Unfortunately due to the lack of activity on this blog, due to nothing but laziness from myself, that have been a lot of trips that have been taken during this hiatus. In order to make it more coherent for readers, I have decided to group posts by Destination, rather than chronologically.
So to start, Lets continue with Pulau Tioman since it was the last place I blogged about. Since that first trip to Tioman, we have been back a total of 2 more times. The first of which was 2 months after our initial trip. This was the trip when the name Zombie Divers was Born(See Case Zer0 post)
The 2nd time round we decided to stay at ABC/Panuba Inn which is actually a privately owned “Resort” with its own little private jetty and its own little private beach. Your’e pretty much isolated from the rest of the island, with no option to go anywhere else to eat, unless you are willing to trek 45 minutes on jungle tracks to get to ABC village.
The food itself at Panuba Inn was Average to say the least. Breakfast was included in the price of the room, and was a simple breakfast buffet of some western items(Weiner Sausages, scambled Eggs,) and some asian staples(Fried noodles, Congee) Lunch and dinner I pretty much found a couple of safe dishes and stuck to them the whole 4 day trip I think one of my staples was spaghetti bolognaise,
Diving was with Bali Hai Divers(Which has now burned down and been replaced by AZMI Dive)
When we first jumped in the water at Coral/Chebeh Island, we were shocked to find that a lot of the Staghorn(Acropora) corals were totally bleached. This was due to sudden ocean warming of up to 30 degrees Celsius for up to a week. We were much saddened to see the vibrant colors of the island turn bone white in just 2 months.
Fish life seemed a bit less healthy and there were a lot less fish around.
We partook in our fist Night dive at Soyak island, and the one memory I have retained from this night dive was that there was a big adult barracuda that was following us the whole dive, it was so big that our torch light would only illuminate one small part of its body at a time. And from what I saw…that thing was HUGE…at least the diameter of my leg!
It was the first time My Canadian dive buddy Rick had heard the term TORCH used in that way, until i told him it was a “Flashlight” North Americans… how can it be a FLASH-light if it doesn’t flash!
Last but not least, I learned the expensive lesson of not wearing boardshorts with pockets whilst on dive trip..as I had left my then fairly new Mobile phone in my pocket and dived in the water with it… and you will now see if you ever dive with me…My board shorts/Bathers NEVER HAVE ANY POCKETS!
Now onto the accomodations, I won’t comment on the Dive operator since they have burned down now and been replaced with AZMI. We got the cheapest Air conditioned room there was. It was a Wooden building with wooden floors, that had slits in the floorboards you could see daylight through. The A/C worked well enough, and I would say its decently clean, but all i could remember was our war with the Ants that kept coming through the slits in the floorboard! Would I stay here again, Probably not, but not because of the quality of the rooms, it’s more because of the isolation you suffer and the lack of food options! Id much rather stay in SALANG!
Which is Exactly what we did the 3rd time around. After a couple of years, I decided to take another friend to Tioman to get Open Water Certified. This time I decided to fly in from KL Skyport with Berjaya air to save the long road/ferry journey from Singapore.
Berjaya air runs daily flights to tioman in the morning from both Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. The flights are in an Old DC 9 with Strict luggage restrictions, so if you have a lot of dive gear, make sure you tell the airline beforehand, or take the ferry!
Seats were a bit cramped as youd expect on a DC9 but the flight was smooth enough and the landing was…kinda awesome coming into land on this thin airstrip with mountains on 3 sides. Cost wise, Ended up to be roughly the same As if I had taken a taxi from Singapore. I took the ferry out of tioman though cos of the No Fly surface interval after diving.
This time we stayed at Salang Pusaka, in a “Family room which had 3 large beds and a full sized refrigerator. Pusaka has been the best “Resort” we had been in on Tioman considering the price(160Ringit) a night for the 3 bed room. The restaraunt had Shisha and awesome shakes(Banana snickers..MMMMmmm) and Salang is still the most happening village on Tioman.
We dived with the Well established BnJ dive operator. All in all, My friend had an excellent instructor for his OW certification, and our dive guides were competent. Managed to finally visit the site LABAS this time with its many swim troughs, described as a Swiss Cheese Dive site, and finally on our 3rd time to Tioman we got to dive Golden Reef, and Tiger reef, which had ripping currents, but some nice fishlife because of the current, even managed to see a couple of baby reef sharks. All in All out of my 3 times to Tioman, BnJ has offered me the best diving experience, They also have a dive shop on ABC and also a modern resort with brick and mortar rooms. Tioman has become a top candidate for me to undertake IDC program…hopefully soon!
But I guess we had been spoiled for diving, as in the past 2 years since we had visited Tioman last, we had been diving so much in another part of Asia…The Philippines!
Zombie Divers 