Malaysia

The reefs around Malaysia and the islands of Sipadan and Layang are said to offer some of the best diving in the world. DIVE readers reveal whether they live up to expectations.

Photo: Jason Isley Photo: Jason Isley Photo: Jason Isley Photo: Jason Isley Photo: Jason Isley

The reefs around Malaysia and the islands of Sipadan and Layang Layang are said to offer some of the best diving in the world. DIVE readers reveal whether they live up to expectations. Interviews by Kate Quarry. Photographs by Jason Isley

Travel tips

WHERE TO GO
Malaysia is spread over two separate large areas, Peninsula Malaysia, south of Thailand, and Sabah and Sarawak, parts of the island of Borneo, east of the Peninsula. The diving is concentrated around Malaysia’s countless islands, which are abundant in marine life. Malaysia’s most famous diving destination is Sipadan Island, southeast of Sabah, but other diving areas include Mabul Island (close to Sipadan), Redang and Blue Coral islands (off the Peninsula’s east coast), and Layang Layang (186 miles northeast of Sabah). Liveaboards, including Ocean Rover, MV Celebes Explorer and Dream Voyager, visit smaller, less-dived reefs and islands.

WHEN TO GO
The main diving season is mid-February to mid-December, but as Malaysia is spread over a large area and is subject to two monsoons, it is probably best to discuss the timing of your trip with your chosen tour operator or dive centre. The word monsoon is often associated with heavy rain, but this is not always the case in Malaysia. The Northeast Monsoon does indeed bring periods of heavy rain that particularly affect the eastern coast of Peninsula Malaysia from November to February/March, and some dive centres are closed during this time; this monsoon also affects Layang Layang. The Southwest Monsoon prevails from May to August, generally the driest time of year in Malaysia, with some of the best diving conditions. Mabul and Sipadan are less affected by
periods of heavy rain, although they do experience occasional typhoons, and are diveable all year round.

WHAT TO WEAR
To avoid getting stung, as jellyfish are not unusual, a full 3mm or 5mm suit is best. If you don’t ever get chilly on dives a Lycra stinger suit will be enough.

WHAT TO LOOK OUT FOR
Malaysian waters are famous for the variety of marine life to be found there. Sipadan’s green and hawksbill turtle populations reach their height from April to September, dolphins and pilot whales may be spotted around the Perhentians in July and August, hammerheads near Layang Layang from March to July, and whale sharks can be seen around Borneo from January to March. Otherwise, look out for a great variety of nudibranchs and other fascinating little things such as frogfish and ghost pipefish. On the larger side are bamboo and leopard sharks, white-tip, black-tip and grey reef sharks, schooling tuna, barracuda and trevallies, and manta rays.

WATER AND AIR TEMPERATURES
Daytime air temperatures are constant all year round at approximately 32°C. The water temperature is usually in the high 20s, and rarely drops below 25°C.



Totally turtle - Paula Kingdom

Paula Kingdon, 39, a strategy director for Barclays Private Bank, lives in the village of Waltham St Lawrence in Berkshire with her husband, Hugh. She qualified as a diver on her trip to Malaysia in 2002, but managed to fit in 11 introductory dives before that, in Mauritius, Antigua and Australia. In Malaysia she spent four days diving Kota Kinabalu and five days diving Sipadan on a trip organised by Regaldive, followed by two weeks travelling in Sabah with a
group from Explorers Tours.

I found Regaldive on the Internet, and booked with them because they are good at making arrangements that are not standard – some companies won’t book anything that’s different from their usual itineraries.

The night my flight landed in Kota Kinabalu (KK) there was an enormous storm, which caused a lot of damage. With the rough water and the run-off from the main river pouring into the bay, the visibility was zero, so the diving was terrible. I had done the pool and classroom work for my open-water course with Berkshire Dive Crew, and had gone to KK to complete the open-water dives with Borneo Divers. As my time was limited and I had done some introductory dives elsewhere, they let me complete the course, despite the conditions. It certainly made the navigation part interesting, and most of the time I had to hang on to the instructor, otherwise we would have lost each other. Right at the end of my trip I ended up in KK again. I did some snorkelling there and it was clear that the coral and other marine life wasn’t as good as in Sipadan.

After getting my qualification I moved on to Sipadan, which had also been affected by bad weather – a typhoon had moved through the Philippines and had generally affected the whole of that part of Asia. As a result of the weather the visibility was around 9 or 10m, not what most people expect in Sipadan. Again, I was diving with Borneo Divers, who were very good and completely reliable. Most of the dives were drifts, with gentle currents, although there was one, at
Barracuda Point, with such a strong current that we were clinging on to the reef.

