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Turtles and Diving on Tropical Paradise
Entry 12 of 12 | show all | print this entry |
After bumming around in KL for five days i headed back to number 8 to meet my new group. It was a bit strange watching people arrive, as i had done last month. I also had to sit through the same welcome dinner with exactly the same food. I also got to see Aida again who looked after us in Taiping and gave me a birthday present! I also met some more old friends, Max and Sandra from the jungle. They had a few days in KL before heading to Thailand. They had stayed at Kuching for a while longer and on their flight to KL they where sitting behind the elders of the bloody longhouse. It was there first time ever on a plane and they were going to meet some relatives for the first time in KL!
So at the welcome dinner i met the group for this month. They didn't seem too bad. There was 9 of us in total 4 girls at 19, me and Richard at 19 and then G (26), Tanya (30) and Rachel (35). The next day in the morning we got a flight to Khota Bharu arriving in the capital of the most strict state in Malaysia, i.e. heavy alcohol prices and strong muslim influence. In the airport i got talking to a business man who told me i could go to any market in Khota Bharu and i would find turtle eggs for sale! We landed in clear sky and sunshine to get onto a big taxi which took us to the ferry port. The views on the way where full of little towns with colourful wooden houses merging peacefully with the surrounding rainforest. Lush green and clear blue sky, with reds and oranges of the houses. As we got nearer to the sea big palm trees grew in numbers to attack the sky.
At the ferry town we dropped are bags and had some time before the water taxi (a boat) arrived, i bought a waterproof disposable and sun cream. We also met Dan who was from Portsmouth and had done a masters in Marine Science. He was working for Way Out, specifically the big turtle project and is managing two turtle projects in Malaysia. Lucky for us he was going to spend 3 weeks with us to see what the project was like for the volunteer. He is really down to earth and apart from all his detailed knowledge on turtles we all saw him as one of us instead of an inspector.
The perhentian islands are made of two islands one big (besar) and one small (kecil). We chucked are bags in the water taxi and were told to sit at the back of the boat. The engine roared and we were thrown up and down as the boat vertically hit waves. It was a rough ride and when we hopped past kecil and arrived at our beach on Perhentian Besar everyones hair stayed thrown back. From first site, the beach looked beautiful but i couldn't see any dive shop, restaurant or accommodation. In fact there weren't any people. As soon as i noticed this, a short chinaman ran onto the beach towards us followed by a guy from england. As they helped us get our things off the boat an english couple helped carry are stuff. What country am i on? I hadn't seen a beach like this before. The sea was clear lush blue and the beach had fine creamy sand, palm trees and washed up coconuts. I was on a tropical island!
We had some food and given keys to our sleeping quarters for the rest of the month. I won rock paper scissors and got a room to myself. We were led pass a few rows of pretty beach huts with balconies and then onto small shed sized huts. Our keys opened pad locks and i dropped my stuff off in the hut which had a bunk bed and a dingy toilet and shower at the back. At least i had it to myself and could keep my stuff on the top bunk. I didn't exactly have the room to myself. Most nights i shared with geckos and had some special visits from a huge cockroach, millipede and spider. Behind my my hut was jungle where we saw are fair share of curious monkeys and massive monitor lizards. We were given a tour around the resort which is called Bubbles. On one end of the beach is a freshwater stream and nearest to this is a dive shop where i would be doing my scuba course and is kept going by four english instructors and two chinese malay. Then in the middle of the beach is the restaurant which is raised from the sand. On the far side is the beach huts where the guests, workers and volunteers stay and a volley ball pitch. Bubbles is completely inaccessible apart from boat as it is surrounded in jungle. The resort is made on sand so sand gets everywhere. I swear its permanently imbedded in my scalp.
Bubbles is run by a couple called Peisee (Pacey) and Ronnie that originally just rented the dive shop but then extended to the huts and restaurant. All these buildings are hidden by a row of tropical trees and shrubs which cleverly makes the beach look isolated. It only takes 5 minutes to walk from one side to the other but because theirs only us and the guests the beach really begins to feel like yours. For most of the 4 weeks we've only had 10 people at once so the beach has always been a haven and great place to chillax. Bubbles is kept going by a group of migrant workers from nepal, bangladesh and then some local from the islands. They work everyday and get way under 1000 ringgit a month. The locals drive the boats out to the dive sites and cook while the migrants do oddjobs and cleaning. Bubbles is controlled by the Chinese Malay which make up the majority, including our facilitator Dencoln. He's new to bubbles, a nice guy but can be quite annoying. Because of this he gets picked on a lil bit by the workers, e.g. PADI (please assassinate denkon immediately)! After dinner denkon told us that a turtle laid last night and that there would be a lot more this month. I was told they saw no turtles last month and this raised my hopes of it being a good project.
