Teluk Dalam, Perhentian Besar

It’s been 3 years since I last dived at Perhentian Island; fond memory of Sugar Wreck is still vivid but fading. So when there are a couple of friends interested to go for a short dive trip to Perhentian over a weekend, I am in. Eventually we amass 5 persons for the trip.

We booked a dive resort – Bayu Dive Resort – at Teluk Dalam, Perhentian Besar. The online booking system is a bliss to use; I booked 2 rooms which go by fish names in just a few minutes – Moray Eel (RM90/night) is a fan room that can fit 2-3 persons just next to the generator; Pipefish (RM160/night) is one of the many air-conditioned cottages for 2 persons. Paid 25% thru credit cards and the room booking is secured.

The road trip started on the night of 21th July – 11pm we reached the Gombak toll, and off we sped via Bentong, Gua Musang and eventually Kuala Besut, arriving 5 in the morning. It is a tiring journey even if I was not the one that drives – winding roads, many buses and lorries, narrow lanes, inadequate lightings signature this major east-west highway. We arrived safely anyway to Kuala Besut and bought our speedboat tickets at MD Travel (they actually open for business at 5am with some zombie-looking guys there), one of the travel agencies near the jetty. Oh we get the roundtrip ticket at RM65, a RM5 discount from the standard price of RM70. I noticed that Kuala Besut is having many swiftlet shophouses already and more being constructed – I didn’t notice this 3 years ago.

Paid the marine park fee of RM5/person, we boarded the speedboat at 7am. It fits about 15 people. The boatman distributed the life vests to everyone but somehow I didn’t get one, which is fine for me. It takes 40mins to arrive at Teluk Dalam beach after the boat stops at Tunabay beach and Long Beach. It was a really pleasant morning to be by the sea and beautiful beaches.

This is the first time that I come to this southern bay of Perhentian Besar, and was pleasantly surprised. It has a semi-circular beautiful beach with fine sands, and it is quiet and secluded. One thing that I immediately noticed is how shallow the beach is – for at least 30m the water is less than knee high, definitely not a good swimming hole. The boats need to painstakingly steered slowly among the shallow coral rocks to get close to the beach.

Bayu Dive Lodge is at the left side of the small jetty here just 3 minutes walk away. The dive shop attached to Bayu is Alu Alu Divers, operated and run by a group of Mat Sallehs. The restaurant of the resort is just by the beach and in front of the dive shop so it is pretty convenient. Food here is not cheap (breakfast set RM10 and up) but it comes in big portion, and it is not terribly cooked. The next door restaurant B First Cafe offers cheaper alternative, and tasted not bad either.

Alu Alu Divers offer assorted courses at reasonable price; fun dive starts at RM90/dive for 3 dives or less, RM85/dive for 4~6 dives including full sets of equipment rental. For those that have their own equipment (like me!), it will be RM70/dive. Returning customers that have taken courses here previous will get special RM60/dive deal, which is great!

The dive shop is well stocked with gears new and old ones, similar brands like most other Malaysian dive shops. The gear-up area is an alley that painted blue and yellow (like!), but nevertheless too narrow for 20 people with gears. There are 3 tanks labelled for different equipment cleaning/soaking. It will be great if the gearing up area is made wider and more spaces for people to do their stuff more comfortably.

Alu Alu Diver - gearing up area

Dive crew are generally nice; a couple of them looked reserved though. Our DM for the trip is Flo, a 19-year old from UK that just completed her DMT and had made ~600 dives. Coincidently she is making her last 2 days as DM here in Alu Alu and heading back to UK. Friendly and chatty, pretty and skinny, we have a nice time with Flo. The dive trip here at Alu Alu runs at fixed schedule: 9am and 2pm departure, 2 dives each. 4 of us are arranged to have one of the boats for ourselves – nice! They also brought enough drinking water on board, another good point. Oh and for the afternoon dives, banana cake is offered during the surface interval!

We did 2 dives that afternoon, and 2 more dives the next day morning.

