Comments on: Scuba Diving Perhentian Islands, Malaysia: A Quick Guide

By: Ben

Ben — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 10:59:16 +0000

Hey, \nVery good guide, I went to Perhentian in a very bad dive center last time on Coral Bay (Angel Divers old Coral Bei Bay) ….next time I will go turtle… and I prefer long beach for the night life :D

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 03:45:04 +0000

The monsoon season happens every year at roughly the same time – it doesn’t change much. You might find an operator willing to gamble on the weather, but I wouldn’t recommend it

By: dermot

dermot — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 00:13:20 +0000

hi,
could anyone please give me some info on whether i can go diving in the perhenthians in march? i know it read above that the islands are closed due to monsoons from oct to apr but is this the case every year and is it that strict?
also is there anywhere around the islands or even anywhere in malaysia that will do a 3-day open water cert if thats possible as i have never dived before???
any info would be very much appreciated,thanks!

By: Chris

Chris — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 21:46:47 +0000

Hi Bruce – thanks for your thoughts from your recent visit – much appreciated. Glad you weren’t bothered by the party music!

By: Bruce Walker

Bruce Walker — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 10:58:06 +0000

Thanks for the article :-)

I just returned from the Islands. I stayed on Kecil at long beach. The disco music ran later into the wee hours and seemed to pick up around 11pm, i wonder if that was to cater for the staff on the beach finishing up?? I was never around at that time to check LOL. Anyway i knew Long beach was a party beach so i did not bother me too much. I really liked the fact you didn’t have to venture too far out to have a nice swim in the crystal clear water.
I saw quite a few things on the dives that i hadn’t seen before, including heaps of carpet (??) sharks and schools of squid.

All up i think Perhentian is a great balance of laid back beach lifestyle without hawkers etc and with great easy going diving.

Cheers

By: Aymeric

Aymeric — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 18:29:05 +0000

That’s a very good guide but i’d like to notify some less good point about Perhentian, even if it was my first travel and the first tropical place i ever went to – so I really enjoyed it- i found really deplorable the way a lot of travelers act about waste.
Indeed in some of the beautiful and most famous beaches, you can find cans, polyester (take-away) boxes…
That’s really a shame but even if it’s a problem, these island are really worth a look.
Just don’t think you will have really immaculate beaches everywhere…
And I really recomend to ask locals (not the taxi-boat) about the really good places to go. Which are usually not the most famous ones.
For example I saw just one shark during the organized snorkelling trip (supposed to bring us where they all are, in shark point), the day after that I took a boat to a small beach where some locals said that the sharks really were (better in the morning); and after few minutes of search, I was surrounded by 6 black point sharks, one of my best memories ever.

Last words Perhentian is beautiful but take a look at Tioman island, it’s not more expensive and a lot better specially underwater.

Hope it’ll be helpfull.