted stingray, connesal shrimps, lionfishes, another kind of scorpionfish.
Dive 6 : Temple of the Sea (Tokong Laut)
Site Description : A pinnacle in the middle of the sea
Maximum depth : 24m
Visibility : Good to very good
Lots of blue spotted and green spotted stingrays! This is a very beautiful site, lots of coral and nudibrances and sea life and SWARMS of fishes of all kind!
Lots of hard corals, soft corals and anemones with at least 4 different types of clownfish make it a very colorful site.
Spied them indian walkers those scorpin fishes again at this site.
A curious white eyed giant moray eel wedged between a rock stared at us curiously as we fin by.
Lots of blue spotted and green spotted stingray here too.
This time, I spied a great barracuda by itself. This one's large! A bit intimidating too, I must add.
Other fishes spied : black spotted/ masked porcupine fish, starry puffer fish, rhino box fish, a squid!, scibbled filefish, moorish idol, blue ringed/ 6 beaded angelfish, horned bannerfish, zebra lionfish, reef starfish, and another gray bamboo shark.
The best thing I love about this site is that fishes are all swimming in swarms, and I absolutely love it when I am swimming next to a whole swarm of fishes.
As for the food... it's quite good if you ask me.
The fish was really fresh! We had BBQ fish (shark, barracudda, blue marlin...) and it was pretty yummy!
There's evening entertainment and a beach bar near where we were staying too.
There's even a fire juggling act and a nice big bonfire at the beach bar!
Really cool if you ask me.
Oh and by the way, we stayed on Long Beach on the small Perhentian island.