Dive Sites:

• T3/Terumbu Tiga/Tiger Rock: reputed as one of the best dive sites, there are some swim throughs but nothing much interesting. Saw 3 bumphead parratfish over a meter long, and that’s about it. Viz is average. Max 19m, 46min.
• Tukas Laut. Flo swam so fast as if she wanted to conclude the dive as soon as possible. Max 17m, 59min.
• Tokong Laut: the good thing for the dive is that it is not that crowded relatively; I recalled 3 years ago the same dive site, there are easily more than 50 divers, can’t see anything but fins and human. Descended with the buoy line, I waited a few minutes before Hiu able to get down – he forgot to wear the weight belt and have to pull himself down from the line. Saw a number of ugly-looking bamboo sharks, 2 of them mating with one biting another on the gill area (they actually shiver when climax, really!), school of blue & yellow fusiliers. I’ve seen better Tokong Laut, I have to say. Max 21m, 48min.
• Sugar Wreck
• max 18m, 48min.
• My favorite dive site here at Perhentian by far. I could skip all others and just dive this site again and again.
• Didn’t see the school of long-jawed mackerels like 3 years ago, but there are huge schools of juvenile barracudas as well as sweetlips finding cover inside the wreck.
• Looking up from the bottom, the titled wreck is quite large extending all the way up to ~6m.
• 2 giant barracudas over a meter long lurking in the huge cargo hold area
• Big trapped air area at the top of the cargo hold area
• Hundreds of sea urchins, tens of lion fish and porcuppine fish. One of the porcuppines is having a remora under its chin, sharing some meat.
• Spotted 2 squids hovering near the huge propeller at ~6m.
• Mild current on the top side of the wreck, calm otherwise. Viz is average, about 10m.
• Oh we almost have the whole wreck for ourselves; I did see another group but it is definitely nowhere close to the pasar malam feel of Tokong Laut.

After we get done our dives on the Saturday morning, some bickering happened between the dive shop part-owner Johan and the DMs, and eventually all the DMs call it quit, packed up and left in the same afternoon. There was some gore scene as well but I will just skip that part. The dramatic turn of event happened in front of our very eyes. this alone will make the trip worthwhile!

When we got back to KL, we got to know that most of the DMs are back to Alu Alu; Johan is kicked out from the dive shop – for now.

All in, the trip costs about RM550. Bang for the bucks, I’d say. The only regret is the diving is just average, except my holy grail dive site at Perhentian – the Sugar Wreck.

Alu Alu DMs

Links:

Alu Alu Diver: http://www.alualudivers.com/

Bayu Dive Lodge: http://www.bayudivelodge.com/

Some more diving photos, taken at northeastern Bali area – Tulamben, Amed and Kubu.

A short write up to be followed soon, when I am back from Tioman.

I just come back from a diving trip to Bali a couple of weeks ago. I have to admit I have a blast, even if I didn’t see any Mola Mola and Manta Rays at Nusa Penida. Yeah it is right, I see none of them, which is probably harder to achieve at this time of the year (end of August) than seeing one or a few of them. Luck is just not at my side at times. It is a perfect excuse to come Nusa Penida again though!

We dived 2 days at Nusa Penida, followed by 1 day each at Tulamben, Amed and Kubu.

For Nusa Penida dives, we pre-book online with Bali Scuba at Sanur. 3 dives/day cost USD130. The price includes hotel transfer, tank & weight & guide, onbaoard soft drinks & mineral water, and a nice little lunch onboard (steam rice with beef & chicken, egg and sambal). Gear rental is not included – expect USD5/item/day. Our dive master for the 2 dive days are Knut and Henry. Knut is a tall Caucasian and likes to joke around. Henry is an over-sized fatty with over 30 years of diving experience. Both are really nice guys and helpful. Read more below.

