Saturday March 21, 2009
Perfect Perhentian
By JASMINE ABDULLAH
Why travel to another country when you have great diving at your doorstep?
Dive season in the East Coast is eagerly awaited every year, and few places lure the divers in like Pulau Perhentian.
We left Kuala Lumpur past midnight and arrived in Kuala Besut at 7am. Stalls open early there and serve great roti canai and nasi dagang, so there’s no danger of anyone starving.
A turtle looking indignant at being disturbed. It’s also easy to get your boat tickets from vendors near the jetty, and we managed to get on a small boat quickly. The seas were calm, and it took us barely 30 minutes to arrive in Pulau Perhentian Besar. Once there, people from the Universal Diver dive centre helped us check into Tuna Bay Island Resort.
My first dive at the Batu Kapal dive site was not encouraging as visibility was at less than 5m. Later, dive master Ali explained that the sedimentation stirred up by the monsoon still affected some dive sites with visibility varying from day to day.
After leaving Batu Kapal, we swam towards Shark Point, where visibility improved dramatically. Delicate whip corals led us to a forest of every imaginable hard and soft coral. Staghorn corals and deep orange fire corals provided a prickly carpet beneath and blue-ringed angelfish dodged us.
It was at this point that I met Puffy, a giant pufferfish. He lingered around and fixed me with baleful eyes — little did I know that he and his kind would tail me throughout my entire dive trip!
Then an iridescent blue caught my eye, and I spied a mantis shrimp scurrying away into its sandy burrow. Looking up, I saw a very large black-tip reef shark swim lazily past, and I paused to admire its sinewy grace.
A grumpy-looking moray eel. Encouraged by my first dive, we took Universal Divers’ big boat out the next morning to Tanjung Butung. Clearly, the first dive was an exception rather than the rule because visibility here was about 15m.
We tailed a green turtle into a school of queenfish before stopping to peep at shrimps scurrying along some whip corals and anemone fish playing hide-and-seek. We were also lucky enough to see a bump-head parrotfish and numerous blue-spotted rays half-buried in the sand. While I watched white-and-brown banded pipefish standing on their tails, a giant pufferfish observed me.
The Terumbu Tiga dive site was even more exciting. There were several narrow, swim-through passages, and we enjoyed navigating our way through them. Razorfish wafted vertically past us only to bump into a large school of long-finned batfish.
Best of all, Ali found a stunning zebra lionfish hiding in a crevice under the coral formations.
We found huge cowrie shells and even larger horned helmet snails in the Teluk Pauh dive site. But instead of appreciating their beauty, I found myself worrying that some inconsiderate diver might try to take them home.
Coral playground Luckily, my spirits were lifted by the sight of a spiny devilfish on the sandy bottom, flaring its beautiful pectoral fins at me.
There were also schools of barracuda darting about above us and colourful nudibranch camped on the corals. And in the D’Lagoon dive site, two large cuttlefish greeted us and — I swear — a moray eel winked at me!
Of course, Puffy was for some reason always there, sometimes hauling along with him another pufferfish friend, to observe me.
Tuna Bay charm
My stay at the Tuna Bay Island Resort was also very enjoyable. The rooms were basic but clean, with air-conditioning and hot showers. There was no television but with beaches so beautiful, I hardly missed it.
The wooden rooms were right at the beach front, although some afforded a garden view as well. Each room had its own verandah, which guests could use to read a book from the resort library, to enjoying the sounds of the sea.
Pristine Perhentian The resort only had one restaurant but the menu was surprisingly extensive. Local favourites like tom yam and sizzling beef were available, along with pastas, salads and sandwiches. Although I didn’t manage to try it, I was told that their Chicken Cordon Bleu is delicious.
Barbeques were held at night and featured the day’s catch. The best thing about the resort, though, I thought, was that the dive centre was right next door to it.
Pulau Perhentian Besar, to me, is almost like home when it comes to diving. Dive sites are numerous and all less than 10 minutes away, and visibility gets better as the season progresses. Marine life is also plentiful.
So what are you waiting for? Dive season is here. Go already.
Diving details
A twin sharing room at Tuna Bay Island Resort with sea view costs RM320, and includes daily buffet breakfast.
For more information, call Tuna Bay Island Resort at Tel: (09) 6902 902/6902 909, Fax: (09) 6902 906/6911 808, e-mail: survivor@tunabay.com.my or visit http://www.tunabay. com.my
For diving information, call Universal Diver at Tel: (09) 6911 621, e-mail: info@universaldiver. net or visit http://www.universaldiver. net. Contact person: Sany at 017-9128 297 or Charlotte at 019- 3631 348.
Map of Pulau Perhentian:
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