Perhentian Islands

 Day 1- Hello sunshine, old friend

So once again we had very little sleep on our overnight coach and we were told by the driver that we had reached our destination, which appeared to be too soon as it was 4.00am in the morning.

Disembarking the coach we were met by a man pertaining to be a taxi driver who informed us that the port for the Perhentian Islands was around 17Km down the road, however we needed to find a cash point as we learned that there were no ATM’s on the island.  

We asked the taxi driver if there were any cafes open where we could get some food/drink but he informed us that the only place open was the 7/11, so we went there and got a chilled coffee and sat on the pavement drinking them whilst we decided what to do.

In the end we decided to trust the taxi driver and we jumped inside his rust-bucket of a car and he drove us to a number of cash points around the town, first one did not accept my card and the other two were not open yet, so we returned to the 7/11 and got out thinking we would have to wait until 9.00am until the banks opened.  I then thought I would try a different card in the first ATM and fortunately this worked and we now had funds for the Perhentian Islands, so we jumped back in the taxi and asked him to take us to the port.

Arriving at the port everything seemed dark and deserted (first boat didn’t leave until 7am) and our driver  who  told us he was an illegal cab driver so parked down a side street so that he did not get caught by the police.  He then led us to the port and just opened the deserted ticket office for us and gave his sister a call who as luck would have it ran the ticket office, so she promptly turned up and sold us tickets for the 7.00am crossing.

As there was about an hour to wait until we had to board we sat around whilst some fellow passengers started to turn up.  We got speaking to three Swiss girls who did not realise that there were no ATM’s on the islands so they then headed off in search of a bank, unfortunately for them none were going to be open until 9.00am so they were going to have to hang round until the banks opened and would have to get a later crossing.

6.30 came around and we were marched to the jetty and then put into lines depending on what island and drop off point we wanted, the boat turned out to be a large speedboat affair and soon we were powering out of the port.  It was a nice morning but the trouble was there was a bit of a chop in the sea which led to quite and uncomfortable hour crossing crashing up and down in the waves, which didn’t do anything for our aging backs.

Eventually we started to slow down and we reached the Jetty on the island of Kecil and we grabbed our bags and got off the boat.  The island looked beautiful with palm fringed white beaches that were quite moderately developed and behind a jungle interior, our first impressions were really good and we thought we would like it here.

Dragging our cases along the pier and a bit of the beach we then got directions to our hotel which was at the highest point in the islands, so after a bit of exercise uphill we found our hostel, which was in the middle of the jungle part of the island.  We were pleased when they said it was OK to check in early and they had upgraded our room, result!  All we can say is we were thankful of the upgrade as the room we were put into was no great shakes.

After unpacking we went to the reception area where we hoped to get a coffee, but they only had cold ones in the fridge so we had to go for one of those.  Whilst sitting there a guy, who turned out to be the owner came and started talking to us and offered to get us some hot coffee from his own supply.  We spoke, or rather should I say he spoke to us for an hour or so and it turned out that he was Mr Big.  Allegedly he owned a number of successful businesses, went to Cambridge university, was a qualified barrister, owned property in Mayfair, built the local police station for the island, set up a funding project to educate local youths and generally was a multi-millionaire who liked to boast about things, although he hated spending money and the shirt he was wearing cost £2.00.

Tiring of the manager we made our excuses and headed down to long beach which was the most popular beach on the island and most developed with bars, restaurants and scuba schools, in our book it said that it had been spoilt a bit and was now a bit dirty.  When we arrived there it seemed fairly clean to us and had beautiful crystal blue waters washing up on a white sandy beach – not too shabby.   So we wandered along for a bit before finding a restaurant to get breakfast whilst admiring the view.

Once fed we started to feel the effect of a sleep deprived overnight coach journey so headed back up the hill to our hotel to take a nap.  We most probably slept for an  hour or two before being rudely awakened by an incredibly noisy low flying airplane which literally sounded like it was crashing into our room, which resulted in Shell diving for cover alongside the bed whilst I curled up into a ball on top of the bed (Is that the correct procedure for impending doom??).

As we were now awake we thought we would go and have a look at coral beach where we had heard there was some decent snorkelling to be had.  Heading down the hill (we are going to start to hate the hill!) we found our way onto coral beach which is where we were dropped off by the boat.  We saw where the snorkelling area was and donned our masks and went into the water, which was exceptionally warm.  Once again we were transported into another world with lots of beautiful fish, although one or two were a bit too friendly for our liking, protecting their nests no doubt.