For the first week we were going to be learning to SCUBA dive! I went on this project to dive and see turtles so was a eager to start the course. The next day we were told about the turtles and went snorkeling on the beach which was awesome. I've never snorkeled further than spain so when i was swimming in the clear blue sea with coral and all these tropical fish i was amazed and soon became known as gillyweed boy for the hours of time i spent in the sea. We saw giant clams that u could put your finger near and they would close, nemo fishes, and loads of colourful and silvery fish. As the monsoon had just finished alot of the coral was basic in our beach as it was right on the shore feeling the wrath of the breaking waves. My Open Water course started the next day and the group was split into 2 groups of 4. Two of the young girls, Caitlin and Kat, and Richard made my group with our instructor being Rhi (blond beach babe who had been diving around SE Asia for ages).
As you know i have asthma so had to get a doctors note. The air you breathe from the tank is compressed air and is quite dry so i was a bit worried that it would make me wheezy underwater. Luckily, it didn't have any affect. For the next 4 days we went out on dives onto the beach and learnt to dive. We had to learn all kinds of skills like taking mask off underwater and filling it with water and emptying it underwater. My dive buddy was richard who i had to look out for at all times. We had to weird things like use a compass underwater and share each others air and do an emergency ascent if we ran out of air. Our group was a bit better than the others and we soon learnt all the basics. For some reason i kept getting cramp in my toes. Breathing underwater is quite a strange sensation, which i still haven't got used to. When u take a big breath you float and when you take a breath out you sink a bit. You also have to just breathe through your mouth which was hard to get used to. Their was also a theory part where we had to answer questions and watch these corny marketing videos and a theory test. It all went swimmingly well and we ended the course with a boat dive. We dropped out backwards SCUBA style and went for a dive. There was huge corals, stingrays and we saw a leopard shark! There really rare to see and it was just laying about on the sand we sat down next to it, well i kind of hopped off the sand and landed right next to it. We carried on lazing about and swam off with its cleaner fish following close behind! Its really hard to explain what diving is like, it's like a different world underwater and everything looks so different. Before i came here i couldn't give a crap about fish but now i have seen so many beautiful and strange fish i think i respect them a little more.
Finishing the Open Water left me hungry for some more diving and so i decided i wanted to do the advanced open water. Now we got all boring stuff out the way we could start doing adventure dives and be able to dive at all sites around the world! We kept the same group of people from before and developed our navigation skills by doing a square underwater. We then swam out to Bubbles deep house reef which was about 12m and a good dive. We then went did a multilevel dive which was just a fun dive at a premier site called Tiger Rock. This dive was awesome loads of huge rock pillars with gaps you could swim through. We saw a group of huge bumphead parrot fish and we saw a turtle! Suddenly are dive formation was split and we were all swimming towards the turtle. It was a hawksbill and we watched it swimming about gracefully. I forgot all about diving and was just in awe staring at this turtle that has been around longer than the dinosaurs. Me and Richard had started a bit of competition with the other two to see who could be the best buddy. There was no competition and when i rode richard's air tank like a cowboy when we descended down the line it couldn't have been clearer. We also dived in a current which if you chose the route carefully you can ride the current to save energy. Later that day we did a night dive. This was really cool as well! We got our own torches and lit up the sea at night which created a new underwater world. There was parrot fish asleep in there nests, swarms of shrimps, big crabs and a group of blue spotted stingray scrummaging along the sand. When we turned the lights off and swam in the moonlight is a definite highlight of the month. As we moved are hands we lit phospherescents (algae which glows) and saw some squid reflecting the moonlight.
The next day we went on our deep dive to Tokong Laut (Temple of the Sea). This is probably the best site i've been to. A huge pillar of rock sticks randomly out of the sea and around this pillar is a huge community of fish. We were supposed to go to 27m to get near to the limit of our advanced qualification, but the visibility was so bad when u hit 20m, it wasn't to be. As soon as we left 20m the visit was crystal clear. The site was amazing huge soft and hard corals of all different colours. There were bamboo sharks bumming about, and when u looked up you could see layer upon layer of different schools of fish. There was cute little boxfish and huge star puffer fish, i saw a yellow/black spotted eel, barracuda and a stone fish. This fish is really rare and looks like a rock except it has a fish shape. I thought it was fossil until it moved, it also one of the most venomous poisons! The group planned to go to long beach on the weekend so we had a break before our last dive of the course, a wreck dive!