Swastika Bungalow, the place where we stayed for 2 nights for USD40/night, is not far from Bali Scuba dive shop. It is not really a bungalow, just the normal resort type double-storey rooms. Room is spacious enough for 2, and equipped with air-conditional, TV and hot shower. There are a couple of swimming pools too among the lush greenery of hotel compound. The whole place shouts BALI. Oh and an continental breakfast is included too in the cafe overlooking one of the swimming pools.

There is a Swastika Restaurant just a stone-throw away from the Bungalow under the same corporation. You will get 10% discount off (or is it 5%?) the food price if you tell them you are staying in Swastika Bungalow. I didn’t recall the waitress request for the show-of-proof. Food is OK here. Go try the fresh coconut juice – the fruit came with decorations!

Water temperature is cold at this time of the year at Nusa Penida, so I didn’t use my 3mm wetsuit but instead renting a 5mm M-size long-sleeve wetsuit made by Nemo from the dive shop. It is full black with custom “Bali Scuba” branding logo across the chest area, and heavily padded at the elbow and ankle areas. This is the first time I am using 5mm, but it didn’t feel much harder to don than my own 3mm wetsuit.

Dive day started early – at 730am, the pickup already arrived at hotel. There were some waitings here and there. It is about 10mins to reach the dive boat at the Sanur beach. It will be another 45mins or more to reach the dive sites (depending on which one). Good thing about diving in Indonesia compared to Malaysia is that we don’t need to setup the gears ourselves. The boat crew and the dive masters will get them ready while we endure the long boat journey to the dive sites on the choppy water. Soft drinks  and mineral water is free flow on the boat. There is a small toilet too but it is a challenge to get every drop into the toilet bowl while the boat zips through the Badung Strait. The top deck of the dive boat can be used as sun deck while the boat is anchored.

We met with currents in all the dives here, the strongest one in 3rd dive at Crystal Point after the turn back. I held on to some coral rocks just to make sure that I don’t get swept away into the Indian Ocean. Still – no Mola Mola. I saw a bunch of Bannerfish cleaning stations but the big fish just don’t show up. Thermocline encountered at almost every dive – it is the layer of water column where the temperature changed dramatically, and due to this exchange of heat, objects appeared as if you are looking through a wrinkled glass. Going down the thermocline layer, even colder water is waiting to wake you up. The coldest that we’ve had in these 2 days is 22C – cold but still bearable with the 5mm wetsuit for me. Dive duration is mostly short due to the higher air consumption in all these dives to fight with the currents. Henry the dive master is using his 2.5mm wetsuit, guess he has more than enough of fat reserve in his body to shield from the cold :-p.

While no Manta and Mola Mola showing up, most of the time were spent looking at corals and divers. We did see a clown frogfish and a very nice looking nudibranch (Nembrotha purpureolineata), which was swept away by current after I’ve taken a few snaps. Poor nudi. Soft and hard corals are good and of many different kinds, especially at Toya Pakeh.

Dive Logs (1st 3 dives: 27 Aug 2010, 2nd 3 dives: 28 Aug 2010)

Photos

Click below for some photos taken here. I haven’t been taking any underwater photos since Aug 2009 Manado trip but it is nice to be able to get started again.

Nusa Penida, Bali - Diving Photos, Aug 2010

Diving photos taken at Nusa Penida, Bali at end of August 2010. Major disappointment is no Mola mola and manta ray sightings. Nevertheless a really good experience with the strong currents and cold water! Sure will be back next Mola Mola season!

47 Photos

Location: Lembeh Strait, North Sulawesi
Date/Time: 1st Sept 2009, 15:30

This orange brownish juvenile frogfish, measuring less than 5cm in length, has been eyeballing the pity little seahorse for quite some time. It probably ponders whether to go for something prettier for a quick snack – it is teatime now anyway – or just take the black seahorse for a quick chow since it is easy – the seahorse didn’t intend to move out from the frogfish’s stare at all. My dive buddy Bill and myself swam around these 2 little creatures for a while but nothing happened. They kept staring at each other, like stone statues, not moving a muscle, and only few centimeters apart.

