I recently spent a long weekend diving in Tioman Island living onboard Kaleebso, a purposed built dive boat. Boat captain Loh Khay Lee, his wife Mary and the boat crews hosted us for the weekend. At first, I was very skeptic about living onboard a boat as I have never done it before. Fearing seasickness, the floating sensation while sleeping at night, the weather and many others various reasons stopped me before I took the courage to go ahead with the plan. I called my brother-in-law, also having the same fears as me but was too excited to care much. We signed up, paid the deposit and the next thing, we were on board Kaleebso. I am not a good writer, but will try my best and hope this is entertaining enough. See below the trip report.
Day 1
7.00pm. 7 of us (4 British teachers from Garden International School, Jeff the diving instructor, my brother-in-law and me) left Petaling Jaya using the north-south highway, exiting Senawang, afterwhich heading towards Kuala Pilah, follow by Bahau, Muadzam Shah and finally Kuala Rompin. It’s a 3 ½ to 4 ½ hours drive there depending on traffic conditions. As the boarding time is at 11:30pm, we were driving as fast as we could whenever the road was clear, fearing that we may missed the boat if we were late. We reached there at about 11:25pm. Gosh, just in time. We were so excited and just could not wait to go on board. At the jetty, no one was around, and no sign of the Kaleebso, but we were early by 5 minutes. Unless it is like boarding airplane, and need to check in at least 1 hour before flight, we are early. Where were the people? Where was the boat? We quickly called the boat captain, Khay Lee and were informed that we were the first to arrive. He has to bring the boat out as it was low tide. He asked us to wait as the other groups from Singapore have yet to arrive. He will send in smaller boat to pick all of us when the Singaporean group arrived.
Here the drama begin – The Bad
All this while, I don’t really like Singaporean much (just general feeling, not targeting any individual, I have many Singaporean friends which I like) as they are arrogant, cocky, one of a kind attitude problem and always thinking that they are more superior beings. Well, when exchanging words with the rest, actually not only I, even the rest, the 4 British teachers, Jeff and my brother-in-law also do not like Singaporean either (again, general feeling). Couple to that, they were late, extremely late. We were at the jetty waiting for them for almost 3 hours. They arrived at 2:30am in the morning. Yet, did not even apologize (not too sure if they did) and more so, wanted to choose the room of their choice saying they have pre-decided earlier on. (Normally first come first serve basis). We were so tired, some pissed and some angry, of course we were not going to agree and give them the priority to choose their room. One of the British, were so pissed that she lashed out at them and said “In England, the boat would have sailed exactly at 11:30pm, we are not going to negotiate, we pick the room and that is final. I don’t care if you have pre-decided”. The rest was history.
Day 2 – The Gorgeous
Heading to our first dive site: Berhala Japanese Gun Boat (WWII gun boat). It was fantastic! The gun boat was clearly visible from the surface and wow lots of schooling fish swimming very close to surface immediately greeted us. I descended slowly and equalized very often to safeguard my ear. Below us, an abundance of soft corals and (gasp!) a couple of jellyfish sway in the mild current.
When we reached 22.6 meters, it was apparent that the site was a superb choice for a morning dive. The visibility was good, about 30m. Several Napoleon wrasses cruise past, and a huge school of yellowtail barracudas formed a cloud above us. A lone porcupine puffer sensed our presence and scurried away, but then came back a few minutes later.
I swam close to the gun boat ascending slightly to the gun turret, it is still fully attach and I went to the gun handle, pretending to shoot my fellow divers who were still swimming towards the boat. I was laughing and giggling just like children playing combat battle games.
There were plenty of interesting things to look at in this site: nudibranchs of various vibrant colours, clownfish, emperor angelfish, a couple of big fish, some small and transparent cleaner shrimps, bannerfish, and batfish.
Our second dive site: Berhala cargo wreck.
A nice, equally deep like the first. We descended to 21.6 meters. Again, lots of yellowtail barracudas and nudibranchs. There were also the mandatory porcupine puffers, completely uninterested and swimming about minding their own business. Saw a gigantic sting ray.
Our third dive site: Kapal Timur
We were lost while descending as the visibility was very poor at about 2-5 meters and couple with strong current. We were told to descend using the buoy line, but our gung-ho instructor decided to go for free descend. True enough, we searched for almost 18 minutes, yet still could not find the wreck, finally abort dive without safety stop.
After surfaced, not giving up, we changed our tank and went into the water again. This time, after the bad experience, we descended using the buoy line. We never regretted it. Even with the poor visibility, we saw a couple of nurse shark, plenty of schooling fish and big schooling trevally.
Day 3 – Experience of a life time - The good
Our fifth dive site: Tiger reef
One of Tioman’s famous submerged reef. Usually with mild current, but today, the current is stronger than usual. A wide variety of soft and hard corals were found here with countless colorful fishes and pelagic fishes. Nepoleon fish, golden snappers, eagle rays, and many baby eels came along as we swam in this wonderful reef. Plenty of nudibranches of various varieties (my favorite marine life). Really live up to its reputation. After almost 35 minutes in water, I finally low on air due to the hard work needing to fight the current some time. I was signaling to the DM to plan for safety stop. I was following him weaving through the water looking for the buoy line, but all of a sudden, I was caught by a really strong current, and got swept away. I was so panic, trying to swim away and to grab hold of anything along the path, but to no avail. The current was just too strong. I was following the current, just like the movie Finding Nemo (if you watched the movie), except that I was not heading to Sydney. After struggling for a while, I finally got hold of the rock, I was holding it so tight that I got cut all over my palm. After resting for some time (don’t even know for how long), I managed to locate the buoy line swam with all my remaining strength towards the buoy line still fighting the current, did my safety stop and ascended safely. I was left with 10 BAR of air in my tank after this episode. Truly, it was experience of a life time.
Our sixth and seventh dives: Labas and Chebeh
Nothing much here except many swim through and saw a real gigantic lion fish.
Our eighth dive: Malang Rock (night dive)
As it was my first time, I was a little scare. Not that I am afraid of the dark, but pitch dark in the middle of the ocean. Not something that I would want to imagine. Saw plenty of shrimps, crabs, worm like sea cucumber, squid, loads of crown of thorn and sea snake. Night dive was special, as I shined my torch towards the corals, the shrimps and crabs eyes reflected the light. As the formations of the corals are layered, you could see row of light coming out of the corals row by row on top of each other, just like a multistory apartment in our city with the light coming out of apartment units floor by floor. Truly fascinating.
Day four – final day
Ninth dive at Renggis Island. The concentration of marine life is simply astounding. Jacks, tuna, pompanos, and mackerels are just some of the schooling fish. Yellowtails, giant groupers, cuttlefish, turtles, moray eels, blacktip sharks and barracudas are present as well. A wonderful dive site.
Indeed, all glory to God our creator. Creation at its best.
