Perhentian Islands

The minibus was like a converted van. We took off down a long curvy road toward the coastal town of Kuala Besut where there was a jetty for boats to the Perhentian islands. The driver was kinda fast and the road was often narrow. There were two lanes, but the driver would often pass slow moving vehicle along blind turns where there could be oncoming traffic. It was like this for about 4 or 5 hours. I wanted to read my book, but I couldn't because the motion would have made me sick. We stopped at a gas station near the town and the driver told us to use the ATM because there weren't any ATMs on the island. I already had my money though.

We made it to town and stopped at a travel agent near the jetty. She gave us our tickets and told us to come back in a half hour. I went to a Chinese restaurant and had some chicken. Finally it was time and we were ushered onto an open air boat. The boat took off toward the islands. I could see the islands a few miles away. They had big hills and looked like they were covered in jungle. There are several beaches where there are hotels, so we stopped at a few different places to drop off other passengers. A small boat would pull up next to our boat and the passengers would use that boat to land at the beach. That first night I stayed at Paradise Resort on the big island. The room was basically okay, I had my own bedroom and shower in a kind of shack a short distance from the beach. It was a little expensive though at 80 ringgits or about $25 usd, so I opted to find somewhere cheaper the next morning. I inquired at some other shops and found out that the backpackers usually stayed on Long Beach on the small island. I also asked around at different dive shops about taking scuba diving lessons. Most of the places were about $350 USD, and that was a bit out of my price range, but the last place I checked had an open water course for just under $295. So I opted to go with that dive shop: Turtle Bay Divers.

The rest of that first day I just lounged around the beach and swam and kept mostly to myself. It was a nice beach resort area, but kinda boring especially when the sun went down.  The next morning I took a water taxi across the sound to the small island to find cheaper accomodations. I found a room for about $12 a night and reserved 3 nights there. Then I went to the Turtle Bay dive shop on Long Beach and signed up for the scuba diving course. I met the other people in the class. Trevor, Rhys and Hannah were three brits, along with Jennifer from Holland and David from Germany. We meshed pretty well and quickly became friends. The first morning we watched some DVDs teaching us diving theory and safety information. We also got a book. We had to read through a chapter and answer some questions at the end of each chapter. After awhile we took a break for lunch. Then we got some hands on training. We learned how to use the gear and how to put it together and take it apart. The instructor made us do this again and again until we got it down pat. Its not to hard to use, you have a regulator to breathe, a backup regulator, an instrument gauge, a buoyancy control device that you wear so that you can float on the surface or sink to the bottom, masks, goggles and a wet suit. After we learned about all that, we got our first taste of the water. On the beach in a shallow section there's a roped off area for learning diving. In about neck deep water we went under and scuba dived for the first time. We learned basics like controlling ourselves, hand signals, safety measures, we practiced taking our mask off and putting it back in again while staying under water, stuff like that.

After that we were done with the first day. There is a volleyball court in front of the dive shop, so we all went out and played volley ball for awhile. We all talked and got to know each other pretty well. Then we had dinner before I retired to my hotel after a long day.

The second day of diving class was similar to the first. However, first of all that morning, we were all told to swim out about 150 meters into the ocean and to tread water unassisted for about ten minutes. I wasn't quite ready for this, but we all went out and did it. The treading water was pretty easy, but swimming to and fro was tiring. By the time I sat my foot on the seafloor again I was glad and exhausted.

In the morning we watched a couple more instructional DVDs about diving. Then we went into the water to do our first dive. Again we prepared our tanks and our equipment. What started out as daunting was now commonplace and easy. This time we would take our equipment onto a small motorboat and go up to D'Lagoon to dive. The day before we merely dived in shallow beach water with an occasional fish swimming by.

This time there were reefs and schools of fish swimming by. Joe, our diving instructor, first told us a bit about the different fish that we could see and warned us not to touch anything or to land on the floor. We had to hover above the bottom. There are certain fish that have poisonous stings if you touch them. We jumped in the water and put on our fins and the tank and our weight belts. After adjusting our masks and checking our dive bodies to make sure they were ready, we began the dive. A rope was connected to a buoy floating at the top. We all sank down holding on to the rope. Some of the others sank straight to the bottom. I went a bit slower. The pressure in my head would build every few inches that I went down. The only way to resolve this problem was by swallowing or by blowing your nose. The pressure between your nose and your ears can build up and it feels like a painful sinus headache. The others went down pretty quickly but I had to go really slowly. A few feet down, then equalize my ears, a few feet more, then equalize again. So on and so forth for about 30 feet. It was a bit worrisome for me because it was my first time diving below the surface. To equalize I tried to swallow, but the air from the tank was very dry and so was my mouth. There was no spit to swallow! I would blow my nose when it built up. I would blow harder and harder. After awhile I got a bloody nose from blowing too hard. I could see the blood in my mask. I wasn't able to concentrate and I started drifting up. Its easy to drift up when you're diving. I started going up and up and felt like a balloon. The instructor came up with me to check that I was okay. I let him know that the pressure was so big in my sinuses. He told me to take it easy and not to rush. He also said that bloody noses were normal from blowing too hard and that lots of newbies get them. He asked if I wanted to try again, and then we went back down.