Then, in the blink of an eye, the frogfish opens its huge mouth and had the whole of the seahorse’s head and some of its body swallowed. It is kinda bizarre to witness such a killing, though I’d prefer real horse meat over seahorse’s meat anyday.

For the next 3 minutes or so, the below pose maintained:

Frogfish tries to swallow a seahorse

But then, probably feeling remorse to kill a seahorse, or maybe the seahorse is just too hard to swallow, the frogfish releases it out from his mouth, and slowly retreated. The seahorse is alive – for now.

erm.. the frogfish didn't really like the horse meat...

Sipadan Island - Tiny but Famed

It’s been a while – 6 months to be exact – since I came back from my Sipadan trip, but it is just like yesterday, that I can still remember details of the trip. I had my best dives, not saying a lot as I have just over 50 in total, but the memories of this trip will not go away for a very long time. Because the trip is very special to me.

So, I am obligated to write down some notes about this trip, on one hand to record down my memories, but on the other hand promote our own little Malaysian islands – Sipadan, Mabul and Kapalai – to the rest of the travelers and divers. Not that these famed islands still need any more promotion, though.

Some trip information for my 5D4N Sipadan trip last August (8/82008 ~ 12/8/2008):

Getting There, Around and Away

• Airasia has daily flights plying between Kuala Lumpur (KUL) to Tawau (TWU). The 3-hour fight cost me RM225. Budget airlines’ ticket fare varies greatly depending on the timing of booking – either book well ahead, or wait for one of those frequent promotions.

• Tawau -> Semporna: Van transport was pre-arranged with dive shop of our choice, Scuba Junkie. The 1-hour undulating journey costs RM20 per person one-way.

• Semporna -> Mabul Island: The dive boat dropped us at Arung Hayat Longhouse @ Mabul Island after the 1st dive day, and this island was where I stayed for the next few days. Sipadan has no more resorts since a few years back where the State Government decided to do the right thing. Mabul Island is the prefect spot to stay in order to dive Sipadan. However, the return trip from Mabul Island to Semporna is not included, and it costs RM50/person for a speedboat trip arranged by the Longhouse.

• On Mabul: well, use legs, i.e walk. It takes less than an hour to walk to whole island one round. There are some villages scattered on the island with LOTS of kids running around. Some souvenir shops can be found among the villages too. For us that stay in the budget longhouse, the dive boat will be waiting for us at the other site of the island. We will need to walk for about 10mins across the island to reach the jetty, no big deal.

Accommodation

Village on Mabul Island

1st night: Stayed at Scube Junkie’s Backpackers at Semporna Seafront. Budget accommodation, standard room costs RM40/night if dive with Scuba Junkie, with air-conditional but share toilets. There are only limited number of rooms so do book ahead of time. The rooms are not numbered, but by marine life like turtle, barracuda, clownfish etc. A simple breakfast is included.

2nd ~ 4th nights: Stayed on Mabul Island, and more specifically, the Arung Hayat Longhouse that Scuba Junkie has affiliation with. The longhouse, situated at the southwest of the isand, extends out from the stony beach to swallow sea on top of wooden stilts. There are probably less than 15 rooms so advance booking is recommended. Sipadan Island can be seen from the longhouse.

Arung Hayat Longhouse’s air-conditional room with attached bathroom costs RM80/person/night for twin sharing room. Rooms without attached bath room costs RM60/person/night. All meals are included, and free flow of coffee plain water and breads. Dinner is nice with local food, and having dinner under the gusting sea wind is definitely icing on the cake with Sipadan in sight.