Getting out we looked for somewhere to dry off and relax and as it was scorching hot (makes a nice change from the rain in Lankawi) we looked for somewhere in the shade.  The trouble was because it was so undeveloped there were no loungers and umbrella’s here and any shade to be had was already bagged.  In the end we found a couple of palm trees to try and relax under, trying to ensure that we were not directly under any coconuts (one of the biggest killers in Asia!!), but after a while we could not relax due to this possibility.

So we decided to get a cold beer and after going to a couple of places that did not have any in stock we found a small wooden shack that did stock beer.  We stopped there for a couple and discovered that the man that ran it was also a good source of travel information, as well as being a bar, a second hand bookshop he also did travel tickets.  We grilled him a bit for information regarding our onward journey and he was very pleased to tell us all our options which was very helpful.

It was still too hot on the beach so we headed back up the hill to relax in our room before going out to check out the nightlife on Long Beach later in the evening.

Needing a torch as there was no street or should I say path lights on the island we made our way back down the hill to long beach.  We walked up and down the beach looking for a bar to have some drinks and finally ended up sitting down at a trance music type of the bar, despite there being an obligatory fire dancer in attendance and rolled out a couple of mats next to a low table on the beach.

To start with we had a couple of rather expensive beers and then notices that everyone around us were drinking buckets, so we decided to go for a bucket of the local looney juice, known as Monkey Juice which is a ¼ bottle of local rum? With coke which was only a fiver!

The only problem was after a couple of these I needed the toilet and the bars don’t have any, so I headed for a nearby scuba school.  After making use of their facilities and thinking I was at the scuba school we had liked the sound of on trip advisor (It wasn’t  I ‘d gone into the wrong one) I got some information for them on the dives and prices they did – only £12 a dive!!  So I said we would go back tomorrow and book something up if Shell liked the sound of them.

Returning to the bar we had a few more drinks, Shell went a bit AWOL going to the loo as I had given her the wrong name of the Scuba school, we had a sloppy burger on the beach before trekking once more up that bloody hill to bed.

Day 2 – Getting back into the swing – Dive 1

Getting up late, feeling the effects of the Monkey Juice we headed down the hill to long beach and found our way to the dive centre.  We explained that we were a bit nervous due to our last experience and were introduced to Victor, a French dive master that said he would look after us properly and take us on a nice easy dive in the afternoon to see how we got on.  Shell was happy with this and after paying for the dive and getting our sizes for wetsuits, fins and weights taken  we headed off to get some late breakfast/lunch.

We had some breakfast on the beach before returning to the hotel,  I went on to coral beach to sort out tickets for our onward travel while Shell did some hotel research and tried to sweet talk our friend the Billionaire owner into giving us our room for and extra night (we like it here) for the same price, unfortunately he wasn’t having it and we had to pay full  price.

After a bit of a relax and time for Shell to get her head round diving again we headed back to the dive school.  We were asked to check our equipment, tank, BCD, regulators, etc before Victor did his briefing session. During the briefing session Victor was really good and explained everything we were going to do in detail, even down to the fact there may be some fish that come up and nibble at you – nice!

It was boiling and we had to put on our wetsuits and tanks before walking down the beach to the boat that was moored up on the shore.  We were very happy when it started to move so we could cool down a bit.

Driving round the coast for about 15 – 20 minutes we arrived in  D Lagoon which was a pretty little sheltered bay and we were soon putting on the rest of the gear and rolling backwards off the boat into crystal clear waters, which I would say cooled us further but the water temperature was 30 degrees!!

First we descended holding on to a static line until we reached the sandy bottom (about 6 metres), where we knelt for a while whilst Victor checked we were happy with everything, we then set off along a sandy section with Victor regularly checking we were OK.

Swimming along we then stopped and all layed flat on the floor (which had been explained in the brief) and extended our fingers to this small plant/coral type thing, where there were cleaner shrimps that would come and chew the dead skin off the end of your fingers (a bit like one of those fish tank things but cooler).  You could not feel them but if you got your fingers too close to the plants thing in latched onto you which did give you a bit of a nip.

Once our fingers were dead skin free we scuba’d  for a while alongside a coral reef to about 10 metres and along the way we saw a Blue Spotted Stingray, which I was happy to say was swimming away from us.

We then headed over and through the coral reef where we saw the normal reef fish we have become accustomed to, but also we saw another Blue Spotted Stingray, Puffer Fish and some beautiful shoals of Triangle fish.

