Redang
10-14 Jun'00
Resident giant grouper under the jetty at the Marine Park Centre.
Our third trip to Redang. It was now starting to become more of a annual June family vacation - that once a year island trip we all looked forward to. We decided to return to Redang Reef again - cozy, great location, friendly staff and best of all, an excellent housereef!
Rainbow over Redang seen from back beach of Redang Reef resort; Timothy, Jared, Jordan and Justin playing at the front beach.
June 10, 6:30 am
Our group of 11 arrived in Kuala Terengganu
after a fairly comfortable overnight journey on the Transnasional coach
from Singapore. Ping Anchorage's van picked us up and dropped us off at
their new Travellers Cafe, where we had breakfast before leaving for
Merang.
We decided to stay at Reef again this year. Despite the rooms being a little run-down and basic, we loved everything else about the place - its privacy, location, coziness, the friendly staff and the excellent housereef. Of course, familiarity breeds fondness too, and it was good to return to a familiar place and familiar faces. Even the speedboat driver was the same one who tried to outrun the Coast Guard last year, except it looked like he had learnt his lesson this year - we arrived at Reef without incident, and it was great to be back!
As we explored the housereef over the course of the next few days, there were noticeably fewer fishes compared to last year, and more coral rubble on the seabed. Apparently, they had a bad monsoon where strong waves had caused some damage to the reef. To make matters worse, there were quite a number of Crown of Thorns starfish at the housereefs in Pasir Panjang. Not good news! Over at Shark Bay, there were more blacktip shark pups this year - about 16 of them. New sightings this year at the housereefs around Tanjung Tengah and Tanjung Mak Cantik included barracudas and a well-camouflaged octopus.
Joo Beng feeding the fishes at the marine park centre; with uncle Kevin Hiew, then director of marine parks, Malaysia.
June 11
On the way to the Marine Park Centre, we saw schools of
jellyfish in Teluk Kalong near Pulau Kerengga - big reddish brown ones
with long tentacles. At least they were clearly visible, their
reddish-brown hues contrasting with the turquoise waters. Fortunately,
there were only a few of them around the main snorkelling destinations.
Things at the Marine Park Centre looked pretty much the same as last year, and did not seem to be as badly affected by the monsoon. It was a pleasant coincidence to meet my uncle Kevin Hiew at the Park Centre as he happened to be in Redang for a conference. The giant grouper was still under the jetty but the giant moray eel had moved out to the shipwreck - at least we were told it was the same one that used to be under the jetty. We found another smaller giant moray in a rocky outcrop between the jetty & the shipwreck about 5 metres away from the wreck itself.
June 13
The highlight of this year's trip must be the discovery
dive. Min Chuen, Angela and I signed up with Leisure Divers at Redang
Reef for the 'discover scuba' experience, which cost us about RM130 per
person. As we were already pretty familiar with snorkelling and skin
diving, it was quite easy to adapt to scuba. Each of us had an
experienced dive guide as buddy to ensure we wouldn't run into any
trouble, especially with buoyancy control. We dived at the house reef and it was
great to be able to stay underwater and observe the reef life
without worrying about running out of air.
Our group in Redang 2000.
Along the way, we encountered the reddish-brown jellyfish but they didn't look as scary when diving. We also got to stroke a sting ray and swam with a turtle. The whole experience lasted about 45 minutes underwater at a maximum depth of about 30 feet. Other than a really dry throat, I really enjoyed the dive as it enabled me to get much closer to the marine life than just snorkelling or skin-diving. Enough to consider getting certified before next year's trip!
