Perhentian Dive Report (Coral Sky Divers)

[Edge]

Perhentian Islands Trip Report (22/7 – 30/7)

My Trip started out of Singapore. Left by Train from the station at Tanjung Pagar. An upper sleeper berth all the way to Tanah Merah. The whole journey started at 2000 hrs on the 21st and I reached Tanah Merah at about 0900 hours on the 22nd. From Tanah Merah, I caught a Taxi from the taxi terminal to Kuala Besut for 30RM. Reached K.Besut about an hour later and stopped at the ferry terminal, bought a return speedboat ticket for 60RM, boat left K.Besut at 1030 hours and reached my destination Long Beach about an hour later. I went to Coral Sky Divers (www.coralskydivers.com) as it was the operation that was recommended to me by some people from this board and this German guy I had met in Tioman. Stayed at the nearby Panorama chalets, pretty decent rooms as my standards are not so high. Quite comfortable enough.

The staff at Coral Sky were extremely friendly and made me feel at home, I was on this diving trip alone and they certainly made me feel very welcome.

Info on the Staff at Coral Sky:

Yves and Erika: They are the owners of the dive operation and are very nice. Yves is not as friendly but can be very funny once you get to know him better, Erika loves to dive and doesn’t often do fun dives, instead she teaches courses. Turned 40 on the 24th July (But Shhhh… Don’t tell anyone)

Instructors:

Dave – A South-African who is in his late 20s to early thirties, nice chap who never seems to be without a smile on his face.

Rory – A 40 year old instructor who comes from UK, looks 50 though but is energetic and playful underwater, was credited in Sport Diving’s June/July 2002 issue for the article on the Pygmy seahorse at Lord Howe Island in Australia.

Nick – Another Brit, late 20s, very funny with his normally disgusting personal jokes, was performing fire breathing tricks at Erika’s 40th birthday.

Baron – A local instructor with long hair that doesn’t seem to get burnt when he performs the fire tricks with the stick and the chain, very talented with a good sense of humour. A firemaster who is also an “arrogant bastard” (His own words)

Asst. Instructors:

Jim: Didn’t get to talk very much to him, but he got burnt while playing with the fire chains. UK, early 20s.

Ed: UK, early 20s, was learning the finer points of teaching from Erika but is a little of an air hog underwater.
Divemasters:

Ben – A Dutch DM who has been traveling the region and has more or less settled in Perhentian for the season. He was my DM for most of my earlier dives there.

Yvonne – A student on vacation from UK. Was my DM for most of my later dives.

Jenny – I think she’s the hardest working DM. Probably does up to 3 dives a day and seems to pull duty for the night and sunrise dives. Was DM for 2 of my dives.

Boatmen:

Burong and Yee - Are pretty funny when they are ribbing the DM while they are out on the boat.

Others:

Charlie aka Charlotte – Also a diver but doesn’t get to go out much due to kitchen duty, she bakes the cakes and she does a mean chocolate orange cake.


ME: Early 20s, suffering from wanderlust and an addiction to the deep. An expensive combination.

 

[Edge]

Dive sites in Perhentian:

Sometimes they go by other names but these sites are located close to both Islands are less than 20mins by speedboat from Long Beach.

1. Temple of the Sea
2. Shark Point
3. Twin Rocks
4. Stingray Alley
5. Rubix Cube (Conditions were rough at the moment, so
no trips there)
6. D’Lagoon
7. Burgess (Similar to Rubix Cube)
8. Mullet Point
9. Mullet Deep
10. Batu Laya
11. Batu Nisan
12. Misteri Reef (Spelling Intentional)
13. Petani Wreck (Nobody seems to go there)
14. Sugar Wreck
15. Serengeh (Dead Site, presently a lighthouse is being built there)
16. Coral Garden (Dead Site)
17. Coral View (Dead Site)
18. Humphead Hideout


I completed a total of 17 dives over a total of 9 Days. At the following locations:

1. Temple of the Sea ( 4 Dives)
2. Shark Point (1 Dive)
3. Twin Rocks (2 Dives)
4. Stingray Alley (1 Dive)
5. D’lagoon (1 Day, 1 Night Dive)
6. Mullet Point (1 Dive)
7. Batu Laya (1 Dive)
8. Batu Nisan (1 Day, 1 Night Dive)
9. Misteri Reef (1 Dive)
10. Sugar Wreck (1 Dive)
11. Humphead Hideout (1 Dive)

Some short notes on the places I have dived:

1. Temple Of the Sea

This is one wicked dive site, so wicked that I visited it 4 times, twice under the guide of DMs and twice just with my buddy. The site is pretty easy to navigate and has a maximum depth of 24m. This was where I saw a Leopard Shark!! A sight so rare that the last time Erika saw one was about 10 years ago. There are loads of them on the coast of Thailand but seeing one there was pretty wild. It was lying in the Sandy bottom about 1.5 -1.7m long. I was going to lie down beside it but it was scared by the other divers. Also saw the usual baby grey bamboo sharks, an adult porcupine full blown, baby morays, titan triggers, pink snout triggers, banded sea krait, scorpion fish, stone fish, crocodile longtoms, the usual blue spotted rays and 1 unknown ray, an that was just on one dive!

2. Shark Point

Diving wasn’t bad here, saw two turtles here, worth a repeat dive.

3. Twin Rocks

Dived here twice, second time wondering around alone with my buddy, I like this dive site as much as Temple, at it has big walls and lots of crevices to creep around and peer into.
4. Stingray Alley

Site is difficult to navigate alone as it requires excursions out over the sandy areas from the reef, should have brought my compass. Dive site is pretty empty, one nice feature is the cleaner shrimp that will pick the dead skin of your hands. Site was strewn with some rubbish, for eg. A 1967 red Volkswagen beetle toy car was found. Worth diving only if you feel like making a date with the cleaner shrimp.

