Today I finally dragged myself out of bed, switched on the laptop, not get distracted with other websites and copied some photos of my diving trips from my phone. So here's a short summary of (whatever I can remember) my trip to Redang and Tenggol last October.
Since I worked the whole month of September and didn't go back to KL, I managed to squeeze an additional day off from the bosses. So obviously I went diving, almost back to back. Sufia and I booked a trip to Pulau Redang early Oct and to Pulau Tenggol the week after. It's great to have a friend who, even though is super thrifty, has a lot of money and time and will easily say yes to any diving trips. We booked our trips with Seamonkey, as we had a good experience diving with them at Pulau Bidong. Thankfully I had some money set aside as Seamonkey ain't exactly the cheapest dive centers in the market.
We booked a room/chalet in
Redang Mutiara Beach Resort and after reading the numerous negative reviews on TripAdvisor, I was really worried that we'd get a crappy room. Much to our surprise, they had renovated their rooms and while it isn't exactly 5 stars, it was decent and convenient. I mean how could you say no to a room that when you open the door, the beach is at your doorstep?
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| White sand at your doorstep |
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| Fancy waking up to this view every morning? |
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| Only remembered to take a photo of the room when we were about to leave, hence the messy bed |
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| Small, but clean bathroom |
Unfortunately the visibility wasn't too good so there weren't many photos taken underwater, plus whatever I had was in my laptop which was stolen. I did manage to upload some to my FB and the only photo that I thought was good enough to be shared is this:
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| Blue spotted stingray from a night dive in Redang |
Here are some other photos of Redang Island for you to enjoy:
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| View from the jetty #1 |
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| View from the jetty #2 |
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| View from the jetty #3 |
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| View from the doorstep |
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| View while having lunch |
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| Sunrise from just outside my room |
All in all we enjoyed our short trip here, my first time to Redang. This side of the island is slightly more private and quiet if you are looking for a simple place to sleep and shower and just bask in the sun all day. As usual in most of my dive trips we end up making new friends, this time it was Jose and two German guys.
Moving on to Tenggol....
I'm not sure if I've ever told the tale about my miserable day trip to Tenggol Island before. This was back in April 2013 when I first moved to Kemaman. As I worked 6 days a week and only had Fridays off, it was difficult for me to arrange for a 'short diving trip' even though it's easily accessible. So Sufia and I booked a day trip with one of the dive shops (or shack), and it was probably one of the worst trips we've ever been to. There was one DM to 10 pax, although probably 7 of them were so called 'experienced divers'. Thing is, we got ditched by the DM, vis was bad and I ended up having to take care of my buddy who at that time was still trying to get the hang of diving. We were also annoyed with that bunch who were boasting and bragging everytime they came up to the boat. Anyway, we kinda swore not to go with them again and luck was on our side that I met Macha from Seamonkey (from the earlier mentioned Pulau Bidong trip). He got us a package with
Tenggol Coral Beach Resort and although it was a splurge, it was definitely worth it.
The resort was newly opened at that time, it was previously known as Tenggol Aqua Beach Resort which was closed for sometime and the new management took over they refurbished it a bit. We were lucky to be the only ones (with another couple also booked under Seamonkey) at the resort at that time. The weather was gorgeous and visibility was awesome.
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| A gorgeous view from the restaurant |
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| MashaAllah beautiful weather |
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| Just relaxing on the verandah of our little chalet |
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| Ok a little messy, but still the sea and sky....amazing! |
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| The double bed in the room |
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| And there's another two single beds... |
As you can see the room is really big, even the bathroom is huge! The sea was super calm, well except for one of the sites that was super choppy at the surface - but the visibility was still marvelous. It was a bit surprising since October is usually the beginning of the monsoon season.
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| Can't beat the school of barracudas in Sipadan, but this was still a great sight |
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| Not happy with the fin photobomb.... pfffttt! |
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| Never been so up close with a batfish before! And there was a school of it that I could see from 10m away clearly!! |
Alhamdulillah for the two trips, despite not being able to see the whale shark. I would love to be able to dive again in Tenggol sometime soon, that is if I have time and money. Do check out Redang and Tenggol, drop me an email if you need some contacts!
