Friday, September 20, 2013

PEERS Merdeka Raya Dive, Pulau Tioman

PEERS Merdeka Raya Dive, 30/08 - 1/9/13

The second trip I joined with PEERS which is also only my second dive trip. There is supposed to be a clean up dive and also beach clean up on the last day of the trip, but Tioman is so clean (at least at the place we stayed / dived) we could find any trash. Which is a good sign. Keep it up Tioman folks / visitors to Tioman!

We stayed at the Genting Bayu chalet at Kampung Genting, the first stop from Tanjong Gemok jetty near Endau. Tioman Island is under the jurisdiction of the state of Pahang. We arrived at the jetty early in the morning at 5am after departing from KLCC around 11.30pm via trunk road. Our bus exited from the Plus highway near Senawang, took the Lekas highway and entered the trunk road from Seremban. We cut through parts of Negeri Sembilan via Kuala Kawang and Bandar Baru Serting before making our way to Pahang via Bandar Tun Abdul Razak (passing through Felda Keratong, which I've heard some eerie stories, luckily the bus driver is tough), then to Muadzam Shah before finally reaching the jetty at Endau which is at the border between Pahang and Johor. We ate some buns for breakfast, courtesy of PEERS before boarding the ferry at 7.30am

We arrived at Kg Genting, Tioman Island at about 9.30am and had some drinks at the stalls before walking to our chalet for about 10 mins. Our chalet has basic facilities- bedroom with attached bathroom, towels, soap, air cond and hot water - although there's no pump, so we ended up bathing with cold water as we couldn;t afford to wait for the hot water - too slow. Anyway, we are going for dive trips, so the room would just be a resting point, so it is all fine. Food is tasty too, with fresh seafood caught from the sea. However, the service is quite slow - the hungry divers are kept waiting most of the time. This can be improved hopefully, especially during peak season as there are many visitors.

For us leisure divers, we started our first dive in the afternoon. Here are the details of our dive locations:
1. Soyak (15.7m) - turtle, stingray, angel fish
2. Kerdau ( 9.4m) -  banana nudibranch, stingray, razor fish, puffer fish
3. Bahara (14.9 m) - near to lighthouse, and a cool island with swallows
4. Renggis (14.9m) - Barracuda, artificial reef made from children's playground climbing pole
5. Bayu house reef (13.7 m) - Shore, clean up dive. Flag and PEERS banner picture taking and Telekung project artificial reef

It rained on the last day, but we carried on with the dive.

We wrapped things up by 2.00pm for the ferry back to Tanjung Gemokbefore making our way back to KLCC, not before stopping for tiger prawn dinner (delicious, no allergy) at next to Gerai Syuhada stall at an R&R near Kampung Leban Condong, Kuala Rompin. We arrived KLCC at midnight, and braved our way back home (luckily I parked my car at Sarah's)

Enjoy the pix courtesy of Harni's excellent underwater geared camera! And Elsie's too (although the camera bade farewell by the end of the trip)

stingray


turtle

healthy corals

artificial reef

PEERS!

jellyfish

puffer

squid


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