Redang: Scuba Diving & Snorkeling

To sum up Redang: sand, snorkeling, and scuba. OD made good use of his underwater camera rental -- be sure to check out the slideshows, as well as the videos embedded in the post. Here is a preview:

After earning my scuba certification in Tioman, I was eager to get more experience before the fear started to creep back in. And as training wasn't such a relaxing weekend, we could use another beach vacation. Redang in Northeast Malaysia seemed a good choice, with positive reviews for scuba diving and snorkeling. Plus, it is accessible via a 1+ hour flight (Berjaya Air) from Singapore at a reasonable price. From the island's tiny airport terminal, it was just a short car ride to the ferry terminal and an even shorter speedboat ride to the resort.


The majority of the resorts are along the same strip of beach with nice soft white sand (and no sandflies!). We were pleased to see people actually snorkeling off the beach, but I was skeptical -- perhaps they were just swimming among rocks as we were in Tioman.  But we got into the water anyway, and lo and behold, there was actually a lot of fish! Colorful fish too and even patches of coral. And the water was extremely warm and very clear. We went back later on Sunday with an underwater camera and swam completely around the outcropping.


Saturday we woke up early to watch the sunrise and then had a leisurely morning.  We were advised to skip the morning snorkeling trip, as that is when the masses from the various resorts all descend on the same spot. We watched the long line of snorkelers in orange lifevests march onto the boats (see first slideshow). In the afternoon, we joined a much less-crowded outing and snorkeled from the boat among plentiful coral. Sunday afternoon, finished with our diving (see report below), we took a second boat trip out for snorkeling and underwater photography (best of the bunch I think).  Just having learned that what I was referring to as the "ancient-looking" fish were actually vicious trigger fish, I was quite alarmed though by the trigger fish monitoring us from the edge of the reef.  We swam to the other side, but there was one there too! I was much less concerned by the shark in the near distance.



We also took two dive trips on Sunday morning, both just short boat rides from the resort, which I appreciated (though I am getting over my seasickness). I initially was worried about having to put on my tank and equipment at the dive center and walk with it across the beach, into the water, and onto the boat, but I actually managed quite well (perhaps those core exercises are starting to pay off). OD had helped me put my equipment together, so I was also less flustered to start with. Unlike training, I no longer had the stress of demonstrating my emergency skills, though I probably should have practiced some more. Once you get used to it, scuba diving can actually be pretty easy and relaxing, even meditative. You just swim slowly along, taking deep breaths in and out, happily looking at whatever presents itself. The first dive we spotted a yellow blue-spotted stingray and a very large jellyfish (unfortunately, we didn't have the underwater camera yet). Luckily, the next dive we got great footage of the greenbill hawk turtle, who we followed quite closely for a while (see video at end of post).


All in all, we enjoyed ourselves; the only blight on the trip was a hard rock concert (terribly loud and just terrible) at the resort next door that began on Saturday afternoon, picked up again on Sunday, and went on past midnight. Unable to sleep, I started to lose it and OD (my champion) went to complain to management (a story for the review sites). So unfortunately, instead of returning refreshed as planned, we went back to work quite tired. We still might consider another trip to Redang in the future, but next time we will be sure to get a guarantee against excessive noise! Underwater though, the noise is mostly just bubbles.