Excellent trip until...

We had a very-very goodtime in Perhentian. The company was good, the room was ok, the food was yummy, the divemasters professional and also quite yummy if you were in a skirt, and best of all, the diving was excellent.

Visibility on the most part, was not too bad, but the life under Perhentian waters is wonderful! Loads and loads of anemone, and the fish seemed even friendlier than Sipadan! Managed to capture quite a few fish shots, something I had not managed to do succesfully before. My opinion is Perhentian offers some of the BEST diving in the East Coast. It is arguable, that Redang is better, but overall, I believe its better in Perhentian as the island tends to attract a more international crowd. We were practically the only Malaysians at the resort, not that we felt out of place mind you.. I only noticed it one dinner, when we were the only locals in the whole dining area.

The only thing that marred our stay was the Ferry service. On the way to the island, 60 people and all their luggage were crammed into a boat made for 40 passengers. The supposedly 1hour travel time became 1.5 hours due to the extra weight the boat was made to carry. There were not enough life jackets to go round and some people had to sit on the floor! To add insult to injury, the bloody ferry did not pick us up at the end of the trip!!

We waited for our ferry at 4pm, and by 4.30 we were getting a little anxious. 4.45 came and our resort manager received a call to say that we were left behind because the boat was overloaded. Surprise surprise. These people actually sell tickets.. I don't know why they even bother.

Left stranded, the resort said that they would send us back to the mainland with one of their dive boats. I think to myself.. we have been in these boats for 4 days now.. they seemed ok. Wrong. The boat ride back to the mainland was harrowing and not to mention wet! Needless to say we were quite pissed off, being put into such a predicament. Fortunately we made it to the mainland, and finally home to KL, allbeit a lot later than anticipated as the AirAsia flight was also delayed by an hour.

So it was a rather eventful trip to say the least. But would I return? YES.