Perhentians, diving and few emotions under the tropics!

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From Bali to Perhentian Besar, welcome to our last discovery trip we did the last 3 days. We first made a short stop in Saigon to drop Leslie. Ma'ri and I are now together for few days enjoying some romantic times together.

Perhentians Islands are another dive spot in Asia. This time we are hitting Malaysia. And it's finally the 20th country in which I'm diving. Will make sure I jump to 30 countries soon or later! Perhentians are actually two main islands, Kecil and Besar or also know as the Small Island and the Big Island ( very original!!). We are staying on the Big Island. No roads, no cars, not even bicycles around. Only boat to ferry you around, to go to dive or to other beaches.

The sand is amazingly soft and white. The athmosphere is very relax. There is nobody on the beaches...and nobody to try to sell you anything.

We first landed in Kota Bahru at 16.35 to take the one hour taxi to Kuala Besut. Las boat is at 5pm, so we were ready to hunt for a place to stay in Kuala Besut. But oh lucky we are...more people appeared at the same time, and suddenly there was one more boat at 6.30pm! Great, we would make it for 3 nights in Perhentian Besar.

We headed for the Flora Bay Resort. The place is nice, noting incredible...very cheap, right on the beach...but it was already night time when we made it.

First day diving was spent with Flora Bay Divers. One word of serious diving. Do not dive with those guys. I don't want to go in details, but I would not send anybody there. I can explain this in private messages.

The second day we moved to Alu Alu divers. Well, this is a great place. Not only these guys are nice, but they are also honest, and very professional...and divemasters really show they like their job and to show their nice dive sites.

In term of diving, Perhentians are nice. I won't say amazing. It's easy and relax diving, with a lot of fishes and some damages on the corals. It's also seriously cheap to dive here. I would not go across the world to dive here, but this is a very place to spend few days.

We had great food for three days along the beach. Romantic diners at night (while very basic diners). The best was by far a night scroll on the beach at full moon. The white sand, low tide, and nearly day light from the full moon were impressive.

So three very relaxed days...except the very bad experience with Flora Bay Divers. We are ready to move to an even more romantic place, with a little more luxuries around. For this just wait...as usual...few days. We will be back very soon! With love from two of us...and a lot more diving coming!

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Comments

[Ali]

Fish ID ;)
rabbit fishes = silver batfish, Ma'ri found this one = crown of thorns starfish, little nudibranch = varicose wartslug (related but gills on underside), fish...yeah! = blue ringed angelfish. Looks like you had a good time overall :)

[Sheila Woolley]

Crown of Thorns Starfish
The creature you 'had no idea what it was is a Crown of Thorns Starfish. Although it looks pretty it's actually deadly to the coral as it eats it! I was amazed the first time I saw one too!