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terengganu

Dive @ Pulau Perhentian

So we drove 6.5 hours the other day from PJ to Kuala Besut during Labour’s Day weekend. If it’s not for diving, I probably would think twice to drive that far and for that long! And that’s only half the journey.

We stayed and dived with Watercolours Dive Center. I can’t remember exactly how I ended up with this dive center but most probably it’s because I can’t get 4 nights of accommodation on other resorts on this super peak weekend.

Nevertheless, I would say it’s a great, professional dive center.

The guides are from all over the world; German, French, Swiss, American, Spanish, Swedish, Danish and English and they’re a friendly bunch of people. The one thing I like about them is that after each dive, they helped us to fill our log books with what we saw during the dive. We’ll sit together for like 30 minutes, refer to a few books filled with pictures of fishes, nudibranches and coral reefs and try to identify what we saw. Sometimes I couldn’t even remember what I saw (especially those common fishes you get at every dive sites), but thanks to them, I have all those logged in my log book.

All other information like in/out time, bottom time, surface interval time, max depth, pressure group, visibility and water temperature are shared as well. But since I have a dive computer, I can log them myself.

So, here’s the 9 dives we did for 4 days. No photos as I don’t have a underwater camera with me, yet.

Dive : #1 (Day 1)
Site : De Lagoon
Time In  : 17:05
Bottom Time : 50 minutes
Max Depth : 14.8m

Dive : #2 (Day 2)
Site : Batu Nisan Reef
Time In  : 11:55
Bottom Time : 60 minutes
Max Depth : 7.2m

Dive : #3 (Day 2)
Site : Lighthouse
Time In  : 17:05
Bottom Time : 50 minutes
Max Depth : 11.7m

Dive : #4 (Day 3)
Site : Tanjung Besi
Time In  : 10:05
Bottom Time : 35 minutes
Max Depth : 30m

Dive : #5 (Day 3)
Site : Vietnamese Shipwreck
Time In  : 13:45
Bottom Time : 35 minutes
Max Depth : 24m

Dive : #6 (Day 3)
Site : De Lagoon
Time In  : 19:25
Bottom Time : 55 minutes
Max Depth : 15.6m

Dive : #7 (Day 4)
Site : Batu Layar
Time In  : 09:45
Bottom Time : 63 minutes
Max Depth : 16m

Dive : #8 (Day 4)
Site : Tanjung Besi
Time In  : 13:38
Bottom Time : 60 minutes
Max Depth : 16.8m

Dive : #9 (Day 4)
Site : Batu Tabir
Time In  : 16:40
Bottom Time : 60 minutes
Max Depth : 17.6m

If you have dived in Perhentian before, you would realize that I didn’t dive at  Tokong Laut (Temple of the Sea), the best dive site in Perhentian. Some dive centers call it, the superstar. It’s a real shame that we didn’t dive there.

This morning, I found out that the day I wanted to go to Tokong Laut was also the day the people from Watercolours found a big fishing net covering the corals there.

What’s a marine park when there are illegal fishing there?

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Getting From KL to Kuala Besut

Last Labour’s Day weekend, we had a 5 days, nothing except diving trip to Pulau Perhentian. Dived at Pulau Redang and Pulau Dayang/Aur last year, so I thought Perhentian was worth a visit for a budget local diving trip (Tioman’s next).

There are actually 2 routes that people from KL/PJ use to get to Kuala Besut, the gateway to Pulau Perhentian.

KL/PJ – Bentong – Cherating – Kerteh – Dungun – Kuala Terengganu – Kuala Besut

Total Distance : About 560km

This is probably the preferred route to Kuala Besut as the road conditions are much better, especially the KL/PJ – Cherating stretch using the East Coast Expressway. From there onwards, it’s a 300km+ scenic drive along the coastal road up north to Kuala Besut.

The usual time take for this route is about 8 hours, depending on the number of stops and the traffic on that day.

I chose a shorter and much faster route.

KL/PJ – Bentong – Raub – Kuala Lipis – Gua Musang – Kuala Krai – Pasir Puteh – Kuala Besut

Total Distance : About 460km

Started my journey after the Barcelona – Chelsea Champions League Semifinal match around 5am. Drove to Bentong using Karak Highway.

From there onwards, it was a 380km drive on trunk roads until we reach Kuala Besut.

It was still early in the morning, so there wasn’t much traffic from Bentong to Raub. However, this did not mean that we could speed. Even the sun was already up at this time, I could hardly see the car in front at certain stretches of the road.

That’s normal for a road where oil palm trees are on both sides of it.

From Raub onwards to Kuala Lipis, somehow, my GPS brought me to drive through an oil palm plantation. I think it must be a shortcut.

There was a police checkpoint at the entrance and exit of the plantation. There were many pot holes along the 25km stretch of the 2 lane tarmac road. To make driving even more difficult, the road was narrow, full of bends, uphills and downhills.

Definitely not a good driving experience.

From Kuala Lipis onwards, it was a smooth, scenic driving to Gua Musang. The stretch where we were nearing Gua Musang was simply beautiful. There were hills of rocks almost a hundred meters high, caves and tree covered hills.

Kuala Lipis - Gua Musang highway (Road 8)

Kuala Lipis - Gua Musang highway (Road 8)

The stretch from Gua Musang onwards to Kuala Besut was smooth driving. Nothing much to see.

Just drive, drive and drive.

All in all, it took me 6 hours of driving from PJ to Kuala Besut, with 30 minutes of resting time in between.

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Dive At Pulau Redang!

Finally, after a few time schedule changes in the past few months, I’ll be heading to Pulau Redang this weekend. This will be my second trip. The previous trip was back in April 2005 when I was on vacation after finishing my university studies.

Back then, our tour package includes a Discover Scuba dive. We paid the same usual price, and the Discover Scuba dive came as a courtesy of Matta Fair. Had a 45 minutes crash course and we headed straight to the bottom. It was really fun to be underwater, even though all (mostly) all we saw are rocks and some fishes. After that trip, I told myself I’ll get my PADI Open Water Diver license and start exploring what’s beneath the ocean.

And after 3 years of waiting (due to my job nature and etc, etc), I’ve got what I want.

So, this time around, I’ll be there for some real diving!

pulau redang dive sites

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