Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
With diving taking over our travel plans we decided we'd throw in a trip to Pulau Tioman just off southern Malaysia in the south china sea. Having chosen to spend 4 days here to then decided on how many dives, originally 4 we then chose 8!!! With 18 sites to choose from. 6 of them were around small islands with lots of different types of coral but much of the same fish, we think. The first dive we did was onto 2 wrecks. We dropped down to 30m with the visibility about 2 meters the chances for spotting the nurse sharks living inside the wreck was slim. We never saw them but it was an amazing dive. It didn't help that a giant jellyfish floated past as we were about back roll into the water for the first time
Another fun dive we did was a night dive. Suited up at 730pm we walked off the shore and into the sea trying not to sit on an urchins whilst putting our fins in. Their spines look a lot longer an night. Once in a suitable place we kneeled on the sand and turned off the torches. Flapping your hands creates bio luminescence, the annoying part was small fish following the torch light everywhere! We did see a bamboo as we were heading back to shore.
On the other dives we also saw cuttlefish, one pretending to be coral and another pretending to be a rock, they also changed colour when you got to close to them. Nudibranch are also in abundance with different colours and patterns.
A tusk fish also made an appearance, it was huge and had 6 ginormous teeth. Maz and the DM were spotting barracudas, stingrays with missing tails, giant moray eel, a baby octopus.
We only saw one turtle.
On one of the dives a banded sea snake decided to join us on the boat giving every one a fright, as it's bite is quite poisonous, but it only goes for fingers and ears as its got a little head. Our DM chased it off with his fins.
The island was a pretty nice, a lot quieter and peaceful than koh phi phi, the next nearest town was 2.5k's away but easily reachable. We were lucky in buying some alcohol on one day as the same shop went up in flames the next day. We found a bar near us which was quite busy however quite nice as it was on the beach also serving the best chicken nuggets ever. You knew when your food was ready when you heard "Ryan come to papa".
Considering the jungle covers practically most of the island they did have a lot of bats and cats.
Again we were sad to leave as we loved the diving and island life. Especially when the dive shop we used were gearing up as we were heading to the ferry.
- comments