Pulau Perhentian Kecil

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Island Life

Saturday morning it was crazy raining. Our goal was to head to the ATM (to test that our Capital One card worked, but it did not) and to arrange a taxi to Kuala Besut. These two errands had us run only a few blocks from our hotel, but we ended up soaking wet. By the time we entered the taxi, our pants were soaked. Luckily, we were wearing our quick dry pants and they dried before we arrived in Kuala Besut, about an hour later.

We arrived at the jetty in Kuala Besut, the jumping off point for the Perhentian Islands. It was madness at the jetty, and I was unsure if it was a normal Saturday, or because it was the start of a school holiday based on Jack Wee’s warning. We purchased a return ferry ticket for one of the next boats, but things were not as organized as it originally seemed. Basically, you walk into a store and purchase a ferry ticket from a travel agent. When that company has enough people for a boat, the boat leaves. So, we were herded to the dock to prepare for a 1:30 ferry, and had about fifteen minutes to board. I skipped the toilet stop because were in such a hurry. But, it turned out to be a hurry up and wait situation. After about thirty minutes of sitting, we were herded in a group out to a boat. It was a good thing we waited a bit because the rain died down, but that did not mean we were dry by any means. We were pelted by rain during our thirty minute ride to the island, and we did not even get a good view of where we were headed. When we arrived at the island we were told the ferry, which was small with only about ten of us on board, could not make it to the beach because of low tide. We had to move to a water taxi for 2 RM (Malaysia Ringgits) per person. We switched from the small ferry to the water taxi with both boats bobbing on the water. It was Eric and me and two German girls - Katherine and Julia. The four of us threw our backpacks into the water taxi and in the rough weather and spitting rain, stepped gracefully from one boat to another. About three minutes later we landed on the beach and had to exit the boat in the water, chugging through the sand with our pants and shoes, and had to grab all of our bags. It was not a graceful entrance onto the beach, and even less graceful than the move from the ferry to the taxi. We were interested in the same guesthouses as the German girls so Julia and Eric stayed a bit drier under the cover of a dive shop, with our bags, while Katherine and I hoped from different guesthouses in the rain. At one point I wondered why I was wearing my rain jacket. I was just soaking wet, and sweaty under the jacket, so I removed it. Whether it was because it was a Saturday or a school holiday as Jack Wee had warned, there was not much available. At Panorama there were two “chalets” available. The girls took one and we took the other. The chalets were essentially small, basic, and simple wooden huts with balconies overlooking a jungle environment.

With the exception of the events discussed below, we vegged out on the island for several days and nights. The island itself was beautiful - a perfect combination of beach shack restaurants, tall lush mountains with palm trees, pristine white fine sand beaches, and calm, warm, turquoise waters. Of all the beaches we visited to date, this was as close to paradise as we have found. It was immaculately clean, in comparison to other places, and the bottom of the beach was smooth sand as far out as we could swim. A big plus in our book.

In the evenings, we ate at Panorama because we received one dinner free each night as part of our room, which was a pretty good deal. The food on the island was more expensive than the mainland and also more tourist focused. Although Malay food was served, we felt it was not like eating at a great street side stall. We took the opportunity, therefore, to celebrate our four month travelversary, by splurging on some western food at the guesthouse. We ate a few pizzas, Eric had some chicken club sandwiches and fries, and on our last night we both had beef “tacos.” And, like many of the hostels in Australia, each night they showed a movie on the big screen, including Wedding Crashers and He’s Just Not That Into You. Usually, we avoid western food and culture like the plague, favoring the opportunity to learn the local culture. On the island, however, there was not much local culture or culinary delicacies, so we took the opportunity that was presented to us.

Our one complaint on the island is that Eric and I realized we can handle some pretty “rustic” accommodation for awhile, but when it comes to enjoying a beach, we both like a beach chair. There were no beach chairs to rent on the island, which led us to swim and then return to our chalet, or to sit on the sand and swat at the little gnats that gathered at our feet. I know it is a petty little complaint for such a beautiful place, but I think it is the one little luxury we need to relax at the beach.

A New Definition of Clean

One of the transitions we have made on this trip so far includes our definition of the word “clean” - accommodations, clothing, and our person. The places we have stayed continue to get worse and worse. Whereas I was fairly adamant when we started the trip about having our own bathroom at hostels, in Penang we spent four nights with a shared bathroom where you could shower and use the toilet simultaneously. I have showered with cold water and spiders and have danced in the shower to avoid mosquitoes. We have stayed in guesthouses smelling of smoke and other indescribable smells. Chasing the warm weather means it has been hot everywhere we have been outside of New Zealand. We have sweat more in the past four months than the past four years combined. At the start of the trip I would wear a shirt once or twice and consider it dirty. Now that I only have four shirts with me I will wear a shirt three, four, or five times before it is considered dirty enough to be put in the laundry pile. Pants I can wear for weeks without washing! We wash clothes in the sink and will hang them to dry anywhere we can. I will leave the discussion of cleanliness in terms of eating for another entry.