This time it was easier, I was more relaxed and found a way to equalize my ears as I went down. After a minute I was down on the very bottom with the other divers. All around were different fish and algae and aquatic plants. We started exploring the landscape. It feels like a dream down there. You don't feel like a human anymore. The breathing is easy and you forget that you are a land animal. Many times I started feeling like I was in a video game. It felt like you can do anything and there are no consequences. I was constantly reminding myself that I was 30 feet below the surface in a dangerous spot if I didn't keep my wits about me. There were some dangers from the fish if they were aggravated or provoked. I forgot about the pain earlier, everything felt fine and easy. We practiced some more moves and then our air started getting low so we slowly ascended to the surface.

We took the boat back to the dive center and had a debriefing then adjourned for lunch. The class all had lunch together at a restaurant nearby. The food there was good but both the waitresses were ladyboys. Some of the other people eating at the restaurant were familiar faces so we got to know each other. Eventually I ended up meeting a lot of other tourists. For some reason there were tons of Dutch people on the island. I would guess that about a third of the tourists were Dutch. There was another group of young backpackers and one of the people in his party was always getting sick at the same time everyday. He would sit on the beach under an umbrella with a look of horrible discomfort on his face. The others were talking and apparently he would get sick at the same time every day and then feel better and it was repeating again and again. Their group had just got in from Indonesia and people were starting to suspect that he had malaria. I haven't heard about what happened to him, and I probably won't know, but I hope he made it to a hospital.

There were other people that I met too. A French family that was always ready to play volleyball with us when we got done diving. There were a few hippis that were into Reiki and mystical oriental medicine. There was an Australian guy with long hair that seemed kinda nerdy, I suspected that he probably had every Rush album. One day I saw a dark skinned guy walking by and was told that he pulled a knife on some tourists. Whether or not that's true I have no idea. The island seemed pretty safe though. The tourists were all friendly and it was easy to walk up to somebody and shoot the breeze with them.

That second day we spent most of the afternoon just practicing skills in the shallow water and learning more about diving. Afterwards we played volleyball of course and then had dinner.

The next day we went out diving again. This time we went to another reef called T3. There was a small outcropping off the shore of three rocks. It was such a small area I wouldn't even call it an island. The tops were just above sea-level and the waves would crash into the rocks covering them with sea foam. However underneath there was a world of flora and fauna. I saw a bunch of different fish. Lots of sea cucumbers, urchins, some barracudas, Nemo fish like in the movie, and many other colorful fish that I know not the names of. This was rather fun because there were deep narrow canyons that you could swim in. On either side the walls are covered with plants and beautiful fish. I would glide along and perfect my skills and agility. Alas though, my air started getting low. Jennifer, a Dutch girl in our group was also low on air and we went up first. We waited at the boat while the rest of the group finished up. The diving assistant, named Ollie, told us some tricks about saving air. Air goes quick down there. The lower you are the more pressure there is and the more faster your breath it. If you kick around and move a lot the air will go really quick. One of the tricks is to take slow easy breaths.

After everybody got back up we went back to the dive shop and watched one more video. This time we learned about decompression sickness and how to prevent it. There is a rather complicated chart and system for determining how much nitrogen you have in your system. If you dive repeatedly without resting enough time on the surface, you risk getting a couple of diseases. We practiced using the charts and making sure that we understood how it worked.
That night we again played volleyball and had dinner together. We were kinda becoming diving geeks at this point. I was planning on going back to the mainland the next day and having that as my last night, but the rest of my classmates convinced me to stay another night, so I decided to prolong my departure. That night we had some fun and drank some liquor. But we didn't get too worked up because the next day, our last day of diving classes, we would have a written test on the diving concepts.

The next morning it was kinda hard to get up but I made it to the test and did it pretty easily. There were a few difficult questions about using the dive tables and determing how much nitrogen you had after three dives. However he checked my scores and I only got one wrong, so the dive shop gave me a free t-shirt.

Everyone else did pretty well and the German guy got a perfect score. After that we had one more dive to finish our course. We got our gear ready and took the boat to a reef Batu Nisan. I was starting to get the hang of it. It was still difficult going down to the lower depths, but I was more relaxed and knew what to expect. This dive wasn't as good as the previous dives, but it was still fun. There had been a few showers overnight, so the visibility was less than 5 meters. But either way diving is always fun and I enjoyed every second.

