The World Behind The Viewfinder

Hiu and myself made a trip down to Tioman Island off Pahang coast on Thursday morning. It was a rush planning - we decided to get away for a couple of days and go diving. Tioman is the obvious choice since I've just got back from Redang on late May. Tioman will be different than the Redang/Perhentian Island area, we reckoned. (Read More)

Some photos from the trip:

1. Above Water - http://travelgaia.com/gallery/Tioman2007_Above/

2. Under Water - http://travelgaia.com/gallery/Tioman2007_Under/

Getting There
We drove from KL-> Senawang, then follow Kuala Pilah, Bahau, Mudzham Shah (this town is in Pahang State), Kuala Rompin, and finally arrived in Tanjung Gemuk, whihc totals to ~300km. After passing through Mudzham Shah the Tanjung Gemuk Jeti sign boards start to appear along the road. There are ~4km of winding roads before reaching Kuala Pilah, and after Bahau, we went thru a stretch of interstate way #11 which is really straight for a few kilometers and we were doing 140km/h, which was fun. Oil palm trees are literally everywhere in this area. The whole drive from KL to Tanjung Gemuk took us 4 hours.

Tanjung Gemuk is a relatively new town - we couldn't find this town in the map that we bought in the petrol station - and same like Mersing, having ferry service to Tioman Island.  Boarding ferries at Tanjung Gemuk Jeti is an obvious choice for those come from North (Kuantan) or for those like us that used the above route, as this saves ~60km road trip to reach Mersing, which used to be the only port that has ferry service to Tioman.

Reaching the Jeti just before 1pm, we bought return tickets for RM70/person from Fast Ferry Venture (http://langkawi-ferry.com/, tel: +609 4131997/998). The originally listed boat schedule was 4pm but it was somehow changed to 2pm for that day, which saves us some waiting time. FFV has 3 schedule boat trips each way but the time might be changed without prior notice. In fact we waited until 2:45pm before the ferry arrives due to heavy rain.

On Tioman Island

It takes about 1.5 hours for the ferry to arrive at Tekek, which is a big town in Tioman. We followed the crowd to go down here but later only found out that this Tekek town is not actually suited for tourists. There are constructions going on here and the beach is having more rocks than sand. As it turned out, those who came here are mostly state or government officials. We were offered a ride to ABC beach - which has better beaches and quieter - by a van driver by the jetty for RM20 for each person but we declined. We decided to walk the distance. Read another related blog entry on the development of Tioman Island here.

Well, after hauling our baggage and camera bags for 1.5 hours under the 35C hot sun, we finally arrived at the ABC beach. It was only about 3.5km but the heavy luggage coupled with the hot and humid weather made us spend that long time on the road. We're exhausted and lucky to get a room at Mokhtar's Place Chalet by the ABC beach. The room, which has one queen and one single bed, equipped with fan and attached bathroom with hot shower, cost us RM35/room/nite.

The good thing about staying here is that there is a dive shop, Dive Asia, within 100m. After settling down and a bit of resting, we walked over to Dive Asia and chatted with the DiveMaster, Glen, who is skinny, dark skin and with dyed bronze hair. He was playing guitar by the beach just infront of the diveshop. He has all those pencil sketches of the dive sites around Tioman Island, which are done pretty nice, with some of them even in colors. His plan is to have this dive site sketches printed on t-shirts for sale. 

The Dives 

We did a 3-dive day with Glen Hapirulla, the DM from DiveAsia dive shop at ABC beach. Glen, a Sabahan Bajau, is a nice guy but albeit a little unorthodox. It costs us RM225 for 3 dives including equipment rental (equipment is a little bit worn out, I have to say). The price at another nearby diveshop, Eco Divers, is a bit higher at RM100/dive or RM170 for 2, and it offers foreigner DMs.

Dive Logs
1st Dive - Kind of Nice
Location: Sea Fan Garden, Tulai Island
Max Depth: 31.1m
Duration: 45min
Start/End Air Pressure (bar): 230/100

My dive buddy Hiu loves it here. It might be due to the fact that this is his first time diving down to over 30m (he was OW certified which recommends a max depth of 18m). Like its name suggests, we saw loads of sea fans ranging from <1m to over 3m.

The visibility at 30m is much better than what I experienced in Redang Island at the same depth, and it was much warmer here too. Spotted a scorpion fish very well camouflarged, a few crown of thorns, a blue dotted stingray resting at the sand bottom, and of course, lots and lots of hard and soft corals.

My memory to all those hard and soft corals are always not that good, it is really time to pick up an in depth book about corals. Hiu used up the air pretty fast, understandably, and we're not able to reach the 50min target.

I took some time to capture photos of the Anemone Clown fish but they are just too active trying to protect their own home. I probably would have to set a faster shutter speed, something like 1/200s, for a still Nemo photo -- I will try harder next time!

2nd Dive - Love this place! Nudis and More Nudis
Location: Malang Rock, Tulai Island
Max Depth: 21.0m
Duration: 59min - personal best!
Start/End Air Pressure (bar): 220/60
Surface Interval:  > 1hr

This is my favorite site among the 3. We straight descend down to ~18m where we spent some time examining the sand bottom, which turn out to be a disappointment - we didn't see anything particularly interesting there. We then made a right turn to check out the usual coral reefs.

Abundant of different hard and soft corals that I can't name, and some sea fans and sea whips. as well as potato-shape hard corals. There are 3 swim-throughs here too formed by the rocks above the sandy bottom - all of them can be easily access without having to worry about tangled-up, but the visibility here are not that good, of about 3m.

After the 3rd swim-through we were met with a huge wall covered with corals. We spotted quite a few nudis here, including a relatively big one of ~7cm, which seems like a Jorunna funebris. 

3rd Dive - Boring Fishing Wrecks
Location: Marine Park
Max Depth: 21.1m
Duration: 50min
Start/End Air Pressure (bar): 200/60
Surface Interval: 2hrs

What can I say? The visibility is bad and murky of around 3-5m, which is kind of expected to a ship wreck site. Glen said there are total of 12 ship wrecks down there and he told us afterwards that we've gone thru all of them - but who is counting? All these fishing boats (confiscated by the Marine Park officials for unknown reasons, and were sunk purposely) just look the same to me. We went on from boat to boat, nothing really spectacular actually - these were no warships, mind you, just some simple fishing boats. Some big Batfish are not shy at all swimming along us, which is something that I welcome - the wrecks are just too boring for me that I'd rather take some photos of the curious fish.

After like 20+mins I noticed that we were swimming at the sand bottom of ~18m but there was nothing insight. OK, I thought, we might need swim a bit to reach the next wreck. I was the first one following Glen with Bill closely behind me at the right side, and the young Canadian couple is at the back. I followed Glen to change directios a few time, and saw him checking his wrist-fitted compass - I knew that he was lost.

We continue to fin with a fast pace for seemingly eternity, and finally, after over 7 minutes of finning over nothing-to-see sandy bottom, Glen led us back to the ship wreck area and closer to the Marine Park snorkelling area. Glen later told me that he was confused down there and lost direction. I was amazed - Glen has 4000+ dives and he knows this area better than anything other thing that he would have known, and yet he still will lost his direction once in a while. Ain't us lucky or what?

We exlored  a bit near  the Marine Park jetty's long pillars and gradually ascend as the Canadian guy is LOA (low on air). We did safety stop at a sandy slope where I saw a few small juvinile puffer fish, not to mention loads of the usual coral fishes. Overall a boring dive but any dive is a good dive for me!