Dive Perhentian Islands

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We moved on last week, the Similans diving season came to an end, at least the calm waters anyway, so we joined the exodus of divers to the East coast of Peninsular Malaysia. The journey on the whole went pretty well, being familiar with Malaysian buses which generally make National Express coaches look like cattle wagons we thought the journey would be fairly straight forward, the last trip we made was full size, has only one arm chair seat on either side, TV screen and a huge choice of movies. I was almost excited about our trip across the country to Kota Bharu on the east coast.

Unfortunately by the time we reached K.L it was Friday night and all buses were full, luckily we met a happy go lucky tout who issued us with an overpriced ticket, a premium for aisle service with regular refreshments we tried to convince ourselves. Some two hours late our bus arrives outside the terminal, turns out our tout hires the local school bus most likely unbeknownst from the school itself for the Friday night overflow. Picking the sweets off the headrest we prepared ourselves for an awful night sleep to the sounds of snoring and dodgy air-conditioning. We began to wonder what time we would make it to Kota Bharu, however our driver had other ideas, despite only being able to turn his head in one direction. As we made our way up the winding roads towards the Genting Highlands I noticed that not only were we in the third lane but we were also overtaking a six cylinder super bike, he practically had the thing on two wheels - amazing. We arrived four hours early and decided that traveling by school bus isn’t so bad after all.

We are now on the beautiful Perhentian Islands, two of our favourite islands in Asia, the atmosphere is as relaxed as always and the beaches just as idyllic. The small dive boats leave from the beach just a few meters from the dive centre and there’s a real feel of simplicity here, diving as we like it - small groups and
very personal. It’s not often that you meet another boat at the dive site but when you do more often than not you’re greeted by smiles and waves from both westerners and locals. People don’t bring their hang ups to the Perhentians and it shows

Sarah has reported seeing huge Bumphead Parrotfish on the last three of her dives, being almost as big as her they are not shy by any means and are happy for you to get amongst them as they take huge chunks of Coral between their teeth. Sugar Wreck is 80 metres in length and lies at a convenient depth of 18 metres; with the recent fantastic visibility we have seen big schools of Barracuda and Horse Eye Jacks, Cuttlefish and Razorfish. The big talking point from the local guides is the Petani drift dive, in the past the Perhentian Islands has not been all that well known for macro life. On the last dive taken by Seadragon Divers they reported seeing seven Seahorses, Blue Ringed Octopus and many types of Nudibranch. If you would like more information on learning to dive on the Perhentian Islands visit Learn to Dive Perhentians

Its certainly good to be back here, although our time will no doubt quickly pass, in just a few weeks we’ll make our way further south to North Sumatra, joined by Charlotte Boan of DIVE magazine, we spoke to our partner dive centre on Pulau Weh not long ago and the recent sightings have included gigantic fish including Mantas, Whale Sharks and the Mola Mola so fingers crossed. For more information on diving adventures in South East Asia, where, when and how visit .

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