By this time i had been at bubbles for 2 weeks. As we were quite isolated on the island we had a lot of free time. This wasn't a problem for me as i spent a lot of time snorkeling with dan and trying out some underwater photography. Dan had a really good camera with underwater casing and he let me use it so we would go out and take pictures of coral, fish and turtles! At one point i had seen a turtle or more everyday for a week which was awesome and i got two videos! We also had the chance to help out with snorkeling trips for the guests. We helped with a water confidence session in the evening and then we got to go on a free trip in the morning to hotspots around the island. I thought everyone would be fighting to help but all the young group didn't care. The water confidence was good because we were getting chinese and malays that had never swam in the sea and couldn't swim. By giving them a life jacket and showing then how to kick the groups were in deep sea no problem. On the first trip i had to lead them around the sites which was pretty cool and i saw my first turtle which we swam along with. In the evening Dencoln taught us this tactical chinese game called Big Two which filled many hours in the evenings. Nearly every day before dinner we would play volleyball. I really liked this as i had been deprived of any competitive sport, (apart from cards), and after a week we all started to get pretty good. We also played with local boatmen and the two banglas. I made good friends with some of them and found out about how they were all sending money back to thier families. They are isolated on this island for the whole season and like many of the locals on the islands, i'm pretty sure they took some kind of drug to vent the boredom. Despite, this they're really nice guys and are always working really hard.€
Luckily for me the old facilitator, Harick, had come back to work at Bubbles. He's 24 and Malay Chinese and without him i would have a boring last two weeks at Bubbles. Dan was only staying till the 21st so i had new buddy to go snorkeling with. I spent most of time joking, listening to music and watch Lost Season 3! For the volunteers i spent a lot of time with G (Gurdeep), making up the 'Big Two Crew' and being one of the only people who would stay up late and drink. I really like Rachel, who is 35 and been traveling for a long time. She has a genuine interest in the turtles and is easy to get on with. As for the rest i get on with them fine but they would rather spend all their time on the beach and really didn't give a dam about the turtles and any volunteering work we had to do. They had all come from Thailand were they had been partying mad, but going to bed at 9pm and watching films everyday really isn't what you go travelling for. I would say out the three groups i have travelled with this group has been the one i've least enjoyed the company of and made good friends. However, i can say i have enjoyed this month more than i expected and had some really good times.
I decided to head over long beach with Harick and Rachel the next day on sunday. We met up with the others on this surprisingly long beach. It is the only place nearby on the Perhentian Islands that has any night life. Its a lot more western over there and the population is nearly all westerners. It was good break from bubbles, with good food (pizza, curry, beans on toast) and an environment we could have a proper boogie. I had loads of energy stored up from bubbles as did Harick and richard so after a few drinks we were dancing on the dancefloor. I was pulling out all my best moves but no one wanted to join us. However, after a while we managed to attract a huge camp english guy, a ladyboy (danced like beyonce) and a load of strange locals (some were surely gay and one breathed fire in song intervals). It was the 20th of the month and was full moon, so we expected a big party on the beach but most people went to bed at 1am and the bars were left with suspect locals. It was a good night, but i would have enjoyed it more with a better group that didn't speak about boring things as who had the best suntan. I also saved money on booze as before i left i was told alcohol was hard to get hold of and expensive so i bought a few bottles of cheap spirit which fuelled some funny late nights.
When we got back it was more of the same, snorkelling, sunbathing, reading in the hammock and volleyball. We had our last advanced dive at the Vietnamese wreck. We were dropped out the boat in the middle of the sea. The visbility was pretty poor so all we could see was a rope going down to the supposed wreck. So we held on to the line and descended commando style. After a while huge black shadow started appearing, it was the wreck. It was a really good dive as we circled the wreck and saw loads of fish. At the bottom in the middle there was a big whole going into the wreck. We swam through it and it was pitch black. Rhi lit her torch and we saw a pack of barracudas and loads of wierd things. We swam right through the other side through a tiny gap it was really cool. Then we went and looked at the top of the wreck which was crammed full of fish and beautiful coral. We also saw a scorpion fish was cool. After that i did a few more dives, i didn't have much money so just went on the free dives provided. One was a dive where we had to collect drupella (snails that eat coral) in pillow cases. Another dive was when we did a naturalist course and learnt to ID fish on PIBARs. These are lumps of dead coral piled together by previous volunteers that regrow and form new little communities. Diving was the best part of the month and i really want to keep up when i go to uni!