When Eric and I checked in to Panorama, we stripped the wet clothes off, which consisted of quick dry pants and quick dry shirts along with our rain jackets. It continued to rain through most of the night and was moist all the next day. I also washed two shirts when we arrived, both quick dry. We hung all of the items on our porch, on clothes lines. There was so much moisture on the island that it took close to 48 hours for our clothes to dry, and even then, they smelled musty. Eric hung a regular cotton t-shirt our on the clothes line to air out, it was dry when it was hung, and it was moist and wet when he pulled it down. Yuck. Before even landing on the island we had not done laundry in close to ten days. We planned on having laundry done on the island, but with all the moisture, would it ever dry?

Mossies were also a huge issue on the island, particularly because of all of the rain and the location of our chalet in the jungle instead of the beach. To solve the mossie problem Eric purchased some mosquito coils from the local “store” which gave him something to do. He loves fire and made it his job to keep the coils burning whenever we sat out on our balcony. We also burned a coil each night when we went to bed. We had no air conditioning and very little fan. We slept with the window open under a mosquito net that covered our bed. The coil was necessary, but I think it added to the smell in the room and the smell of our clothes. I also had a wonderful scent of eau d’ deet from the insect repellant I wore each night. To top it off, we only had cold water in our shower. That is pretty typical in a beach area, and usually we don’t mind because when you are crazy hot and sweaty a cool shower feels nice. I am convinced, however, that you just don’t feel clean after a cold shower. It is as though the soap just does not work. No matter how many showers I took I always seemed to have sand someplace on my body.

When we left the island everything we had whether we had worn it or not reeked of moisture, mustiness, sweat, and smoke. It was easily the most disgusting we have felt. And, it was not easy to get rid of the smell either. Even within our new definition of clean, we could not wait to get clean again!

Facing Fears

While Katherine and I found someplace for us to stay on our first night, Julia and Eric were staying dry under the roof of the Matahari Dive Shop. Eric quickly made friends with one of the dive instructors, Bonita. When I arrived back to get him, I was introduced. We talked to her about doing a snorkeling trip and I also inquired about going through the certified open water diver course. We spoke briefly and agreed we would stop by the following day to discuss it more. It is something Eric and I have wanted to do, but we have never dived before and really had no idea what it involved. Frankly, without much thinking, the following day we signed up for the course and received our homework of about 125 pages of reading.

Now, as I mentioned before, I am not entirely comfortable in water (see Queenstown entry) and still cannot submerge myself under water without holding my nose. Now, you would think this lack of confidence would be an impediment to scuba, but I can snorkel and am a stronger swimmer than I was six months ago. And, I figured I will have a mask and a regulator so no problem breathing under water. After reading some of the book, though, I became frightened. I read some of the skills we needed to learn and accomplish the following day. I stopped back at the dive shop and admitted my lack of skills to Bonita and she said no problem. We discussed with her my occasional sinus problems, Eric’s breathing problems from a deviated septum, and that he wears contacts and does not open his eyes under water. Bonita responded no problem. So, we continued with our plan to complete the course in about four days. It involved reading an entire book, taking a bunch of quizzes, watching several videos, doing several confined water dives and a few open water dives of twelve and eighteen meters. No problem, right?

We met with our instructor, Ravi, in the morning. We took our first quiz and discussed what we learned about buoyancy and equipment. We walked through how to put together the equipment, check it to make sure it works, and to disassemble the equipment. The confined water dives would take place just off the beach in water that was up to my chest. In the afternoon, with our anxiety growing, we hopped on a boat for our thirty second ride to the end of the beach for our first confined water dive. During this dive we needed to fill our mask with water and clear the mask while remaining underwater, take our regulator (the bulky breathing apparatus that, above water, makes you sound like Darth Vader) out of our mouth and replace it, use our dive buddy’s emergency alternate regulator, and properly inflate and deflate our BCD (the inflatable vest to control buoyancy). We did not get that far in our skills. For Eric, just feeling comfortable breathing underwater was a big issue. Ravi did a great job trying to calm us. He had us sit on the bottom of the water and play an underwater game of tic-tac-toe. It forced Eric to concentrate on the game and not his breathing. For me, clearing my mask of water was troublesome. You essentially pinch the top of your mask until water fills up about half way. Then, you breathe in from the regulator, push back your mask, look up, and breathe out your nose, causing the water to escape and air bubbles to float up to the surface. For me, it was pure fear. I almost accomplished the task, but every time the bubbles came near my nose and I could see them, I freaked out. Pulling the regulator out of my mouth and back in, and clearing the water from the regulator to make sure we were not ingesting water was easier to accomplish, but took us several tries. We decided to call it a day, disappointed in ourselves for not accomplishing all of the skills.

Now, it takes a lot for me to admit a failure. It is not something I am used to. Ravi said he would take as long as we needed to get through the course, and we had about eight weeks until our next scheduled event, so we had plenty of time to spare. He was very patient with us. But, that night as we continued to read the book, we realized just how much goes into being certified to dive. This was something we did not really give much thought to prior to signing up.