5. D’lagoon

An extremely shallow dive site, averaging about 8-10 m for the entire dives, good for the ‘hoovers’ out there. Site is covered with large amounts of corals, mostly hard than soft. A pretty un-interesting Day and Night dive site.

6. Mullet Point

This was one site that gets mixed reviews, personally I feel that this site can be avoided if you wish, I spent most of the dive near the bottom looking out for small micro-organisms which were not as plentiful as other dive sites.

7. Batu Laya

An average site with more hard corals than soft, some patches of sandy areas, funny thing we saw here though, we saw a Giant Trigger, about 75cm in length eating a Pin Cushion Starfish. Saw some squid too. This is in my opinion OK but it seems quite rare for a dive to be planned there.

8. Batu Nisan

Batu Nisan rates better for a night dive in my opinion as during the day, I was finding loads of rubbish like beer cans, newspapers, cardboard, rope and food packets at the site, perhaps it’s the proximity to Long beach that causes such problems.

9. Misteri Reef

This is a deep dive to a max depth of 28-30m. Visibility was extremely poor during the dive, 1-2m at the bottom and about 10-12 at the surface. However the site has got loads and loads of fish like baby barracudas, spotted 7 lionfish in roughly the same area during the dive, went into deco during this dive. The site is worth visiting if the visibility was better but it’s a tradeoff for the shorter bottom time, you might want to do the dive site with nitrox but you would have to go to Turtle Bay Divers for that.


10. Sugar Wreck

Sugar wreck is located a little far from Long Beach. It has a max depth of about 18-24 meters depending on where you dive. Wreck is about 80-100m long and has two huge cargo holds where you can see baby catfish. Saw the bristle file fish here and the usual collection of lionfish, squid and cuttlefish here too. Wreck can be penerated into the wheel house and the engine room. Bow can also be penetrated but you would have to remove your BC for such an entry. Wreck is resting on its starboard side. Site had poor visibility when I was there 6-8 meters at best. The wreck is also quite new, less than 2 years and probably needs more time to develop. This wreck could also be the M.V. Union Star as the name was found on one of the lifeboats, but this again could be false.

11. Humphead Hideout.

This was one of the best dives for me as it was only 5 of us and all were quite experienced, vis was pretty good at about 12-15 m but I was told that this site can easily turn bad. Saw two huge humpheads during the descent and numerous large rays over the sandy bottom, there was a medium current during the dive that was really good for performing stunts like cartwheels underwater and we were messing around a lot during that dive. Saw a turtle moving around eating but weren’t too bothered by us perhaps we were keeping our distance and not moving about like excited newbie divers. A group of juvenile parrot fish were also on a feeding frenzy and was moving from coral to coral in a 2 huge groups of 100 fish in total.


Video Services:

At present, there is an underwater cameraman by the name of Jez who shoots videos for divers at a low cost of 120RM for a 30min video which he can prepare in either VCD or VHS format. He’s quite talented and can ready the video by the time you finish the dive debriefing and some cake and tea or coffee. He’s also got a gorgeous girlfriend.


So that’s my trip for now, had a wonderful time in Perhentian and didn’t want to leave. So if there’s anything you want to know about my trip, feel free to ask.

 

[neve]

Fabulous report, Edge! Interesting and very thorough. You're so fortunate to have spent so many days there. I only stayed 3 days and managed 5 dives.

Thanks for the name recap.... Jim is from Manchester btw.

Agree about Jen, she really is very hardworking. And did you notice her chain-smoking? I thought I was bad!

Any pictures?

 

[Edge]

I was supposed to spend only 4 days on the island but the diving and the company kept me staying on longer than I expected.

I did notice Jenny smoking quite frequently but not to the extent of Chain smoking, perhaps she was stressed when you were there, when I was there, she had to do a visa run so she got to spend the night in Thailand. Of course she's very busy on the island, she DMs during the day and sometimes works the restaurant at Panorama during the night.

Of course, she also stayed back during the last monsoon season and she said that she would NEVER do that again.

 

[Edge]

Mainly for dandan but also for those interested in going.


I only stayed at Long Beach and didn't venture out to other beaches, merely did a boat-pass at the other sites.

When I got to Coral Sky Divers at about 1130 hrs, Jez greeted me and told me to drop all my bags and go room hunting first. It's a good idea that if you want to get rooms, you should try to get to the island on the first boat. I chose to stay close to the diveshop, meaning Matahari or Panorama, my first choice was Matahari but they seem to fill up very quickly. I paid 70rm for my room at Panorama, very basic, double bed, fan and attached bath, good enough for me, the bed had a mosquito net and electricity was on most of the time. I don't have complaints for a room that only cost 70rm including dinner.

Reservations would be hard to make in my opinion as you won't know who you are talking to and rarely does the message get passed from one chalet employee to another. My best bet would be for those interested to employ the dive shop to help find accomodations for you if you are travelling in a relatively large group. Of course, if you ask them to help you, you would have to return the favour by diving with them.

Of course, there is always Bubu's long house at the end of the beach that rents out rooms for 150rm for a night, many a traveller has spent the night here before moving out the next morning in search of cheaper accoms. These travellers are often unlucky enough to reach the island late in the afternoon or evening.

Of course there is always Coral bay which is a 10min jungle walk away from L.beach. But honestly, if I was diving regularly, even if rooms cost 20rm more, I would still stay on L.beach.

I hope that helps.

 

[dandan]

Back from Perhentian. Great isle, great people and great food
I won't be posting any reports on perhentian, as previously those reports on Perhentian were pretty impressive and detailed
Cool isle,check it out !


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