There are a few other longhouses in Mabul that provide budget accommodation too, as well as some luxurious ones (list not in any particular order):

Mabul Island's Resort Locations

• Sipadan Water Village (SWV), an up-market dive resort built over shallow sea – expect to pay upwards of RM2500/person for 5D4N trip. A friend of mine just got back and really enjoyed it. Basically you get what you paid for. The resort’s house reef is the so called “Artificial Reef” dive site. And unlimited house reef diving! 2 URLs:
  • http://www.sipadanwatervillage.com
  • http://www.swvresort.com

• Borneo Divers

• Sipadan Mabul Resort (SMART)

• Mabul Water Bulnglows, same owner as SMART, has the chalet built above the sea

• Uncle Chang’s Sipadan Mabul Dive Lodge, longhouse lodge similar like the Arung Hayat. Heard some good reviews from friend that went snorkelling with them, and I met Uncle’s Chang’s nephew (as a dive master) when go diving in Tioman last year.

• Seaventures Dive Resort (converted from oil rig), 1km away from the beach near Borneo Divers. Offers unlimited house reef dives too! This platform/resort sounds interesting and unique, but I would prefer to stay on Mabul to see the villages.

• Arung Hayat Longhouse (Scuba Junkie): This is the one that I stayed, with view of the Sipadan Island some distance away. Sipadan Island is located at the south of Mabul Island.

Kapalai Island, or should I say, sand bank, has a very nice resort/water chalet – Sipadan Kapalai Dive Resort - built on it too. Have a glimpse of the resort when I was having my 2 dives near Kapalai. The latest copy of Sport Diving magazine (issue 132) has an article about this nice resort. Unsure about the rate but definitely upmarket stuff. (I just found out that the article is free to view: http://www.divetheblue.net/pdf/132_Kapalai.pdf)

Alternatively, it is possible to stay at Semporna, and having daily diving trip to Sipadan, Mabul or Kapalaim but you will have to endure a longer boat trip, of ~45mins to 1 hour, in order to reach your first dive site, and as long when you have done for the day, heading back to Semporna. There are plenty of budget accommodation choices in Semporna, but I’d strongly recommend to stay in Mabul Island. It is much closer to the actions – dive sites are literally on the door step if you stay in Seaventures or SWV, and the tiny island with its villages is really fun to explore.

Expenses

Sipadan Expenses

• Fun dives pricing (Scuba Junkie), as of August 2008:
• 3 dives, Mabul/Kapalai: RM250
• 3 dives, Sipadan: RM300
• Equipment Rental: RM50/day
• Sipadan National Park Fee: RM40
• I lost one of the fins and was made to pay RM150…

Dive Sites

Many great dive sites around these 3 islands, but here are the ones that I dived:

Sipadan:

1. South Point
2. Barracuda Point
3. Hanging Garden

Mabul:

1. Artificial Reef
2. Froggie
3. Seaventures

Kapalai: 2 unknown dive sites.

Marine Life

Devil Scorpionfish flapping its colorful 'wings' when disturbed

Lots of stuff, but my first ever sightings are:

• Great Barracuda
• Ribbon Eels, both adult and juvenile
• Crocodilefish
• Devil Scorpionfish
• Juvenile Many-Spotted Sweetlips – the little dancing queen!
• Leaf Fish

I love Mabul and Kapalai for the muck dives, but Sipadan is unforgettable, with the many sharks and turtle sightings, the schools of Barracuda, and of course, the trill of unlimited deep blue below me.

Tips

1. Mabul/Semporna gets dark early, at about 6:30pm
2. Bring enough cash. No ATM facilities on Mabul AFAIK. Semporna has a few banks and ATMs.
3. Electricity on Mabul is not a problem. 220~240V, 50~60Hz.
4. Book advance with your choice dive operators if you want to dive Sipadan, because there is a daily quota. No such problem for diving in Mabul and Kapalai.
5. Stay longer – I did 3 dive days, and it is far from enough once we start tasting. Stay as long as you can (or your money allows)
6. Diving is all year long.
7. Walk the island if you stay in Mabul – villages, local childrens, serene Sipadan Water Village, view of Seaventures, and also enjoy the gentle sea gull at the end of jetty in the evening while admiring those having night dives just beneath you.

