Good Dive Sites in Perhentian, Malaysia

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Hello,
I want to go to the Perhentian islands in July together with a friend that is flying into Bangkok (I'm in Cambodia for the moment). I will be doing some diving. I visited the islands 10 years ago with my parents and loved it then. I hope I won't be too disappointed with the change....

I'm travelling for about 6 months (or probably longer) and i have small budget (of course I do have some budget for diving seperate). What I want to know is if there are decent cheap resorts on the Perhentian islands. (a maximum of $5 a night)
hope to get a positive reactions because I would love to go again to these paradise islands.
 
We spent in March few days in Fauna, which is located in beach best known as "Flora bay", or "Teluk Dalam". Price of a cabin was around $10 - the cabins were pretty simple, with own bathroom and a fan, but still pretty nice. The food in Faunas restaurant was really great, the best we could find in the whole island.

There are also some cheaper options in the same beach, you can check for example Samudra or Wanderers Inn from here:
http://www.pulauperhentian.com.my/fauna.htm (straight link to Fauna's page)

The beach itself is nice and has some of the best diving operators. I went diving with Flora Bay Divers, but I've heard also a lot of positive feedback about Alu Alu Divers.
 
Hello! Just an update from our trip to Perhentian Besar in July ... it was amazing!!! we dove with Flora Bay - they were really really great and I believe probably the best on the island ... I can't say enough about what a wonderful time we had. We stayed at the Perhentian Is. Resort ... it was fine ... food was expensive ... the rooms were nice, clean ... the staff seemed a little frazeled .... If you want to stay at a similar type of environment (ac/nice rooms - full service (well as full service as this island gets :) ) ...stay at coral view ... we ate there a few times and the staff seemed much less stressed out ... they also have computers with email avail ... also, they have a nice beach and are right next to perhentian is. resort which definitely has the nicest beach (no sharp coral to walk on in the water) ... we chose perhentian isl. resort because we were traveling with our two kids (11 and 14) and were not sure exactly what to expect on the isl. In retrospect we would have been just as happy staying at flora bay resort - it is basic and nice ... right next to the dive shop ...as it turned out we were there for 6days (too short :) ) and dove everyday and spent very little time at the perhentian isl resort beach ... so if you are going for the beach go to perhentian isl. resort or better yet coral view .. if you are going to dive you can probably stay anywhere. food... the food on the island was great .. fresh basic wonderful ... go to Mama's! we ate dinner there everyday ... also there is a place i think called Wanders Inn at the end of the beach down from Flora bay (which also has good grub :) ... which is great for lunch and dinner.... OK diving - we got our advanced open water and nitrox ... awsome ... our 14 yr old did his Scuba Diver and our 11 yr old did her discover scuba ...the flora bay folks were so patient with our 11 yr old which struggled at first ... end of story we had the best time !!! can't wait to go back ...
 
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.
 
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