Brilliant trip!
Flew over for a week around Easter. The diving was phenomenal. Schools of manta and devil rays, and one dive with schooling hammerheads surrounding us (best dive I've ever had!). Visibility was usually 20-25m with only a couple of dives over the week being 10-15m.
I was probably the most inexperienced diver in our dive group with only 50-odd logged dives when I arrived, but despite some initial apprehension about my experience when booking the trip, I found the diving to be relatively straight forward even with the current. There were 2-3 dives over the course of the week where things were a little more challenging when the current changed mid-dive and we had to fight it. But then even other divers in our group who had many hundreds of logged dives said they found those challenging. And hey, it was an experience that I'm glad I had. I learned how to deal with it. The divemaster we had for the week was great - good briefings, safety conscious, good at spotting stuff and knowledgable about the marine life. No complaints at all about the diving!
The accommodation is a little dated, but it's more or less just cosmetic and nothing a bit of a facelift wouldn't fix. Food was great - a good mix of Asian and western style.
I suppose my only real issue doesn't have anything to do with the resort itself...But on one dive, we heard an explosion underwater. After the dive we found out from the DM that there were about a dozen fishing boats in the area and they were using dynamite fishing methods. Which (as I understand it) is illegal, even in Malaysia. I find it incredibly hard to believe that the Navy base on the island wasn't aware of it going on. The fishing boats were moored out in the lagoon. Not saying the Navy definitely knew what was going on, but if they did, and didn't doing anything about it, I'm unimpressed. One would assume that dealing with such things is part of their job?
But aside from that, had a really great time! Would love to return one day!
Flew over for a week around Easter. The diving was phenomenal. Schools of manta and devil rays, and one dive with schooling hammerheads surrounding us (best dive I've ever had!). Visibility was usually 20-25m with only a couple of dives over the week being 10-15m.
I was probably the most inexperienced diver in our dive group with only 50-odd logged dives when I arrived, but despite some initial apprehension about my experience when booking the trip, I found the diving to be relatively straight forward even with the current. There were 2-3 dives over the course of the week where things were a little more challenging when the current changed mid-dive and we had to fight it. But then even other divers in our group who had many hundreds of logged dives said they found those challenging. And hey, it was an experience that I'm glad I had. I learned how to deal with it. The divemaster we had for the week was great - good briefings, safety conscious, good at spotting stuff and knowledgable about the marine life. No complaints at all about the diving!
The accommodation is a little dated, but it's more or less just cosmetic and nothing a bit of a facelift wouldn't fix. Food was great - a good mix of Asian and western style.
I suppose my only real issue doesn't have anything to do with the resort itself...But on one dive, we heard an explosion underwater. After the dive we found out from the DM that there were about a dozen fishing boats in the area and they were using dynamite fishing methods. Which (as I understand it) is illegal, even in Malaysia. I find it incredibly hard to believe that the Navy base on the island wasn't aware of it going on. The fishing boats were moored out in the lagoon. Not saying the Navy definitely knew what was going on, but if they did, and didn't doing anything about it, I'm unimpressed. One would assume that dealing with such things is part of their job?
But aside from that, had a really great time! Would love to return one day!