In my five days I did 14 dives – there are three boat dives a day. The whole operation was quite slick, with groups going off every 15 minutes – and unlimited shore dives. Borneo Divers has the best location of all the dive schools, as it’s only 3 or 4m from the dive centre to the ocean. Only 3m from the beach the wall drops down 600m, which was brilliant for night dives. Although we didn’t see vast amounts on night dives, it was pretty and interesting, with bumphead parrotfish sleeping, lionfish and turtles. One thing really sticks out about Sipadan, and that’s the number of turtles: there were 30 or 40 of them on every dive, huge things, 2m-long, and because I’d never seen one before I was really keen to see them. After about four days you almost wish they’d get out of the way a bit so you could see the other stuff.

At Barracuda Point there were barracuda, but not huge spirals of them – the site is dived so much that they school further out. The key sites do get busy, and the sight of clumps of divers coming from every direction was quite off-putting. Although there weren’t large numbers of barracuda, we did see schooling trevallies, and on most dives there were small white-tips. The small things were very good – lots of morays, triggerfish, and I loved the longnose hawkfish hiding in pink fan coral. One site, the Hanging Gardens, had huge fans which were beautiful.

On the whole the dives were quite deep, and most started at 30–35m. I couldn’t see the point, as there was nothing different to see down there, except on one dive when we dived deep in an attempt to find hammerheads – the visibility wasn’t good, so all we saw was a tailfin. The best diving was between 12 and 18m, where you could see much more aquatic life, as well as getting a sense of the drop-off, which was impressive. As the water is warm I’d only taken a shortie and on the odd occasion I got quite cold. I also got very badly stung by jellyfish on one dive and my arm swelled up like a balloon, so I’d advise people to wear full-length suits.

The accommodation is basic but has a certain charm, and there was food constantly available. Since the kidnapping [in April 2000 21 tourists and staff were kidnapped and held for 20 weeks by Muslim extremists] divers are advised not to walk at night, and police patrol the island. After the diving part of the holiday was over, I joined an Explorers Tours group to travel Sabah. I climbed Mount Kinabalu, and spent some time at Selingaan Island watching the turtles, and at Sepilok Orang-utan Rehabilitation Centre. Altogether it was a brilliant trip.


Working holiday - Jim Iddon

Jim Iddon, 23, lives in Preston, Lancashire and until recently was working as a labourer. He learned to dive in Thailand and, following some months travelling, spent four months with Coral Sky Divers on Perhentian Kecil, off the eastern coast of Peninsula Malaysia.

After spending seven months in Spain I travelled to Thailand, then Malaysia and on to Coral Sky Divers, where I worked in the kitchen for two months to pay for my diving courses. While I was working in the kitchen I did my medic first aid and rescue courses. The dive centre doesn’t have accommodation for the staff, so I stayed at Mata Hari Chalets, which, along with Panorama Chalets, is one of the two most popular places for travellers to stay. Unlike the other accommodation, they are wooden rather than palm-leaf huts.

There are three beaches on Perhentian Kecil. Coral Sky is on Long Beach, which is about 900m long and has six dive operators. In total, the island has 12 dive centres. Around Perhentian Kecil there are 21 dive sites, and more at Redang, but that’s a bit of a boat ride away. On most dives the visibility is around 10–15m, but it varies, and the best I’ve seen is 35m. My favourite dive site is Temple of the Sea, which is essentially a pinnacle, with the deepest part at 24m.

There are big pufferfish and lots of trevallies, and it’s a feeding point for whale sharks. Like Temple of the Sea, Twin Rocks is a morning watching the footage afterwards. There are also two wrecks, which are both popular. The Petani is a Japanese landing craft that has been down there for 18 years – it’s covered in coral. Several giant barracuda live there and there are a few angry triggerfish, which seem to enjoy biting people’s fins. The Sugar Wreck is more popular as it’s much larger – about 100m long. You can go inside it and look at the cabins and toilets. In places, it’s very tight and dark, and it’s hard not to kick up the silt, so you need to carry torches.

Mystery Reef is another of my favourites, and quite deep at 36m. There are large schools of trevally, lots of barracuda and big groups of lionfish and scorpionfish. Generally you see a lot of small bamboo sharks, and while I was there someone spotted a 3m-long leopard [variegated] shark. I’ve also snorkelled with dolphins. Around the Perhentian Islands the reefs are getting a bit battered, as divers do touch and even stand on the coral, but the diving is still nice. Some sites are quite crowded, but Coral Sky aims to get there before the other groups, so you still see lots of marine life. Turtles are bred on Perhentian Besar, so there are a lot of them – sadly, boats hit them quite often.

The reason I left the Perhentians was that I was running low on money, so I came back to England in early September. It was nice to get back to ‘civilisation’ and I had as many hot baths and showers as I could! This year I’m going back to Coral Sky to work as a dive guide for the new season.



