Going to to Penang in late September

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

James79

Reinventor of Wheels
ScubaBoard Supporter
Messages
1,837
Reaction score
3,303
Location
Lower Alabama
# of dives
100 - 199
Hi, i will be in Penang (Georgetown) for 4 days in the end of the month and am hoping to be able to dive. I'm openwater, and my son is Junior openwater and I'm having trouble finding anything on the internet. Any help would be greatly appreciated !
 
Not sure about the diving on Penang but man the food scene is unreal! Have fun.
 
I'm from Penang. Enjoy the food. There's no readily accessible recreational diving spots in Penang. Nearest one is Pulau Payar (Payar Island), 2 hour ferry from Penang. You would have to sacrifice a full day for the dive. I've never dived there, so I can't comment on the sites, but I've read they are very much bleached.
 
Thanks, i might try the palau payar thing.
 
Hi, i will be in Penang (Georgetown) for 4 days in the end of the month and am hoping to be able to dive. I'm openwater, and my son is Junior openwater and I'm having trouble finding anything on the internet. Any help would be greatly appreciated !
There is a BSAC club there, they do snorkelling and scuba; see here.
 
Thank you all for the help... on further research and looking at timelines, it looks like we won't be diving this trip.
Such is life sometimes!
 
I'd agree with others that I think the only option for diving near-ish Penang is Pulau Payar / Langkawi. Penang Island itself doesn't have clear waters and although I'm sure there are dive sites (as there are on Langkawi Island) it seems like no-one in Penang has set up shop yet. Either way it sounds like its not going to work out for your trip but in case anyone is interested I dived Pulau Payar marine park and also Langkawi island itself both quite recently so will give a quick run-down!

Langkawi Island: To my knowledge there's only one dive shop which dives around Langkawi island itself and that's Langkawi Scuba. They're located on Pantai Cenang and all dive sites are a 5 - 10 minute boat ride away. We went in December and were supposed to do two days of diving with two dives on each day but I got sick and we couldn't do the second day. Visibility was atrocious and there was a bit of a current but it was quite enjoyable anyway. On the first dive we used a buddy line and each held an arm of the dive guide (Wanda) who took us around and showed us sea horses, lobster, frog fish, scorpion fish, cuttlefish and gorgeous soft corals. We then had a packed lunch on a deserted beach before starting the next dive which was much the same as the first. Both dives were 60 minutes long and I wasn't bored as I liked spending time looking at the seahorses, frog fish and cuttlefish in an unhurried manner. I guess its muck diving but in very poor visibility.

Pulau Payar: We did two days of diving with two dives per day. We took an extremely bumpy speedboat ride out to the marine park which took about 45 minutes (I think some operators use a ferry which might be a better bet). The diving was ok although obviously not as spectacular as the east coast. The best dive we did was "coral garden" which had some very pretty coral with no evidence of bleaching, lots of fish but also a fairly strong current. "Lembu Rock" was also quite nice with big fields of unbleached staghorn coral and lots of reef fish. Visibility was quite bad in places, especially at deeper depths (for example at Lembu Rock most of the dive was done at 5m because any deeper than that and visibility went way down). There's a wreck which would have been interesting if we could see more than a few metres. We saw a turtle on our safety stop which was nice. The highlight of the trip for a woman who was only snorkelling (which I wouldn't recommend) was seeing a whale shark swimming round the boat whilst we were 20m below on the wreck enjoying awful visibility! The marine park is not the nicest place and there was lots of rubbish on the surface at some spots. We did two dives each day with an hours surface interval and were either in the dive boat or under the water so it wasn't that comfortable.

I'd say both places are worth a visit if you're in the area, fancy a day of diving and manage your expectations! It's not world class but its perfectly enjoyable and the dive sites are nice and empty which is always good. If you go to Pualu Payar try and sit at the back of the speedboat and also wear sun cream. I neglected to do both of these things and suffered for it.
 
Didn't you see many reef sharks on Pulau Payar?
When I dived it from Langkawi 15 years ago, I can remember the sites were carpeted with soft corals (that you could see only from 5m distance, thanks to the awful visibility) those of which are less sensitive to bleaching, or at least faster to recover, and also loads of blacktip reefies you could almost bump into.
At lunch time some of the tourists were feeding the puppy sharks directly from the beach not even 30cm depth, throwing them the remains of their ayam goreng, with chinese and japanese girls going woooo and waaaaa....
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/

Back
Top Bottom