Activities Report 1999 Nov Newsletter
DIVING AND FISHING IN PULAU SEMBILAN
By Sharon Chan
At 9 am, on 12 September, 8 of us sailed
off for Pulau Sembilan from Lumut Yacht Club. The beautiful 44-footer Grand
Banks cabin cruiser, Tenacious II, belongs to Stewart Forbes, Marine Co-ordinator
for MNS Perak. With Stewart at the helm and his wife Salmah to show us
around the vessel, the two-hour journey passed in easy comfort and lazy
conversations. We enjoyed the air-conditioned and carpeted living quarters
for a while as we explored the fully equipped galley and two cabins fitted
with comfortable beds. We marvelled at how every space on the boat is cleverly
made use of. It has essential amenities of a regular home: two bathrooms
with flush toilets and shower, television, microwave oven and other electrical
appliances, fridge, cooking rings and kitchen hood, a sink, foldable table
on telescopic legs that can be lowered to double as a bed at night, cabinets
and wood panelling that lend that touch of class. What luxury!
We went up to the upper deck to observe
how Stewart skippered the boat and to feel the wind in our hair. As we
reached the first of the nine islands in this small archipelago, we studied
a large marine map to orientate ourselves. Our dive site that morning was
White Rock, situated on the western flanks of the group. Fully aware that
the day was not very suitable for diving, it being spring tide, we nevertheless
went ahead with our dive plans. There were four scuba divers that day,
Merlene Wong, Joon Yee, A.L. Chan and Yours Truly. Two other members who
came along, Chang Kok Kai and W.F. Chua were more interested in fishing.
It was a lovely sunny morning as we
splashed into the water at 11.30 a.m. We soon reached 50 feet and finned
around enjoying the myriad of coral and fish life, surprised at their survival
rate in this area which has yet to be gazetted a marine park. The general
opinion is that the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia is not worth diving
except for Pulau Payar. But Pulau Sembilan and P. Jarak off Lumut, though
not mentioned in the list of popular Asian dive spots are worth checking
out.
Visibility underwater on that day was
only 10 to 15 feet but that did not prevent us from discovering many interesting
life forms. Although fragile hard corals like staghorn corals were noticeably
absent here, we saw an occasional Porities coral (boulder shaped and wave
resistant), a testimony of the strong currrents in this site. Sea fans
and flowery soft corals (Dendronephthya sp.) confirm the turbulent conditions
here. There is a predominance of dark green tree corals attached
to the boulders and plenty of cave corals (tubastraea sp.). The latter
is supposed to thrive only in low-light conditions of coral overhangs,
though I see them growing in small colonies all over this place. There
are lots of winged mussels, zig-zag oysters and some orange-coloured branch
tunicates (sea squirts) about 10 to 15 cm tall. Barrel-shaped tunicates
(Didenanum molli) were also sighted. We came across a small dark-brown
sand anemone, not commonly seen, at least by me. When disturbed,
it retracted all its tentacles into an unattractive insignificant naked
hard base, blending in with the sandy bottom. Another common feature in
this area are the large tracts of encrusting coralline algae, purple in
colour with white markings. There were plenty of sea whips (Junceela sp.),
white and dark coloured ones, 1 – 1.5 metres in length. Their fluffy white
polyps were fully extended ready to pluck food from passing currents.
The abundance of fish life was a joy
to behold. There were large schools of black-tipped fusiliers with many
lyre-tailed wrasse (Thalassoma lunare), damsels and chromis swimming among
them. Boenaki and six banded groupers were hiding under the rocks
A pair of Blue King Angelfish and a lizard fish were also sighted. Two
examples of mutualism symbiosis were seen: a transparent shrimp was busy
picking parasites off the body of a grouper while a 10 cm prawn was engaged
in symbiotic housekeeping with a goby. A prawn-related goby is a
rare find for divers as the prawn is usually hidden in its burrow though
the goby may well be seen standing sentry at the entrance.
As we finned around we were swept down
to 80 feet by a strong channel current. We quickly back-tracked, clutching
on to rocks and corals to haul our way back. This was definitely neither
the time nor place for a new diver. When we surfaced we encountered strong
surface cross-currents. Only one diver managed to swim back to the boat
unaided. Two of the female divers had to be pull-ed back with the help
of a life-line and one diver was carried beyond this Jesus Line (as Stewart
termed it). Although there was a lot of bantering like, ‘See you in Indonesia!’
and “Did you bring your passport?”, it was really quite a serious situation.
Stewart had to weigh anchor to pick up that diver.
After all that excitement and about
an hour to calm down and dry up, we were served steaming hot coffee and
a delicious home-cooked lunch of fried noodles, kerupuk and chicken by
Salmah. For dessert we had a fruit cocktail of chilled nagka, rambutan,
papaya and pineapple. After an adequate surface interval, Merlene and Joon
Yee went in for a second dive. The currents were even stronger in the afternoon.
“The fish also senget already!” Merlene commented.
The anglers had a fairly successful
day. Some of the fishes caught were brown banded snappers, red snappers,
six banded groupers, threadfin breams (Scholosis vosmeri, nicknamed Toshiba
fish), and even a fiery red spotted scorpion fish with all its fins bristling
in indignation! We threw him back in true MNS magnanimity. We anchored
off Pulau Buluh for a while to see whether the anglers could land bigger
catches. Within sight was Pulau Lallang with an attractive sandy beach,
a potential site for an MNS camping trip. Some of us were already discussing
the possibility of such a weekend! At 4.30 p.m. we called it a day, though
we had to literally drag Kok Kai away. He reluctantly reeled in his fishing
line only when we threatened to leave him on the island and return to fetch
him in a week’s time!
The return sea journey to Lumut was
uneventful but more treats awaited those who had to drive back to Ipoh
or Taiping. One carload stopped for dinner at Lumut while the other car
stopped at a roadside stall on the way to Ayer Tawar to buy some deliciously
sweet big Maha mangoes at RM10 for 3 kilos!
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Created on 11th Nov 1999