View from Salang Pier Looking Right as you step off the Pier
So, we disembark from the ferry, onto the pier at Kampung Salang, we looked around forour dive boat. Off in the distance we noticed a small wooden fishing boat, we paid it no thought. As we strolled in the direction of the beach, we noticed the banner draped over the side of the boat, ECO-Divers, It was our boat. We were greeted by an english fellow named Glenn would would be our divemaster that day. We apologised for being late, and said we’d be right back after we dump our bags in our room.
We were booked at Sayang Salang, which roughly translates to Love Salang. The rate was not cheap, at 150MYR for an A/C room. We were pointed to the quiet end of the beach up a narrow sandy path to the reception. We paid and got the key. The room was locted in the back half of the property, it was a wooden Stilted cabin, with a shared verandah area with the cabin next door. As we opened the door, a silence fell upon us both. We we surveyed the surroundings, we could see light through the floorboards and just make out the dirt floor 5 metres below. Through these little slits, were little ants that were coming from below and up into our room. The bathroom was fairly dirty, I dont recall there being a TV, or a fridge for that matter, just 1 double bed and 1 single bed. The A/C unit was an old In wall unit that was loud and rattly. At 150MYR a night, we were not impressed.
But, there was diving to be done, we quickly dumped our bags and changed, we didnt have much gear back then. I had just a Mask and Fins, Rick had Mask and an old Ixus camera, and off we trotted down the path back towards the pier. It was actually a fair walk, probably between 5-7 minutes, so the “Resort” isnt exactly a beach property neither.
We got back to the boat, and jumped in. Already on board were two Divers from the Netherlands, a few local divers and us two. Glenn tells us that they would be doing a Day trip today to Coral island, which will be a 2 dive trip with a packed lunch and would cost an extra 35MYR, and would it be ok with us. Not like we had much choice, now that we had already jumped on the boat and we were heading towards coral island, all be it at a snails pace compared to the other speedboats zooming around us.
On Our way to Coral Island!
45 minutes later we arrived at our first Dive Spot Chebeh island off the coast of Coral island. We were quickly briefed by Glenn, and told that we would be able to do a swim through under the actual island which is more like a big pile of truck sized boulders. The fishing boat is not exactly the perfect platform for scuba diving, it rocked quite a bit, had narrow walking spaces, you had to climb up onto the side board before being able to make your Giant Stride Entry, so yeah it wasnt nice, but we Managed. Down we went.
The Dive group as we start our dive
Chebeh, is a lovely dive site, with large soft coral covered boulders scatterd all around the main lump of rock that is the island, there are deep cuts or so it seems in some of the boulders making for some pretty dramatic underwater scenery. Most softcorals, with some sea fans and other large corals dotting the landscape.
The Swim Through
After swimming around for about 20 minutes, Glenn signalled for us to follow him under this rock, this was the swim through he told us about. It was a pretty fun experience, not for the claustrophobic, as there is a part where you actually swim down and are pretty much under the rocks, and the passage way where you must cross is probably no morethan 3 metres tall by about 3.5 metres wide, this was the first swim through i had ever done in my short diving life, This being only my 9th dive ever so far. After about 40 minutes we had to surface, I was still a bit bad with my air consumption.
Climbing Back on board, we had to wait about an hour or so for our Surface interval. This was when our lunch was handed out. A deep fried piece of meat which I assumed to be chicken, some fried rice, and some tomato sauce. Snorkelling at Coral island is also excellent, with plenty of corals and fish life in the shallow areas of the island. After lunch and an hour of waiting, we were off to our second dive of the day Batu Malang, Or Malang Rocks.
Off to spend my Surface Interval
Malang is a much shallower site we hit a max depth of about 12 metres. It has more of a sandy bottom and has more of a Muck Diving feel. There are less pronounced rock formations. There was a current this time round. Being a Shallower dive site, it recieves a lot more sunlight. Thus this site was covered in colourful hard corals. Staghorns, tabletops, potato corals, you name it, you would probably find it. We encountered our first ever turtle at this dive site, and managed to spot a weird walking fish which the divemasters told us was called an Indian Walkman, couldnt get any photoes of it as the current was quite strong by this time and we were struggling to keep steady. Being a shallower dive, my air lasted a full 45 minutes, and off we went back towards the main island of Tioman.
Between the pillars of the Salang Pier
We decided that since we were there for only 1 night, to make the most of our time there, and sign up for a shore dive at Salang Beach with AZMI Dive. It would cost us 75MYR each per dive. We geared up and off we went again. We entered in front of the dive shop and swam to our right ending up under the pier where we had came in on the ferry. This was surprisingly a nice part of the dive, with the columns of the pier looming over us on either side. There was a large school of Pisang Fish(Banana Fish) and what I think were some sort of Baitfish just schooling around overhead. As we swam some more we ran into a school of juvenile barracuda, no teeth to bare just yet. The coral growth on the pillars consisted of mainly softies. As we swam more to the right, we came upon a Giant fire coral patch shimmering in the afternoon sunlight, It really did look like the seafloor was on Fire. The pier was the main highlight of the dive, the visibility gradualy got worse as we got deeper and more sand started to come up on us. We swam back towards the left, and back towards ths dive shop and surfaced.
- Baby Barracudas Staring into the lens
We retired back to our “room” showered and trekked out into the main village of Salang. All the restaraunts were starting to open up now, with people bringing out plastic chairs and tables onto the beach for night time dining. Music was starting to play, and the larger of the hotels/resorts were starting to present their nightly buffet for their guests. We visited a couple of the larger dive operations on Salang, Such as BnJ divers, which seemed to have a very modern operation compared to what we had experienced so far with both Eco Divers and AZMI. BnJ also wanted to force upon us a Scuba Refresher course before we could dive with them, they operated one of the largest boats on the island.
We found a place for dinner and got eaten by sand flies, went through our fotoes, and found a place that was playing Bob Marley, and served a Banana + Snickers Milkshake I fell in love with Tioman all over again. After the shake, and going through some photoes, we retired to our room to sleep and to do it all over again tommorow.
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