The week before GE13, I went over to Pulau Tioman for a dive trip together with Hitomi, Khik and Hash. Well, it’s been about 10 months since I first gotten my OpenWater license.
4 Days 3 Nights Tioman Dive Trip with 7 logs
Dive 1 – Genting House Reef
Dive 2 – Pilot Reef
Dive 3 – Soyak
Dive 4 – Labas Island (caves dive)
Dive 5 – Sawadee Wreck (deep & wreck dive)
Dive 6 – Renggis Island
Dive 7 – Tomok
We took a 6 hours bus ride to Mersing Bus Terminal at night. We took off at 11pm and arrived at the terminal at 4.30am. Needless to say, we were sleepy but wide awake as all our belongings and some of the dive equipment were to look after. We spent the time chatting away and till morning about 7am to have our breakfast beside the Terminal where there’s a food court and morning market. It was a rather lovely morning, carrying our equipment and luggages, the terminal from the jetty was quite a distance!
While waiting for our tickets at the Jetty, Hitomi and myself taking a nap.
Long ques, the ferry was a huge one. With aircond and we get to watch Jackie Chan’s CZ12 movie. The ride took about 1.5hours.
Here’s our room at Island Reef Resort. Decent basic necessity, 2 meals were provided too.
Apparently after talking to the Dive Center, we could get a leisure dive before our actual dive the next day.
Excited, we found a JomBalikUndi banner (perfect in time for GE 13 for the following weekend).
After 1st dive with Hitomi.
Instructor assisting Hitomi for backroll. I’ve certainly enjoyed our trips, the Divemaster and Instructor was really friendly, helpful and assist us in many ways when we were underwater.
Here are some of the corals and marine life we spotted around the different dive sites, in random order. Picture credits to Hash.
Stone Fish
Star fish
Sea urchin, lots of them!
The nudibranch. One of my aim to dive in Tioman. Aren’t they cute?
Sawadee Wreck, 30 meters deep. It was my 2nd wreck dive and 1st deep dive.
Deep diving experience was truly different. Well I was a little dizzy at 30 meter, luckily I was aware after hearing the different deep diving experience the night before during yum cha session. The DM was quick to assist my trouble signal and asked be to ascend to 25 meter and I felt so much better. When we came out from the water, needless to say me & Hitomi was having headache. Well, I’m certainly qualified to take the advance course now with a deep dive in my log.
Sweetlip fish, we also spotted an angel fish at the wreck.
During safety stop. It’s picture time!
Having surface interval after deep dive, there’s nothing much to do so it was group photo time.
We couldn’t wait for lunch, but we’ve got 1 more dive.
Soyak Dive Site
Barracudas
Car wreck, I forgot was it from Tomok dive site.
Blue spotted sting ray, seen in 2 dive sites.
reefs
Nudibranch
Clown Fish aka Nemo
Pit stop at Salang Beach for lunch, while spotted Beer Takeaway.
With Khik my college mate and Hitomi.
Map of all the dive sites in Tioman.
Running underwater on a treadmill at Rengis Island dive site with Hitomi and our DM at the back.
more Nudibranch. So adorable.
Nudibranch in colours. Actually it was about to flew away with the strong current.
The least expected, a glass shrimp. It took me a few minutes looking at the same position and wondering what Khik and Hash were taking photos at.
The view from our resort at the lobby.
Chilling at night.
BBQ dinner provided by our resort was good!
It was a good dive trip, not that great as I’m still figuring out buoyancy control and after releasing a weight, I felt easier to dive. The current was quite strong as well. Especially during Labas for cave diving, I didn’t enjoy as current was so strong.
Another note to take, don’t organize a dive trip during full moon, as current will be stronger than usual.
Kampung Genting, Tioman Island.
Hope to be back, the dive sites are lovely. I may go back this October to take my Advance license as the gang decided to visit again.
Location: Tioman Island (Genting), Malaysia
Getting there, recommended to take a bus instead. It’s cost effective and your not drained from driving. Then take a ferry to reach your selected island. For detail information, about getting there and attraction are available on Pulau Tioman website.
This entire Tioman Dive Trip was planned by Hash and it’s a great pleasure to dive with him as he was very experienced and I’ve learnt more about diving through our late night diving stories sharing session. For more information about island trips, dive trips and dive courses; contact Hash at +6 012 6063 846 or email enquiry@hoteleticket.com.
Wow nice pictures of the undersea!
Friend is pro underwater photographer with lots of equipment for the camera. 🙂