I was now officially a certified diver. I have to send some papers to the PADI office in Australia and after that they will send me a card with my picture on it. In the meantime I have a temporary card and I hope to do some dives in Thailand. I could do other dives with Turtle Bay for a discount, so I decided to hire them one more time before I left the island.
One of the most famous dives in the Perhentians is to a shipwreck. In 2000 a cargo ship carrying sugar sank midway between the islands and the mainland. Its now a popular wreck for divers to explore. So that afternoon I went on another dive to that site.

Joe wasn't able to be my guidemaster, so they had one of the other guides take a couple of us from the class to the dive site. This time it was all business like. I was no longer in training, so it didn't feel like they were there to hold your hand. A couple of other divers from the Netherlands were also on this dive.

We took the boat for a long trip out away from the islands. It was difficult to talk because the engines were loud, so we all just sat in the boat with our wetsuits on as the boat took us into the open sea.

Eventually we pulled up to a buoy floating in the water and tied up to it. We put on our weights, put on our gear and our masks and went into the water. The buoy was tied to a rope that went down to the shipwreck. The ship apparently was really big. It was only about 6 meters from the surface to the wreck. It came up quick out of nowhere as I slowly descended down.

The ship is laying on its side. There are several masts and poles that were on the top and now they're laying broken on the seabed. There are fish and coral all around and the wreck is busy with aquatic life. Its also in the open ocean so there is a lot of current at the surface and still some around the bottom. I had to use more precision as I swam down to it. We followed the line down then went to the side near where the cabin was located. I could see the mast broken to one side and there was a crow's nest at the end. All sorts of string algae and material was wrapped around the mast. We swam underneath the pole and saw schools of brightly colored fish. The ship is covered with barnacles and coral and algae so thick that its hard to tell that it was once a ship. We swam around the ship once, it was long, it just kept going on and on. Here and there were curious looking fish. We could see inside the cargo holds and pieces of wreckage around the floor. The second time we went around the ship we swam into the cargo hold. There were two big doors of the cargo hold so we swam in one of the doors and swam out the other one. Inside it was very dark though. Again I had to remind myself that this was not a video game and that this was real life. I had to be careful not to touch anything. Who knows if something is sharp or will bite you if you bother it.

At last my air was getting low and it was time to go up. We went up very slowly to be safe. At about about 3 meters we stopped and did a safety stop. We waited there about 5 minutes to help our bodies get used to the difference in pressure and to get our blood back to normal. This wasn't strictly necessary but it helps keep things safe. I was not really in danger of getting the bends, but that is one disease I would not like to die from!

That dive was a lot of fun. It was the highlight of my trip up till that point. I didn't have any pictures, but the memories are what's important. That night I stayed one more night with my British friends. It was my last night so of course we had lots of drinks. Trevor, who said he went to Oxford, knew all sorts of crazy drinking and parlor games. The hourse went late in the night as we were played and got drunk. After awhile some of us gave up and headed back to the dorms. It was a pretty long day, I took the test then had two dives. The next day I would go back to the mainland and onto the other side of the penninsula to the colonial city of Penang, Malaysia.

A few notes about the islands. They are about 10-15 miles in circumference each. They are almost entirely thick and deep jungles. There are only a few paths that go in the jungle and there are no buildings or settlments of anykind outside of the beach areas. It is really just a tourist kind of place. Apparently in the winter time the islands are basically deserted and only a few people live there year long.

There is lots of life everywhere on the island. It seems like you can stoop down and look closely at any inch of land and it will be full of life. Insects, ants and mosquitos crawling everywhere. Big, leafy plants and tall palm trees. The ecosystem is vast and well-suited for the tropical weather. I saw a couple of montior lizards. They look kind of like small dinosaurs. There tongue is really long and it seems to find insects in deep holes. They aren't too afraid of humans, one walked right in front of me and could perceive my presence but paid me not mind as it looked for insects. I've heard that they can be really nasty if you get biten by one though. Its not the bite, but their mouths are full of bacteria and if that gets into your wound you have a good chance of getting infected.

There are also geckos everywhere. They kind of look ugly and they seem to get everywhere. At night they will crawl on the ceiling. I've seen them in showers all across Malaysia. They move and slink all around. They would probably be a hated pest, but they are held in high regard by local and traveler alike for no small reason:n they eat mosquitoes. For this they are lifted from mere pest to the noblest creature of the tropics. In the war between humans and mosquitoes we'll take any ally we can get. The mosquitoes are horrible on the Perhentians. My ankles have had quite a few bites and I saw those pests everywhere. Many people wore mosquito nets before sleep. I would spray insect repellant before bed and that would usually do the trick.