The World Behind The Viewfinder

It was May, and it is almost a crime to not visit the one of islands of East Coast Malaysia. This is the best time of the year to enjoy the sunny beach and calm South China Sea.

We've been talking about this trip since Feb and I really can't wait anymore. Arriving the island on 25th May (Friday), I was put off by the throng of tourists (and almost all are Malaysian Chinese, go figure) on the Pasir Panjang but hey, I couldn't care less as long as I can get my diving doses.

I've visited Redang Island once 1.5 years ago and was staying at Berjaya Beach Resort, which is very nice but secluded in its own lagoon. This time around, we will be staying at the ever popular and crowded Pasir Panjng (pic) for a change... (read more)

See mome photos (mostly underwater) here: http://travelgaia.com/gallery/redang_2007/

We had a pretty relax Friday afternoon, did some snorkelling at the Tanjung Tengah house reef at Pasir Panjang and sighted a nursery black-tip shark among others curious fishes, and I fiddled with the underwater camera casing to be more familiar with it. It was at least 6 months ago that I last used it!! The house reef is under threat by the sheer amount of snorkellers here and I saw some of them stepping directly on the hard corals! It is only a matter of time that the house reef to be badly damaged and the dead corals are already all over the the seabed right now.

Blossoming tourism, like in so many other places in the world, is a double-sided sword. Sad sad sad. We also went out to a snorkelling site by boat with others from the same resort. It was nice too with crystal clear water and bright sunlight - we saw a cuttlefish running away from us among other usual suspects. I was trying hard to capture a photo of my buddy Bill with his head and torso above the water and the rest of the body under, along with some coral reef in sight. This is my best effort. The wave made it super hard to have one half of the small lens above the water line and another half below.

The next day we had 3 dives with Redang Pelangi, led by divemaster Jan Shir, a pretty nice, balding Chinese. 3 of us were the only divers that day so we were pretty much going with our own pace, which was what I prefer. We did an unconventional (and not recommended) dive sequence, from easy to hard:

- first dive is an easy 12-18m Mak Cantik not far from Pasir Panjang (5-min boat), kind of like the checkout dive for the dive master to judge our diving skills etc. We should have done the checkout dive the day earlier but we were just too lazy then. We did around 50mins here. I wish I have long memory for the fishes and corals that I've seen but I didn't (underwater camera helps, but it is time for me to read up some coral and fish identification books!). I had my favorite photo of the trip taken here: 2 commensal shrimps (Periclemenes Brevicarpalis?)!

The always photogenic clown anemonefish (below) was also captured here. 40bar left in tank when the dive was concluded.

- 2nd dive is just GREAT. It is so great that it deserved an entry all for itself. One of the best dives I have had so far, in my limited diving experiences of less than 25 dives to-date. It was an 18m straight down Sandy Bottom dive in the middle of the sea, and there isn't any buoy or mooring line. It was around 50mins too. 40bar left.

- 3rd dive is at Black Coral Garden near Pulau Lima. This one is a bit further out and about 15min on boat. We went down to 31.5m and stayed around that depth for about 10-15mins before ascend gradually. I wasn't aware by then what a 'Black Coral' (Antipathes sp.) is, but I will have long memory of the eerie, cold and bad visibility of the 30m depth, and the encounter of a huge triggerfish there. It charges from ~5m away towards me face-to-face and decided to swim away just about ~2m from me. Lucky me!

This was my personal deepest (for my AOW certification we did only 26m at Deep Dive), nothing to brag about but nevertheless a personal record. We stayed for a reputable 46mins and I left 30bar. The camera, mystically, was jammed on the lens cover and couldn't take any photos of this dive. We had a fun encounter with a group of Jacks that swimmed with us a bit at ~15m.

I was having problem to equalize on all the 3 dives and I guess my technic is not correct. Got to google some site and read more on equalizing. I was also the 'air hog' among 3 of us and always using ~30-50bar more than the rest. Using underwater camera probably is one of the reasons, but I would have to go the gym more often to improve my cardio. Now, I am serving my 'surface time' while waiting for my next dive trip, and hopefully it won't be a long one .

More photos here: http://travelgaia.com/gallery/redang_2007/