fair share of wrecks. There are numerous war graves and vessels lost during World War II off Pattaya in Thailand and in the bay at Coron in the Philippines, and there are easily dived wrecks off Manado and Bali in Indonesia. There are also fishing vessels that have met an untimely end and even the odd dive boat or two.
In some places, artificial wrecks (tires, old buses and broken boats) have been sunk to encourage regeneration of reefs and their associated fauna. Singapore has done this outside its harbor waters. The Philippines and Thailand have also adopted this method.
You’ll find that diving in Southeast Asia is generally on the continental shelf but oceanic diving is possible too. This inevitably entails a trip on a liveaboard.
LIVEABOARD DIVING
Liveaboard dive boats have made a big impact on the scope and range of diving. In Indonesia, liveaboard operations take divers to the Banda Sea, the islands north of Manado, the Raja Ampat Islands of West Papua, and Komodo and other islands in the Nusa Tenggara provinces. Yacht chartering is becoming popular in Bali with holidaymakers who also enjoy diving. In the Philippines, the fabulous reefs at Apo and those of Tubbataha, Jessie Beazley and Basterra are only accessible by liveaboards while other liveaboards and chartered yachts ply the small islands of the Visayas and Palawan. So do yachts and dive vessels in Sabah, Malaysia, that offer diving in remote offshore areas, while yachts and small motor boats (often converted fishing vessels) offer diving trips in Malaysian and the northern Indonesian waters from Singapore. Phuket, especially, has developed this industry, building new marinas to accommodate charter yachts and dive vessels. And, if you want to, you can dive in the Mergui Archipelago from Thailand, discover the reefs off the southeast coast by the Cambodian border in the Gulf of Thailand, or head for the almost virgin territory of the Andaman Islands. Well-equipped liveaboards are the only answer to reaching these remote areas.
When diving first started in the region, it was a cheap hobby once you had bought a regulator and other basic gear. Today, the relationship between learning to dive, buying the gear and getting going has changed. The gear is getting more sophisticated but less costly, dive courses are becoming more competitively priced and the cost of diving itself is getting more expensive, mainly because today’s diver is a more sophisticated animal and not the hardy aficionado of yesteryear. In the Practicalities section at the end of this book you will be able to see how the cost of diving compares through the region.
Indonesian reefs are so rich that on a single spot one can find soft corals, sponges, hydroids, four species of algae and five species of tunicates.
Best of all, there are still many areas in Asia to be charted, let alone developed as dive destinations—areas that have, up to now, discouraged tourism and development, places that were off-limits for political or commercial reasons, and spots where transport was almost non-existent. But it is only a matter of time before these virgin areas open up to enthusiastic divers.
—Fiona Nichols/Sarah Ann Wormald
Diving in Malaysia
Where Rainforest Meets Reef
Up to the late 1980s, those adventurous travelers who made their way to Malaysia were rewarded with a rich culture and a lifestyle that had changed little over the centuries. Occasionally, they snorkeled the island coral reefs and even more occasionally dived the offshore waters. The attractions that the country advertised overseas were, however, largely on terra firma. Much of that has changed in recent times and scuba professionals have set up operations in a number of places in the country offering a good variety of services and dive options. With the help of some individuals in the private sector, the tourism arm of the government has made a conscious effort to attract overseas visitors to Malaysia’s marine attractions, with some success.
Malaysia lies entirely within the tropics and is divided into two main geographical areas. Peninsular Malaysia joins, on its northern boundary, Thailand, and on its southern shore the Republic of Singapore through a causeway linking the two countries. Some 650 km away, on the huge island of Borneo across the South China Sea, lie two more Malaysian states, the vast states of Sabah and Sarawak, separated by the independently ruled Sultanate of Brunei. The two states on Borneo complete the 13 states of Malaysia, ruled under a federal system from Kuala Lumpur on the Malay Peninsula.
Since the 1990s, like many of its Asian neighbors, Malaysia has made tremendous economic progress resulting in a large growth in population and a huge increase in urban development on both a commercial and domestic level.
A hard coral reef top around Sipadan Island, Sabah, where you will find an excellent selection of dive spots.
Located some 25 minutes north of Sipadan Island, Sipadan Water Village Resort in Mabul offers macro diving around Mabul and the Kapalai Islands and safaris to Sipadan Island.
The capital, Kuala Lumpur, has expanded both laterally and skyward, while Johor Bahru, the country’s second largest town and Singapore’s nearest neighbor, has similarly grown in size and population. Shopping malls, office buildings and international class hotels now decorate these skylines that once carried a silhouette of palm trees and thatched roofs.
Malaysia has two distinctive seasons, dividing the country climatically, though the temperatures at sea level do not vary radically with either season. You can expect a high that rarely exceeds 31° C on the coast, and a low that rarely drops below 22° C. Of course, in the highland areas temperatures are quite different. While the northeast monsoon lashes the eastern shores, dumping heavy rain from November to late February, the western parts of the country—and that includes the dive sites around Langkawi—enjoy drier, sunny tropical weather. Conversely, when the southwest monsoon picks up from May to October, it is time for the east coast dive sites, and those in Borneo, to enjoy sunny dry days—while the western shores get their torrential downpours.
Of the estimated 30 million inhabitants in the 13 states comprising Malaysia, 7 percent are ethnically Indian, 22 percent are of Chinese origin while the majority, approximately 60 percent, are Malays and aborigines. A number of minority groups make up the remainder.
The Malays, a Muslim population, have always been fishermen though perhaps not sailors. They know their coastal waters and have fished them for centuries. Unfortunately, with a growing population to feed, an active tourism industry and a worldwide interest in tropical fish for aquaria, their fishing techniques became more radical in the 1960s and 1970s. Dynamite and cyanide might bring more fish into their nets, but it also killed and maimed many more and did irreparable damage to the country’s coral reefs.
CREATION OF MARINE PARKS
In the mid-1970s, Sabah gazetted one of the first marine parks in the country, the Tunku Abdul Rahman Park. Then, in the 1980s, answering a call from concerned environmentalists and divers, four further marine reserves were gazetted to protect the fauna and flora off Peninsular Malaysia’s coasts. These included Pulau Payar in Kedah and the three areas off the east coast of Malaysia. These last three marine parks together cover thousands of square kilometers of water and embrace some of the most picturesque islands and coral reefs anywhere, among them Redang, Tenggol, Kapas, Rawa, Tioman and Aur. It was no accident that Pulau Tioman was chosen as one of the sites for filming part of the movie South Pacific, an island that breathed the ingredients of a tropical paradise.
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