Perhentian Islands, we were told, are one of the cheapest places in the world to gain diving qualifications whether it be basic Open Water or your dive-master. So, after refreshing on one or two delicious lassies, we spoke to Matahari Dive Centre and managed to swing an excellent deal of around 200 pounds each to for both our Advanced Divers course and accommodation (with a power shower!!!!).
We highly recommend diving with these guys (it's the bright orange dive shop out of the many dotted along the shore). They treated us amazingly well and were all lovely! They warned us of the negative stories they'd heard about Symphony and allowed us to stay in the Staff Accommodation for a night as all the rooms were full. Although, this ended up with the entire dive centre seeing Jodie completely stark naked as we were sharing their shower room and failed to control the foreign locking system.
Adding to our wonderful stay, was the family's three year-old, adorable daughter who allowed us to attend her birthday party and was forever grabbing our hands for a dance with her. Her father gave us fruit straight from the trees and helped us to arrange our boat off the island and bus to Penang.
The diving itself was pretty amazing. We were able to see small sharks, turtles, sting-rays and of course many incredibly colourful fish. We were able to experience wreck and night diving which we hadn't previously and both were seriously cool. During our safety stop on the night dive, we each turned off our torches and as we moved our arms and legs the plankton lit up luminously green! Amazing!!!!
Our navigation dive on the other hand was hilariously dire! I (Jodie) managed to forget how to control the compass leaving us well and truly lost. You know you are in trouble when there's not a reef or a single fish for company. HAHAHA very confusing.
Anyone thinking of diving, do it!!! Just go to Perhentian and become a dive master!!! (that's our plan) and say hi to Dee and Crumb from us!
Meg and Jod xxx
