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On Thursday 18 August thirteen Free Flow Divers arrived at the Republic of Singapore Yacht club at 6 pm to board MV Samudera Quest, the liveaboard operated by Dave Yiu of Friendly Waters. This trip was billed as a Wreck Weekend with the aim being to dive a few wrecks as well as some reefs around Pulau Tioman and Pulau Aur.
After quickly boarding we set sail from the RSYC and at Sisters Island an immigration speedboat visited the liveaboard to quickly check passports and send us on our way. This simple formality made departure very straight forward, completely hassle free and allowed us to settle into our overnight journey across the South China Sea to our dive sites. A delicious supper was served as we headed out, washed down with much ice cold beer.
A trip a couple of years earlier on this boat proved most unsatisfactory as the engine was pouring out sooty black smoke that entered all the cabins and left a black oily film on everything, including camera equipment.
Fortunately this problem is resolved and the boat proved quite suitable for our needs. The cabins are small but comfortable and the food on board was excellent. On the Friday night we enjoyed a sumptuous bbq on the foredeck of the boat whereas on the Saturday night we went ashore to The Divers Lodge at Pulau Aur (part of the Friendly Waters operation) for an extensive spread, followed by partying the night away to Dave’s Disco.
The boat has an adequately sized dive deck for kitting up and there is sufficient individual space for each diver. Upstairs is the main sitting and eating area and the lounge for watching DVDs or the latest footage recorded during dives.
This was a three day weekend trip in which we hoped to dive both wrecks and reefs. We did in fact do both and enjoyed some great diving.
Sites visited on this weekend at Pulau Tioman and Aur included :
Dog Pound – so named because of the many dogfish inhabiting the wreck – 27 metres.
Scorpion Wreck – populated by scorpionfish and also batfish and crocodile fish hiding in the sandy bottom – 22 metres.
Shark Reef – basically a bouldered terrain with small caves and swimthroughs with one such cave containing two enormous nurse sharks around 3 metres in length. Also some nice nudibranches in the area – 20 metres.
Labas – undertaken as a night dive revealing a few crabs, toadfish and a beautiful Spanish dancer – 15 metres.
Chebeh – on our way to this site we encountered many dolphins that appeared to be feeding. They raced alongside the boat for some time. During the dive we saw many blue spotted rays, a potato grouper, jellyfish, schools of yellow back fusiliers and a wide selection of reef fish – 22 metres.
Shark Reef – again we saw a large nurse shark and some white eyed morays close to the shark cave – 22 metres.
Permangill Reef – In the shallow water of Permangill Bay this site is a selection of twisted metal scattered over a wide area with a wide selection of healthy hard corals growing over the wreckage. Fish life included gold banded fusiliers, many types of anemone fish, parrotfish and blue damsel fish – 8 metres.
Lang Island – we saw lots on this site including a small shoal of squid, cuttlefish, angelfish, titan triggerfish, nudibranchs, turtle and great underwater scenery too – 21 metres.
House Reef – undertaken as a night dive before joining the party at Divers Lodge on Pulau aur. We saw several yellow flatworms, white eyed morays and a few crabs – 15 metres.
Rayner’s Rock – has great underwater scenery and we saw parrotfish, blue lined angelfish, butterfly fishes and a selection of nudibranchs – 28 metres.
Pinnacles – here we saw a shoal of about 20 barracuda, several large bumphead parrotfish. There are many batfish and a wide selection of individual reef fish plus a few kuneii nudibranchs with nice scenery this was a good dive.
Following our third dive on Sunday 21 August we started to move back to Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal arriving back at around 8.30 pm having had a thoroughly enjoyable weekend of diving and partying.
Useful links :
www.koolbuzz.com/fyi/aursite.html
www.abcmalaysia.com/tour_malaysia/tioman_dive.htm
www.malaysiasite.nl/aureng.htm
August 2005
