Day 2: Pulau Perhentian

On our second day diving at Perhentian Islands, we did two dives again, but this time with Arwana Perhentian Dive Centre.

Initially we were booked with Alu Alu Divers. The morning began with dark clouds and white caps in the sea. We delayed our 0900 start till 1000 and pushed off then. After collecting extra dive tanks from a nearby resort (because power at our place was interrupted last night interrupting refilling), the boat wouldn’t restart. It made some piston noises. The dive was cancelled.

We hunted around to see who else could take us. The Arwana Perhentian Dive Centre had two afternoon trips.

• The first dive was at Terumbu Tiga (also called T3 or Tiger Rock). This was a rocky outcrop which underwater had many swim throughs and canyon-like passages. I liked swimming through the narrow “canyons” and seeing things on the wall. The gaps and holes which we swam through were cool too as it was good practice for buoyancy control. While we saw blue spotted ribbon tail ray and porcupine fish. Despite not being overladen with sea life, the site was very interesting.
• The second dive was at D’Lagoon off Perhentian Kecil. Hopping into the water, it felt like an aquarium with lots of small fish. Visibility was good (by most people’s standard) at 10m but I thought it was average. We spent a lot of time going through the most beautiful coral garden I’ve ever seen. We hovered over the coral then negotiated our way between the narrow parts that we could. As it was a shallow dive, our dive master happily continued the dive to a total of 77 minutes. I saw porcupine fish, a blue spotted ribbon tail ray, Jenkins ray, yellow tail barracudas (not big), file fish, potato grouper and cleaner shrimps in addition to the usual parrot and clown fishes.

I thought the dive master at Arwana was a lot more vigilant and I felt more comfortable. He also took time to point out marine life that is of interest. It is a blessing in disguise that our Alu Alu dive boat broke down, forcing us to change dive operators.