Bits & Pieces of My Travels

Less than 3 weeks after my trip to Perhentian, it was Tioman this time.

I thought I’d better go for another diving trip before my next overseas assignment that most likely will end towards the end of August. By that time, I would have missed the best part of the diving season this year.

So, Tioman it is.

It was my first time to Tioman, so I was suprised with the ferry boarding pass system they have there. Gave my ferry ticket to the counter, register myself and they gave me a boarding pass. All I did with it was to walk some 15-20m and pass it to the other personnel. And now, there’s only 1 ferry operator to Tioman since the accident in the middle of the sea last year.

It was a 2.5 hours boat ride from Mersing to Tioman. The ferry stops at a few jetties there and mine was the third. Kampung Tekek jetty to be exact. It’s also the only duty-free jetty there. Not the whole Pulau Tioman is duty-free.

I was greeted by a colorful van, courtesy of the resort (I would say wooden long house) that I’ll be staying for the next 4 days; Babura Seaview Resort.

Dumped all my bags into the room, the diving bag with all my gears at the dive center at Tioman Reef Divers. It’s just next door and is owned by a Malaysian husband and his Japanese wife.

Then, we had our super quick lunch and immediately geared up for the first dive at 1430.

The first of our 8 dives was at Tiger Reef, some 20 minutes boat ride away. Lots of nudis down there and other small creatures. The best thing was seeing other divers cam whoring for the whole 60 minutes dive with their new cameras.

The worse thing? Having the new divers with camera kicking up all the sands at the bottom. And even worse, scaring the hell out of the fishes with me ended up with no fishes to see.

Then we had our 1 hour surface interval before dipping ourselves into the water again at Labas Island.

The second day was reserved for the best dive site. Before I came, I asked those who dove here often which is the best site. They all have the same answer. Chebeh. To go the Chebeh, it’s a 20 minutes boat ride from the dive center.

Not a good thing if you’re a seasick person.

Once we’re there, the signs weren’t that good. There were quite strong currents. We wanted to dive the pinnacle. But to do this, we had to swim from the descent line was which some distance away. The current might take us away from where we wanted to go.

So, change of plan. We dove the lagoon there instead.

Then we had our usual 1 hour surface interval before jumping into the water again at Malang Rock, just behind of Chebeh. It was a shallow dive, 15m max. On average it was 11m as we already had a quite deep dive earlier.

Had our lunch and 3 hours of surface interval between before jumping back into the water. This time it was Renggis. One of the best dive sites. Visilibty was very good. 15m maybe. I encountered a really big green sea turtle, the resident there. Then we have 2 blue spotted ribbontail ray, scorpionfish and the titan triggerfish.

The third day, we dove at Soyak Island in the morning. Visibility was very bad. I would say it was like 4-5m at best. It improved a lot towards the end of the dive at 7m depth when I was at the coral garden. If I’ve known (as if I do) this earlier, I would have stayed at the coral garden from the start of the dive. And I wouldn’t have stayed elsewhere at 20m for 45 minutes getting lost and having nothing to see!

It was Chebeh again and Genting Ba for the third day as I didn’t really dived Chebeh the day before.

Okay, what’s so good about Chebeh that I wanted to dive there again?

Besides the varieties of creatures living there, the underwater landscape is simply amazing. There are rocks you can swim through, small caves you can enter, and then exit at a beautiful coral garden at 6m depth. Sorry, no underwater photos of Chebeh. Maybe next trip.

So, which was the best dive site?

Chebeh has to be one of it. No doubt about that. The second would be tiger reef. I would really love to dive Tiger Reef and Chebeh again this August with my camera!

Tagged as: Malaysia, Pahang, Pulau Tioman, Scuba Diving

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