Humble Pie

Ravi did freak us out a little bit. He informed us that he would not take us into an open water dive or have us do anything dangerous until he felt 100%!c(MISSING)omfortable that we could satisfy the basic skill set. He also said he would not certify us unless we made it through all of the dives and skills. But, he informed us that the goal of the course was to be certified to the point that Eric and I could, conceivably, go to a dive shop, rent gear, rent a boat, and go out into the open sea and dive unaccompanied. This concept totally freaked Eric out. The book did nothing to calm us. The topics covered safety, currents, and everything in between. There are about a thousand steps between deciding to go diving to actually getting in the water and you are expected to remember all of them. And, warnings about possible explosion of your lungs if you mess up, or that you could stop breathing underwater made us nervous. Eric barely slept that night before our next confined water dive. I tried to convince him that we would never go out diving on our own and would always be with a dive master, who we would tell we were novice divers, and they would make sure our equipment was right and that we were safe. None of this provided any assurance to Eric who just felt that it was unnatural to be underwater at depths of twelve or eighteen meters using a breathing apparatus.

For me, it was my lack of confidence in the water. If I succeeded on clearing my mask of water, there were still more safety skills, including taking my mask completely off underwater and replacing it. Ravi was willing to take the time with me to make me feel more comfortable underwater, and Bonita insured me I could hold my nose if needed, but I was still freaking out. In the morning, Eric and I talked it over and agreed to give it one more shot depending on how much the dive would cost. If we completed the entire four day course the total cost was about $280 per person. If we only completed the “discovery” dive on the first day, it was only about $60 a person plus about $25 for the cost of the books. We asked how much it would cost to do one more discovery dive to try the skills again, but that if we could not accomplish the tasks, we would not finish the course. Ravi was able to get the boss to give it to us for about $50 a person, but that was still a lot to pay for something that we were just not sure if we could actually accomplish. The two discovery dives plus the books was getting to close to the cost of the entire course. It kills me to say this, but we did not continue. It just did not feel right - maybe it was not the right time, maybe it was my lack of confidence in the water, maybe it was Eric’s fear of the unnatural nature of breathing underwater and the loads of responsibility.

Instead, we decided to spend the day seeing the fish in the sea the way that God intended - snorkeling safely at the top of the water. The snorkeling trip was pretty cool and a much better experience than Thailand. We went to at least 5 snorkeling sites. We saw giant sea turtles gracefully glide over Turtle Bay. I saw schools of fish that looked like a wall in front of me with all of the fish moving in unison. At one point, a large blue needle nosed fish zoomed past my head and fed on the school of fish. And, I saw a reef shark. It was safely in the distance and as much as the boat captain was encouraging us to swim fast enough to follow it, I was happy viewing it from afar. The last site was amazing. We only had nine of us on board in addition to the captain. We stopped on a small stretch of beach to snorkel from the sandy shore. We swam around the edge of the cove, near coral and rocks. There was a bunch of fish there including loads of sea cucumbers hanging on the sand. But, what was most amazing was just how beautiful the beach was. The water was so crystal clear I could see my feet at the bottom. Pretty white fish with black tips swam by us, almost camouflaged to the sand. It was a stunning, almost private beach. And, it was pristine - no garbage floating in the water, no noise. I did not want to leave. It was a good end to the day.

The next day we hung out at the beach, but made plans to leave the island earlier than planned. I think we felt like we were no longer accepted into the scuba community at the dive shop. And, Eric and I did not want to face our fears and failures on the beach any longer. We were very disappointed in ourselves. We may try to do another discovery dive in the future. Ravi wants us to be certified so that he can take us out diving in India in October when we will all be there. I am not entirely sure that will happen. We never really had an extreme desire to scuba - it was just something people did and if other people could do it why couldn’t we? It was a humbling experience to quit. This was particularly true when most of the dive instructors thought we were crazy for bungy jumping. I don’t think we will return to the Perhentian Islands, unless we conquer our fears and become certified in the future. It is too bad because the island was beautiful and as close to paradise as we have found so far, but our memories will always be of our failure - and our stinky, musty, damp clothing.

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Photos

Pulau Perhentian Kecil
The small island.

The Island
The view of our little island from a boat. How precious.

Blogging
On the porch of our chalet.

Our Jungle View
Complete with mossies and humidity.

Classy Stuff
Hanging laundry and mossie nets!

Monitor Lizard
This little lady stuck her head up on our balcony. She was smaller than her male counterpart who probably was about five feet long.

Tom is Smoking
If anything symbolizes our trip to Kecil - Mossie Coils.

Power is Out
The power went off twice a day to save the generator. It was the time that the staff was able to relax, or play badminton.

Dive Kitties
This was one of the kitties who took over the dive shop while we were there.

Snorkeling
Why do I really need to dive down twelve meters anyway? I look totally classy and sophisticated up top.

Comments

[Pamela]

where did you stay on Kecil?
Hello, Do you remember the name of the place where you stayed on Kecil? thanks! Pamela