Tioman Island @ East Divers Tioman

8th - 11th July 2011

My 1st trip to Tioman Island. We started our journey pretty late with all of us coming from work and different directions. It seemed like a pretty long drive to Hotel Seri Malaysia. Lots of dark winding road towards our accommodation for the night. Soo, Sam, Theng Theng and myself was to meet Adam nearby our Seri Malaysia. It was then that we realized our car trunk was broken into during our dinner near my house. It was definitely heart breaking to find out 2 bags were taken. We went to 2 different police station and stayed up to 4am to make the reports.

Day 1
2 dives
The next morning, we went back to the station to collect the report and thank God we managed to get Sam's contact lenses. We took our ferry from Tanjung Gemuk. The ride wasn't the most enjoyable thing. It was 2 hours and the ferry was packed full. Plus, the ferry stopped at multiple jetty on the island! We reached Tekek Jetty and our "taxi" took us on a 5mins ride to East Divers Tioman. There, we met our divemaster for the next few days - Keat. Considering the amount of sleep we had, we managed 2 dives on the 1st day. Glad that the incident didn't spoil it all.

Photo by Sly & Soo

Day 2
3 dives + 1 night dive
I had my 1st photo with a green turtle! I also buddied with Chris, a swiss guy who usually dives in lakes. One of the things we didn't do during my 1st night dive was experiencing the glowing plankton. Glad we saw it this time.

Photo by Sly

Day 3
2 dives
We did the right thing to extend our trip by another day. It was just another 2 more dives but a lot more relaxing and less rush. We took the challenge at a more demanding, less visited site where the surface waves were stronger but the sight was just beeaaautiful.

Day 4
As usual, the packing and saying goodbye is hard. Don't know when is the next time I'll see the underwater world. We went for a predinner then dinner then suddenly something adventurous came to mind - supper Beef Bah Kut Teh in Malacca. The supposingly 30mins drive ended up more than 3 hours. :-p Yup, we were adventurous.

It was a great trip where we met new friends like Hendrix, Sly, Claris, May, Steve and Cindy. Tioman is a huge island. Probably many more sites to explore next time. :)