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Published: March 7th 2009
On our final morning in Kota Bharu, Mr Lee brought us a filling breakfast of egg and chicken curry from the local hawker market and arranged a minibus transfer to the jetty in the next town along called Kuala Besut so that we could get the ferry to Perhentian Kecil, another tropical island off the east coast. Perhentian Kecil is the smaller and more attractive of a pair of islands collectively known as the Perhentian Islands. Unlike the large commercial ferry from Mersing to Tioman, the ferry from Kuala Besut to Perhentian Kecil was a private, powerful speedboat that seated 8 scared tourists and a few amused locals. The crossing was only 20 minutes but that's partly due to the fact that we were travelling at near the speed of light, bouncing across the waves with enough force to jar every bone in your body and actually far too violent for your body to even think about getting seasick.
When Kecil rose from the horizon it was only partly with awe at it's beauty that we were glad to see it. Stepping off onto the jetty was a relief and we walked rather gingerly up to the beach to try
and find some acommodation. The first place we came across seemed to be the most luxurious complex and we assumed that it would be out of our price range. However, as February is off season (the monsoon season has only just finished) the prices were less than half the peak season price. The cheapest rooms were being offered at 70RM (14 pounds) instead of the usual 150RM (30 pounds). For the price, the room was great. It was a detached little chalet in the woods just behind the beach that provided welcome cover from the blazing sun and was kitted out with air con, a TV and a bathroom that actually looked clean. I managed to bargain for a whole week at the discounted price even though it was due to go up to usual price on the 1st March. Suggesting that we might move into cheaper, but less salubrious chalets seemed to do the trick. Although the staff were very friendly the service wasn't great. The supposedly hot shower was only a few degrees above freezing (in the 40C heat this wasn't always a bad thing) and asking them for help with anything like the times of the return
ferry or laundry was often met with bemused smiles. At 70RM we couldn't really complain but for the people who would be arriving later in the season and paying top price for some of the nicer rooms (top whack was the equivalent of 200 pounds per night) it would have been very frustrating. Perhaps they attend to the fortnight long holidayers first and the backpackers get whatever time and energy they have left.
After dumping our bags and washing the lingering smell of terror from the crossing away with a quick shower, we ventured out to explore the beach. The area around the chalets seemed to be full of cool looking little red and black bugs that were a welcome relief from the cockroaches that we occasionally found in Tioman although the huge spiders lurking in webs at the sides of the patch did look somewhat intimidating. The beach was nicer than the slightly rocky beach we were staying on in Tioman and the island as a whole seemed smaller and quainter. The main beach was around a mile long and dotted with small cafes, shops and Scuba diving centres but there was also a smaller, much less known
beach that we found behind our chalet that was only about 30 metres across with fish and coral coming right up to the shore. It was a silken sanded little slice of heaven looking out to the still sea with imposing rocks on either side hiding you from view. We sat here for a couple of hours and both agreed that it was probably the most beautiful place we had ever been but we stupidly forgot to take any pictures.
We walked back to the main beach for a tasty breakfast of roti and fruit and then went to one of the dive shops to ask about a beginner's PADI course. The entry level course is called Open Water Diver and allows you, if you pass, to simply hire equipment anywhere in the world and dive without a professional, as long as you are with a friend who is also qualified. The price was 850RM (170 pounds) per person which, according to our basic reasearch, is amongst the cheapest you will find in the world. We booked onto it and were told to come back the next day for lesson one. Back to school!
The next morning we
turned up and were issued with textbooks (that we will send home next time we have an opportunity) and told to watch a couple of hours of lessons on a laptop. We decided that the sun drenched beachfront classroom probably beat Olaves and Casterton for style. Our instructor was a local Malay guy called Ricky who was excellent, good fun and allowed us to take things at our own pace. I had dived twice before (although not anything to do with PADI) but as Amy hadn't she was a little nervous and wanted to dive here where there were small classes, rather than in Thailand where we had heard stories about 12 people being taught at once and instructors who were more interested in getting your money than actually teaching you to be safe. The only other guys who were in our class were two really nice Irish guys called Trevor and Stevie who were here with 3 more friends that we got to meet later. Bizarrely, we also bumped into Nils and Belen who had arrived the day before us and had already started their Open Water Diver course.
The diving course lasted for 3 days and consisted
of 5 dives, 5 chapters in the textbook, 5 mini tests and then a final exam. We both passed the final exam with a rather pleasing score of 98%. Don't want to be getting breathing apparatus questions wrong! The dives, however, weren't without incident. The course teaches you how to set up your own equipment, maintain it, understand it and about some underwater skills that you need such as how to recover your mouthpiece if you lose it, how to clear your mask of water, the various hand signals that you need to communicate with underwater and how to avoid and deal with problems that may arise. There are also some health and safety procedures you need to be aware of such as surfacing too quickly etc.
On the first dive Ricky told us to keep an eye on our air and let him know when it reached 50 bars left. Once the first person reached 50 bars, he would signal to all of us and we'd all surface slowly. Great idea in principle but on your first dive you are far more interested in the novel sensation of breathing underwater, watching the large colourful fish and studying the
coral than you are on watching your breathing gauge. After a while I remembered that we should be checking our air and looked at the dial. It read zero. Nils had mentioned that on one of his dives he had a faulty dial that permanently read zero so I didn't initially panic but thought I should let Ricky know anyway. I calmly swam over and pointed to my dial. He signed back "Are you able to breathe". I tried a deep breath and found air so signaled back "Yes". He signed "OK" and we swam on. Less than a minute later I realised that the air in my tank was actually getting harder to pull on and that I had just experienced the Scuba equivalent of seeing your petrol tank is empty but realising you do actually have enough to get home on. The only thing is, in the end your petrol does actually run out if you don't go home. I swam back over to Ricky, breathing thinner air each breath and signalled "Out of air". We shared his air while he signalled to the others and we all began to surface slowly. When we got back to the
surface I tried my mouthpiece again and got virtually nothing from it. A close call. It was quite scary but actually a very good experience as it meant that on every subsequent dive I checked my air very regularly! Ricky also commented that I did the best thing in staying calm and breathing as normally as I could on his air with him rather than panicking as staying calm underwater is one of the most important priciples of diving.
The out of air incident aside, I took really well to diving. Amy was a little less calm about the skills involving taking the mouthpiece out and how to get it back but with a little coaxing from Ricky she became much more confident and was in her element by the last dive. We liked it so much that we are now thinking of taking further exams in Thailand to become advanced divers and learn more about the fish and coral you see.
On the days we were diving the weather was gorgeous but unfortunately once we finished it turned nasty. The last few days were spent hiding from the rain in our chalet and eating and drinking with the cool group of Irish guys. The rain was pretty intense. When it rains in Malaysia, as we have already found out, it really rains. It can get quite deafening when it's beating on the roof of your chalet.
Slightly disappointed by the weather we got a (thankfull calmer!) crossing back to the mainland with some girls who were from in and around Bromley which was quite bizarre. They were heading back up to Thailand so we might bump into them there.
We were picked up at the jetty in Kuala Besut by Mr Lee for another night in his guesthouse before we head to the jungle in the morning.
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Uncle Chris
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Cool, fellow divers in the family !
Hey folks. Not been posting much, but I catch up with the blog every so often. Felt I had to post after your diving experience. We'll have to swap tales when you get back if you do much more. I got some to make your hair curl !