Tioman Diving

Many people claim that the diving at Tioman is the best in Peninsular Malaysia so I was happy to be able to check it out for myself. I dove with Tioman Dive Center located in Tekek (http://www.tioman-dive-centre.com/). I did 13 dives with TDC and I enjoyed them all. The three dive guides Nina, Rosie, and Katie (all from England) did a great job making sure that everyone had a good time while protecting the reef.

We would gear up at the dive center and then head out to the boat.


Getting everyone situated on the boat.


Off we go. The boat rides varied between 5 and 20 minutes.


After we returned to shore we carried our gear back to the dive shop.


Katie (right), the owner of TDC, Nina (center), a dive guide, and Angus (left) from Belfast head to the beach.



So What Did I See?
The dive sites around Tioman were diverse with a combination of large stands of hard coral, boulders, swim throughs, rubble, and wrecks. As usual, I an not able to take any underwater photos so I borrowed a few photos of Tioman from the internet.

Sting ray.


Sawadee wreck. The Sawadee was a fishing boat that sunk in about 100 feet of water. The Sawadee was an interesting dive because there were huge schools of snappers aggregating on the wreck. We dove the Sawadee twice to look for a large stonefish. Stonefish are camoflage experts so I was never able to find it.
photo from http://www.flickr.com/photos/gs9826/page32/

There were lots of "big animals" to be found including sea turtles, large groupers, and black tipped reef sharks. One of the most interesting things that I saw was when a very large grouper (about three feet long) swallowed a pufferfish. When the pufferfish found itself inside of the grouper's mouth it "puffed" itself up to such a large size that it was impossible for the grouper to swallow it. The grouper had no choice but to spit the pufferfish out- and the puffer escaped unharmed!
photo from http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/9S6Cm50DkHL9RNp1cPLDYA

Lots of cool nudibranchs!
photo from sergeyphoto.com

My favorite undersea moment came during an interaction that I had with a cuttlefish. One particularly curious cuttlefish swam up to us and finally ended up about a foot and a half from my face. Cuttlefish are known to be very intelligent animals so it is only natural that they would find me to be so interesting.

photo by Lillian Daniel