The dive was perfect and just what we needed to get our confidence back up and Victor was brilliant, almost as good as Manu who took us through our PADI course originally.  Both of us would have liked it to go on for longer but as usual I had gone through my air supply, although at 53 minutes  it was the longest I had lasted.

Returning back to shore we trudged up the beach with our gear and then washed it off at the scuba school before helping ourselves to a complimentary coffee whilst we waited for Victor to come and help us fill out our dive log.  Whilst filling out our dive logs with Victor we thanked him for a great dive and arrange to go on another one with him tomorrow, this time to 18 metres and involved swimming through rock arches – he said we were capable?!

After our dive we went next door to quite a cool bar that was run by an Argentinian and played Spanish music.  We had a few drinks there whilst we dissected the dive we had just done and had a similar buzz from when we first passed our PADI’s.  Whilst sitting there we bumped into the Swiss girls from the day before who were buzzing as they had just started their diving course. Also whilst we were sat there the girl who ran the diving centre came up to us to see how our dive went and invited us to their scuba party the next evening in celebration of one of their colleague that was just about to pass her dive master qualifications.

Having celebrated our dive enough we went up the hotel and then down the hill to just outside coral bay to a local restaurant that had been recommended to us where we had some pretty decent food that was fairly cheap before returning back up the hill to bed.

Day 3 – Into the murk!

Waking up at a decent time we headed down to long beach to have some breakfast on the beach, I must say their coffee is pretty rank.

Breakfast out the way we decided to have a relax on the beach before our afternoon dive and promptly found an umbrella to hire with a couple of mats to lie on.  We spent the next few hour just reading and jumping in and out of the water to cool off (and have a pee!).

Around 2.30 and it was time to go diving again so we headed to the dive centre to get ready and have our pre-dive briefing.  When we got there we found that there would be 6 others on the dive with us and that we would have two dive masters with us, Victor and the girl that was just about to qualify as a dive master.

After everyone had kitted up we headed for the boat and were soon heading out in slightly choppier water to the reef known locally as T3.  In turn we all got into the water and were told to hold on to the anchor line until everyone was ready.  We waited for quite some time until victor got in the water and told us that he had forgot his fins so had taken the qualifying girls and he alone would take us down.  If we hadn’t dived with him the day before we would not have been very happy about this, but he said that Shell and I would follow just behind him and the rest would follow in pairs behind us.

Again we descended on a static line to the ocean bed at 18 metres the only problem was as the sea was a bit choppy the visibility was only about 3 foot unlike any conditions we had dived in before (afterwards Victor told us to write ‘visibility shit’ in our dive logs). However as we felt quite safe with Victor we just to follow his lead.

As the conditions were not great it was really difficult to see anything of note, but after a while we stopped and were instructed to go through our first swim though.  In turn, we had to swim through a tunnel through the rock, low enough so your tank did not touch the roof and high enough so you did not kick up sediment from the bottom which would make the remaining divers view terrible.  I am please to say that both Shell and I made it through without any drama.

We swam around for a while but as I say it was hard to see any fish of note and as we had been diving deeper I went through my oxygen tank fairly quickly (the deeper you go the more oxygen you use). 

Back on the surface we swam around for a bit whilst we waited for everyone to get back on board, unfortunately there was a larger girl in our group who struggled to get back on board and nearly pulled Shell’s hand off when trying to help her (she fell back into the water).  Eventually she managed to get on board and we headed back to Long Beach.

After we had washed our gear down, had a coffee and completed our dive logs we headed back to the bar next door to do our own debrief and celebratory beer.  Although the conditions had been terrible we were pleased with ourselves for the way we handled it and put it down as experience gained, but it was a shame as the dive site seemed pretty funky and interesting and on a day with better visibility we thought it would have been really something special.

We then returned to our hotel to get ready for the party and after a quick turn around up & down the hill we arrived back at the dive centre.  The party consisted of the diving staff all taking part in party game and generally taking the micky out of the newly qualified dive master and trying to get her as pissed as possible on shots.  The culmination of which and the standard passage of right was that she had to drink a litre of cocktail through her snorkel…..to be fair she did her best but choked half way through.

The party then continued to the bar next door where Shell and I got a rum bucket to share and ordered some pasta (No Cheese Shell) and a Pizza for me.  As we were leaving the next day we sloped of home to bed pretty early whilst the party continued on…we must be getting old!!