My last full day in the perhentians.
I had decided from last night that today I would do a snorkelling tour. I woke up at 8, got ready and then walked over to Coral Bay - boats were still not leaving from Long Beach. I ate plain omelette and toast whilst drinking a beautiful mango smoothie. I had originally signed up to do the short tour which would only stop off at Fish Point, Shark Point and Turtle Point. Problem was that whilst on the boat I got talking to Maria. Maria was a German girl with Blonde Dreads. She had the most piercing blues eyes and was 29 years old. She told me she had never done snorkelling before and was really anxious. I told her it would be fine and that I would help her. Our tour guide was a bit of a waste of space and didn't help anyone so Maria really appreciated the tips and encouragement I gave her. After the first stop, fish point, the driver told whoever was on the short trip to go over to another boat. Maria was like "do the long trip, noooo!" It was rm10 more but i had nothing else to do and Maria seemed really cool so I stayed for the long trip.
At the second stop we were trying to spot Turtles. Again the guide was really bad and didn't point us in any kind of direction to see them. Luckily I spotted one and swam above it trying my hardest to keep up with it. It was amazing. So big and so elegant as it glided through the water. This one was a green turtle. I hoped it would come closer or that I would see more. I turned my head and then in the distance I saw a smaller one- I assumed it was a baby. It swam a lot faster than the other one. I tried my hardest to keep up with it but it out-swam me so effortlessly. This one was a hawksbill turtle.
The next stop was Shark Point. I was absolutely kakking my pants and the previous assurances from the locals that the sharks (black tip sharks) are vegetarian still didn't sit well me. No one else on the tour made any move towards the water and I figured if I thought about it any longer I would chicken out. So without further ado, I jumped in! I was reluctant to put my face under the water straight away because I had images of hundreds of shark circling underneath me and putting my face under the water would allow me to see it and no doubt freak out. Eventually I did and was surprised to see nothing. In fact I had to swim around for ages before I actually saw a shark. They were relatively big - perhaps the size of a crocodile, apparently they were babies (not that the guide came in and saw) and they swam very close to the sea bed making it impossible for me to take a photo because the water was quite deep. I saw three in total but every time I looked around for other people on the tour, safety in numbers, they were all close to the boat! I found out once I got back that some people had seen nothing, not even a turtle earlier. I was very lucky.
We stopped at 3 other places including romantic beach and a light house and then went back to Coral Bay. I had been talking with Maria the whole day. She
was extremely spiritual and worked/lived in Thailand in the north managing volunteer projects. They sounded amazing and helped the Hill Tribes to build things to improve their communities. Apparently the Hill Tribe people are not recognised citizens, like the aborigines of Australia, therefore the government will not help them with anything - some of the tribes have no water sanitation, no roads in or out or their communities and generally have a poor standard of life. The company that Maria works for tries to get volunteers in to help with improving the lives of these communities with building and conversation projects.
Maria told me that she was going to Langkawi for the Reggae festival which brings together reggae bands from various places in Asia. In my head I was supposed to be going to Langkawi a couple of days later so if I went earlier by bus then it wouldn't be much of an issue as I could just catch the rest of my flights as normal - so we made plans for me to meet her in Langkawi on the 30th March where we would share a room.
After the snorkelling trip we sat at Mama's Kitchen talking and then made our way back to Long Beach to get ready and arranged to meet back at Coral Bay to watch the sunset at 7.30. We missed the sunset as apparently it sets at 7pm. Ah well. We walked back to long beach to have dinner at Panorama - me, Maria, Burung and his friend, and Amin. I was talking to Amin about the Reggae festival as he had told me previously that he was going and had been so excited and even flashed me the ticket he had bought in advance - i was going to ask him if I could go there with him but then he told me he couldn't go anymore because he had to work. I was really upset for him because I knew how badly he wanted to go. He asked me if I wanted to buy his ticket from him, and so I did - atleast it might help him out a bit. This time I ordered seafood pizza - very English I know!!!
After dinner we went for shisha where Maria was talking to me about this girl that she sees wherever she goes. She said she feels some kind of weird connection. I jokingly asked if she was attracted to her - she said she was. I then asked if she was bi-sexual (I knew she had a boyfriend already). I'm not going to lie, it did surprise me a bit when she said yes - just because i was only bantering but then we spoke about something else.
Burung had to run off as usual, but this time it was different. Four people had died on long beach during the day - two foreigners and two locals. As mentioned a number of times, the water was really dangerous to swim in and apparently the two tourists were in the water and started to struggle so two locals went in to try and save them. All of them drown and one of the bodies had not been found - they also didn't know the identity of the missing person. It was now Burung's job to visit all of the hotels and guesthouses on the islands to work out who had not come back to their room. The news really saddened me. Four people. It's crazy. Maria and I had told Burung that the lack of signs to warn people of the tide were really worrying.
I explained about my time in Phuket last year and how I had gone in the water and had no idea about the undercurrent - I started to panic and the lifeguard had to come and help me. The undercurrent is the killer. It doesn't matter how shallow the water is because although your feet may be touching the sand and you may only be knee deep, the undercurrent moves the sand from under your feet so you cannot move forward. The pure exhaustion of trying to get out is killer enough as once you get tired the current keeps pulling you down and eventually wins the battle.
Maria and I went to the Monkey Bar to watch the band - regardless of how talented they were, especially Anas, their songs were so repetitive and so I left quite early and went to bed.
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