Great Barracuda, length of 1.5m or so

Date: 11th August, 2008; ~1pm

Location: one of Kapalai’s dive sites

Equipment: Canon Powershot A620 in Canon WP-DC90 waterproof housing, Inon Z240 single strobe

It was almost 50 minutes into our 2nd dive of the day, at Kapalai (near Sipadan, Sabah, Malaysia). 6 of us together with our dive master ascended to ~7m, getting ready to do the safety stop and call it an end to another great dive. Thus far, the dive is excellent – among other sightings, I saw my first ribbon eels – 2 adults in blue and yellow colors, and one pitch black juvenile. I spent quite some time with one of the adult ribbon eels, trying to get a good shot of it but not really successful. My buddy Bill was not helping at all in that regard, but that is another story.

I had my first sighting of the juvenile Many-Spotted Sweetlips too, in orange with white dots. It is so much different than the adult version, and one will not forget it once you see it – it is an ultra active-whole body shaking non-stop kind of fish. I took loads of photos but none is in focus, but I did have a short video of this dancing queen. Amazing little fish!

Mild current throughout the dive, but when we ascended to ~7m preparing for safety stop over a huge rock outcrop, current gets really strong, so strong that some of us were finning frenziedly in order to stay position and not being swept away to open sea. My buddy Bill and myself were the last to reach the rock outcrop, while others were already holding onto the hard corals on the outcrop to stay in position. With camera and the strobe in one hand, I swam around to the right side of the rock outcrop, and look forward to the open sea. I thought I saw see a shark’s head. The rock was blocking the rest of the fish’s body. I swam up a bit in order to have a better view of the fish.

Wholly cow! it was a huge Great Barracuda, approximately 1.5m long, holding steadily just 3m away from me. I turned my head to the left, trying to alert others, and noticed that everyone is already looking at this huge thing. I turned back and look at the fish. It is still there, like a statue, not even moving an inch. I turned on my camera and the strobe, which I have off while ascending, wanting to capture a photo of this great fish. I realized that time is not on my side, so I snapped a photo of it with one hand – I have my left hand holding onto the hard corals to fight the strong current.

When I am ready to get another shot, the Great Barracuda thinks otherwise. The fish started to swing its tail, within seconds, it shoots to the open sea and vanished. I managed to capture another photo of it but only of its tail.

The first photo, above, turned out to be very bad quality due to out-of-focus, strong current, strobe position, reflections from suspended particles in the sea, and arbitrary camera settings – I just turned it on and shoot, with no time to check the settings beforehand.

But at least something is better than nothing. And it is the biggest Barracuda that I have seen, by miles! And what a way to end an already great dive!

You just don’t know what you will see when doing safety stop. Keep your eyes open to surroudings rather than fixing them at the near-zero-bar SPG gauge readings.

Sipadan Water Village @ Mabul Sipadan 2008: Above Water	School of barracuda Sipandan 2008: UnderWater
Tioman Sunset Tioman 2007: Above Water	Curious Clownfish Tioman 2007: Under Water
Life's a Beach Perhentian Besar 2007	Sunset @ Koh Lipe Koh Lipe, Thailand, Dec 2007
Hawksbill dives Pulau Tenggol, Underwater, Sept2007	Leave Nothing But Foot Print Pulau Tenggol, Above Water, Sept2007
Redang Long Beach Redang 2007: Coming Soon!

Travel Photos

Emerald Temple, Bangkok Bangkok & Pattaya, Dec2008	Local girl @ Sapa, Northern Vietnam Sapa, Northern Vietnam, May2007 – Coming Soon!
Mount Bromo, Java, Indonesia Central Java, Indonesia July2007 Coming Soon!	Dusk at Sekinchang (Selangor, Malaysia) Sekinchang, Selangor
Offering Bali, April 2009	Sunset @ Boracay Boracay, May 2009

Misc

The Smiling Clown Hot Air Balloon Fiesta, Putrajaya, March 2009

Cooling Off Formula 1 @ Sepang, Apr 2007