As for food we had breakfast from 8-10, where we chose from a volunteer menu. There was a few choices but when i discovered the chocolate banana pancake i never turned back. Lunch is at 12.30, where we usually get some chips and a sandwich or a bowl rice, vegetable and some chicken. For dinner we nearly always had rice (sometimes fried with vegetable and egg), a cooked vegetable and chicken cooked in a sauce (sometimes black pepper, sweet and sour, curry). But the worse thing was the chicken was more like bone and i got so fed up of getting little strips of chicken. At the end of dinner we shared a platter of pineapple, watermelon and melon which was eaten on a grab as much as you can policy. We did have an unlimited supply of bread with a toaster, butter, strange tasting jam and egg/coconut jam. I developed the nickname of Ten-Slice Jones as i normally had 10 slices to fill the whole the meals couldn't. We did have a couple of really good meals thought. A few nights ago we had a malay style meal, where we learnt to wear a sarong and sit on the floor eating with our hands. The curry was delicous with whole bits of chicken! Last night we had a barbecue as a good bye meal which was awesome. Fried rice, barbecue chicken, sausages and salad! For lunch and dinner we also shared a huge jug of juice that had many flavours. Sometimes we got yellow popcorn, green lychee, lemon, ice tea and even bright prink milk that tasted like vimto. Most of the drinks were full of additives but it beat water.
The other main part was obviously turtle conservation. I thought we wern't going to see any turtles or really help out the animals apart from giving money but we all had the chance to really get involved. We learnt about the behaviour of turtles, especially nesting mothers and all the types of turtles there are. I saw all 3 of the turtles in the area; olive ridley, hawksbill and the most common; green turtle. We got split into three groups of 3 and were given a rota of turtle watches and poacher watches. Turtles in Malaysia are really screwed. The eggs are delicacy and an egg is worth about two ringgits. They lay on average about a hundred eggs so the math works out as a lot of money for poor locals (jobless and have families to feed). The worse part is that the fishing which happens every day pick up a turtle a day from trawler nets that get stuck and suffocate in the net. Leatherback turtles (biggest most awesome and nearly extinct) used to land in malaysia, something like a hundred layings 10 years ago and now they havn't been seen for years. It takes 1 in 1000 hatchlings to make it to adulthood and reproduce and bubbles beach last year only 100 hatchlings made it to the sea. It's not because there aren't turtles laying on the beach. This month about 25 turtles came up but they have alot of threats. It takes them 3 hours to struggle up the beach, dig a nest, lay, make a dummy nest and heave themselves back. I chased of a huge monitor lizard trying to dig out the nest and red ants can also get at them too. But their main threat is as always greedy humans.
Nearly every night and early dawn there have been poachers on the beach. Because the beach it stil waiting to become a hatchery we can't tell them shove it. All we could do that worked was lay on their nest and annoy them with questions and take photos to keep records. The turtle watch is 8pm til 4am and involves checking the beach every hour for turtles and if one comes up measure its track and nest afterwards. These long nights went past really fast and on my last watch two turtles came up! One time a turtle got stuck underneath a tree root so some of us started breaking the root to free it out. It was so amazing to get so close to this ancient beast. Towards in the latter end of he month the turle layings have picked up for the peak season in May. However, every night the 'fisheries' have been on the beach. They are from the hatchery and take the eggs to a protected beach. Well, that's what they say they do but there's no way they would stay up that late and take eggs from the turtle while its still laying. We try to cover their tracks, hide the nest but on this month only one nest hasn't been pillaged. Turtles really are amazing creatures and its so distressing to find out how screwed they are and watch humans take their eggs right behind them. Fishing tax in the Malaysian sea will be removed this summer meaning more trawler nets and i'd be surprised if there were turtles nesting in 50 years.
I've really felt at one on this beautiful beach. Sitting on the beach under the stars (there's so many more stars here) and listening to the gentle break of the waves as a turtle moves past me. Awesome! One night i fell asleep in the hammock but woke up at 6am with mozi bites all over my face. Yesterday i went snorkelling with Harick and we saw three turtles around the beach! We watched them swim around, eat and come up for air, with tropical fish all over the place it made me realise how lucky i am to see this.
This place is close to a tropical paradise and i will miss it when i leave today. But a month without internet and staying on the same beach is enough for me now and i can't wait to get to Thailand.
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