Snorkelling in the Perhentians

Snorkelling in the Perhentians

Pulau Perhentian Kecil, Malaysia, Asia

I have had an absolutely incredible day today. A group of us met for breakfast at Amelia’s on Coral Beach and we paid for our snorkeling trip through them. Since we had eight people we got our own boat for the day, so that was pretty cool. Not surprisingly the gear that we were given from the company was all pretty poor, but I shouldn’t have expected much more for a trip that cost $11 for the day, including breakfast. After we all got masks, snorkels and fins, most of which were broken or the wrong size, we headed out to Turtle Point. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find an underwater case for my camera yet, so I couldn’t take any pictures today 🙁

We had heard that turtles are kind of hit-and-miss here, but we got really lucky. As soon as we got in the water we spotted one and followed it around for a while. They don’t seem too bothered about anything, so it was cool just to see it swimming around at the bottom. The only bad thing about this place is that all the snorkel trips go to the same places so there were about ten boats and probably fifty people trying to find the same turtles. A few of us spotted another one and followed that around for a while until we spotted a baby turtle that we followed for a bit. That was the end of our trip to Turtle Point, but it was a raving success.

We moved on from there to Shark Point where we found some black tipped reef sharks. When we pulled up to Shark Point, we were right next to another boat and I heard that driver say if you want to see sharks, go off to the right. We all jumped in but for some reason Ana and I were the only ones to go right. We saw a shark straight away that was probably five feet long. We ended up seeing two others all in the same area and a lot of the others on the boat didn’t see any. They were all very docile and just swimming along the bottom at a very slow pace. I don’t think black tips have ever been known to attack humans, but they are still pretty awesome to look at!

We went for lunch at a small fishing village on Pulau Besar (the big island) and had more noodles and rice. After lunch we made a few more stops to see some brightly colored fish, nice coral, barracuda and a beautiful beach. By the last stop (at Romantic Beach), most of us were snorkeled out, so we just sat on the beach. Actually I sat in the water hanging onto the boat trying to stay in the little bit of shade it created. It didn’t matter. Turns out I had already gotten a ridiculous sunburn even though I put on factor 30+ three times today! Thanks for my Scottish skin Mom!

We got back and got cleaned up to go out to dinner. I went out with a group of people from Ana’s dorm, so it was Ana, Ro, Joe and Jason. We picked a nice little table out on the beach and ordered our meals and immediately I felt a raindrop. I mentioned it without really thinking anything about it, but as soon as I said it Ro and Joe jumped out of their chairs and ran inside to try to get a table under cover. Everyone did the same thing so while we missed out on a table, we were able to blockade an area where we could bring our table in to. It’s a good thing we moved quickly because the sky just opened up and instantly everyone was soaking wet. It seriously looked like everyone just stood under a shower for about 20 minutes. This went on for about 45 minutes, but since we had gotten inside, we were still able to eat. The service was expectedly slow because all the table numbers had been jumbled up and some people who had ordered now didn’t have tables. I give those servers credit for getting food to anyone!

After dinner Ro and Joe headed back to the hostel, but Ana, Jason and I decided to stay out for a few drinks. Ana and I have had to keep a ridiculously strict budget for the last few days because no one will take a credit card and we can’t get any more cash out on the island. We worked out how much we were going to need to get back to Kota Bharu tomorrow and realized that after dinner we had about 25RM left. It turns out that was enough to buy us a bottle of cheap island rum and a couple of 7-Ups. We grabbed our drinks at Black Tips Bar and found a little table on the beach. Each table had little bamboo mats that you could roll out and sit on. It was very cool. There were loads of people just chilling on the beach (now that the rain stopped) and some were dancing up in front of the bar. There were even a few fire twirlers (if that’s what they’re called), so that was pretty cool. We ended up hanging out here till about 1:30am and then headed back to the dorm. It’s our last night on the island, which is good because we are out of cash, but bad because it is so awesome here. Oh well, there’s other stuff to see!

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