Dolphin escort - Estelle Zauner

Estelle Zauner, 31, is originally from Albury, Australia, but now lives in Durham and works as a chiropractor. Estelle learned to dive in 2000 with Deep Blue Dive Centre in Tynemouth, where she’s now an instructor. In August 2002 Estelle spent nearly three weeks in Malaysia before visiting her family in Australia. Her trip included diving the east coast of Peninsula Malaysia on the liveaboard Ocean Rover and a few days’ diving at Layang Layang.

When I was planning my trip to Malaysia I contacted my friends at Fantasea Diving in Phuket, Thailand and used the Internet to find Scubasnacks – I liked the name. Gregory at Fantasea, and Paul at Scubasnacks pulled together a comprehensive itinerary and I arranged my own flights through Singapore Airlines. I flew business class because I’m 185cm tall, and I wanted to be comfortable on the long-haul flights.

I first met the owners and crew of Fantasea when I won the Singapore Airlines competition at the London International Dive Show 2002 – the prize was a two-week cruise on the Ocean Rover, a luxury liveaboard. The boat’s new adventure cruise, which was part of my Malaysian trip, started in Koh Samui, Thailand and continued down the eastern coast of Malaysia to Singapore. The plan after that – on the part of the trip organised by Scubasnacks – was to spend a few days at Layang Layang Island Resort, then travel to Kota Kinabalu before heading down to Sipadan and Mabul on the Celebes Explorer liveaboard. On the first day of the trip, the boat left Koh Samui for Koh Kra. There was an easy-going atmosphere on the boat, which was comfortable with plenty of room. The crew were attentive without being intrusive, and the food was absolutely fabulous.

On the Thai part of the trip we snorkelled with 14 black-tip reef sharks, and spotted bamboo, white-tip reef and grey reef sharks. We also had three dives with whale sharks at Koh Losin. We then headed for the Malaysian Perhentian Islands. The first dive we did there, Susu Dara, is a popular dive site with the local operators. The visibility was variable, and we encountered three different thermoclines on one dive. The deeper rocky areas seemed to be good sleeping holes for juvenile bamboo sharks, and the shallower areas were alive with cup corals, soft corals and smaller critters. We counted four different types of anemonefish in a small area, and nudibranchs were easy to spot on the reef.

After one day at the Perhentians we went to Terengganu and Pulau Redang, and the boat was accompanied by dolphins as we entered the marine park. It’s a spectacularly beautiful area. We spent five dives over two days at Turtle Bay on Redang. The bottom of the reef lies at 28–30m, and is a haven for rays. Between the rocky outcrops were soft corals and a huge variety of reef fish. Macro opportunities included juvenile filefish, mating Chromodoris coi nudibranchs – and did I mention the whale shark for those with the wrong camera lens? At nearby Pulau Ekor Tibu we saw spotted eagle rays, blue-spotted fantail rays, a large mangrove whip ray and a hawksbill turtle. At Pulau Tenggol a site called Tokong Kamudi proved to be a bit special too – at 31m we came across some black coral so huge it looked like a tree. There were numerous species of nudibranchs, and excellent visibility, although there was a marked absence of schooling fish – there were a lot of fishing boats in the local area.

On Pulau Tioman we did a 7km walk across the island, during which I discovered how the rainforest gets its name – the heavens opened and there was new meaning to ‘wet T-shirt competitions’. It was still an enjoyable walk, and the views were spectacular. Our reward was a dive on the rocky reef at Tiger Rocks. We saw an impressive marble ray and the photographers all got very excited about an emperor shrimp hitching a ride on a sea cucumber – they all had the right lenses.

The Ocean Rover part of my trip came to an end, so I spent a few days doing the tourist trail in Singapore before moving on to Layang Layang. The island itself is about 1km square and consists of a naval base, the resort, and a runway that doubles as jogging track between flights. A coral atoll about 7km long and 2km wide surrounds it. The resort is relaxed and friendly, and the staff know the sites and the resident critters well. The dive sites were all superb, and although it was end of the season there was still the odd hammerhead shark cruising about. We saw turtles on most dives, and I was starting to feel a little blasé about seeing white-tip reef sharks. A school of juvenile grey reef sharks showed up from time to time, and each dive brought a feeling of awe. The water clarity and colour, the size, abundance and variety of fish life and the scale of the reef walls and drop-offs were all difficult to comprehend. ‘Wow!’ is the most adequate way to sum up the experience.

After Layang Layang I visited Kinabalu National Park and did a day’s white-water rafting, but before joining the MV Celebes Explorer I developed some ear problems, so decided to shorten my holiday. My dream to visit Sipadan and Mabul will have to be kept for another trip.