Day 1 snorkeling @ Perhentian Island

Saturday, 28 July 2012

Today was a big day. As much as I dread dark waters and the notion of not knowing what's underneath, I couldn't wait to get out there in the crystal clear shark infested water. The snorkeling pictures we've seen so far looked amazing!

We woke up early in order to meet at Maya's snorkeling/restaurant at 10:00 am in Coral Bay. We decided to eat breakfast at the World Cafe. We all had the set breakfast with eggs, toast, sausage, potatoes, jam and juice/coffee - a real divers breakfast and not too bad actually.

We got to Maya's on time and met Matt, our snorkel instructor, a really nice guy that happened to be in the middle of Ramadan so he wasn't able to go snorkeling with us. Accidentally swallowing water during swimming would be treated as same as drinking water, which of course is against Ramadan rules. That didn't stop him from taking us to some amazing snorkeling spots though.

The boat took 10 pax including Matt, the three of us, a French couple, a German couple and a Dutch couple. All seemed eager to leave as we were waiting for equipment. 35 RM for a 5 hour snorkeling trip is not bad.

First up was the Lighthouse, situated 2 min outside Coral Bay It was filled with 1000s of small beautiful fish. As everyone dived in, I was a bit hesitant as I prefer a sandy bottom and not rocks/corals surrounded by deep dark water. It took a me a good 10 min to think about it before the sight of all these people swimming around convinced me that the chance of me being attacked by a shark was quite slim. Comments from Matt like "you'll survive" and "think about all those chinese and local people that would love to do this but can't swim" made me feel quite stupid also, so I lunged in. Panic struck me for two seconds, but Priscilla started feeding the fish with crackers to lure hundreds of fish around me, which helped my nerves calmed downed. I was finally able to breath normal and let the magnificence of this place sink in. I love snorkeling man, so freakin cool!! Sooo much to look at! I still felt slightly nervous the whole time but my first site went great, over and done. Next one!! Before leaving, Alan and the German guy jumped from the 7-8 meter tall lighthouse. There were two sets of ladder which he had to climb on to the top. After the first set, Alan was about to chicken out until Priscilla started screaming at him. With a little screaming and cheering, Alan braves the jump and go some awesome photos. Alan's scream was less like Jane's this time :)

The next site was between the big and the small island in something called Turtle Bay. It's a long fairly shallow (5-8m) sandy bottom with grass that makes perfect habitat for big sea turtles. We heard that around 8 turtles live around the islands now but that currently 2 were present. Matt drove the boat into one of the bays and there were already 3-4 other boats there and probably 30 people in the water, everyone swimming over the same spot. We jumped in (I was one of the first actually) and looked down. The water was amazingly clear. The turtle was eating grass on the bottom but swam to the surface every 15 min to get air, but since the water is so shallow we could easily dive down to check her out while she was feeding. We stayed here for 30 min enjoying swimming next to that magnificent animal taking photos with the underwater camera Matt provided us with. We came half a meter close to her everytime she came up and swam with her down again, one of he best experiences so far. She was huge too, probably 1,5 meter long and wide. There was also two big and long cleaner fish attached to the bottom of her shell. We were told not to touch her of course but this Spanish group of guys kept touching her every time they reached her on the sea bottom. However, they stopped pretty abruptly when the German guy in our boat starting screaming to them every time they surfaced like only a German manages; " Stooopppp tatching it, tzhe turtle vill go avay!!!".

Next stop was lunch. We ate in the small island in the so called Fishing Village. We had some local Malay dishes, pretty good. Matt showed us some photos he previously took on another snorkeling trip, among them were sting rays and sharks. I interrogated him a bit about what kind of sharks that petroled these waters and felt content when he told me that only reef sharks like the black and white tips are most common. Knowing that Shark Point was our next stop, I felt prepared to finally face my fairs.

When we arrived at shark point on the big island I changed my mind. The snorkeling spot was not my kind of place. Just off a steep cliff surrounded by big rocks and deep dark water I was glad to spend the next 30 min in the boat with Matt being educated about Ramadan and how especially difficult it is to go without water during day time. He apparently wakes up at 4am to eat breakfast before going to sleep again and then eats and drinks again EXACTLY at 7.45pm every day for the Ramadan month.

When the other guys came back only a couple of them had seen shark and Alan and Priscilla hadn't, so I was happy with my decision ;) Also the visibility was not as great as the other spots.

Last stop was Romantic Beach. Truly paradise! An amazing small white beach with shallow water and beautiful corals. A perfect ending to a great trip.

We went back to the hotel to shower and changed for dinner. We decided to eat at the same restaurant as the first night and got a table closest to the water on the beach. Priscilla was craving for BBQ shrimp but we came pretty late so we all went for the chicken instead. As always, the service here is really slow, but it didn't matter when you have beer and great company.

After dinner we returned to Black Tip again for a final shake down. It was already really crowded so we couldn't find a table. We went over to a table that wasn't too crowded and asked if we could use half of it. They turned us down as they were waiting for some more people, but we also recognized the below average looking Irish girl from last night. We got lucky I guess. I can imagine a slightly awkward night for Alan having to explain why he suddenly disappeared while she went to the bathroom. We thought about checking the only other alternative with no people at all a bit further down the beach but was interrupted by a young british couple asking if we would like to join them. Nice!

Joe and Luke was traveling for the next year. They've been to Thailand and heading to Singapore before living in australia. Luke is a carpenter and joe is a elderly care nurse. They've decided to see Australia for a year by working and traveling. We gave them some tips. And shared some good traveling stories. Joe apparently was robbed not so long ago when she was on the back of a motorbike with Luke. Another motorbike creeped up behind them, cut her leather straps and pulled her purse away. Scary. Scary. Scary. We could only imagine the danger it could of been if she got pulled off the bike with the purse. Crazy people. We also spoke a lot about diving. They just did their PADI license and told us all about how amazing it was. Maybe it was time for me to take the next step!? After listening to them talking about diving, I really felt like trying it. We kept on talking late into the night and turned in around 3am.