Shark Chasing Madness - Perhentian Islands, Malaysia (Sept. 20-24, 2005)

Our little paradise...


A shark's little paradise...

A few days in the Perhentian Island can change a lot (not unlike a couple days in the jungle...). On the first evening of our arrival (a rather secluded ‘budget resort’ of simple chalets and rooms in a small row house, all about 20 metres at most from the water), we began chatting to a few people as we ate dinner. Quickly an agreement to take a snorkelling trip together the next morning was made.

So the next morning we climbed into our simple boat with our happy guide, a small but energetic Indonesian fellow, and headed for the first spot. This was really just a warm-up, a primer, for what would follow over the hours.

This first spot was fairly close to shore, therefore not so deep, with wonderful corals and plenty of little fish.




Nemo, back home, safe and sound...

Since the others in the boat preferred to wear life jackets while snorkelling, and Elisabeth was still a bit hesitant about throwing herself into any deep water, this spot was a nice, easy starting point for all of them. If our guide had told them exactly what he was thinking for later that day, they all probably wouldn’t have been quite so calm.

But before I get to all of this, I’ll backtrack one day.

The day previous, on our way to the Perhentians from the mainland, I began chatting to the captain of the ferrry as we pulled towards Besar, the larger of the two Perhentian Islands. He pointed to an area marked off by a lenthy rope buoy and told me, “lots of sharks there every morning.” Black Tip Sharks, it turned out. I certainly wasn’t expecting that. I asked him if the rope buoy was a shark net, but he said, “no, no, lots of people snorkelling there every morning”. My curiousity was certainly aroused, but having never seen a shark in open water before, I was also rather hesitant about the thought of sharks swimming so close to where we would be staying, a short distance away on the other Perhentian Island, Kecil. Incidently, this spot, known as Shark Point, would become the third stop of our snorkelling trip the next day. So back to that snorkelling trip.

The second stop of the day was rather more challenging than the first for our group of skeptical deep-water swimmers, since it was in fact a large cement buoy a rather significant distance off-shore. This time, a few minutes after assuring everybody it was perfectly safe to swim there (“safe”) and had lots of corals (“many corals”), he donned his own mask and fins and jumped in the water with us. Now he meant business as he benevolently ordered everyone to follow him as he lead us on a lengthy swim in these rather deep waters.



He clearly inspired the trust of the others, as they gamely began following him as he lead them further and further away from the boat. Towards the end of that swim, he claimed to have spotted a shark, though nobody else saw it. But this supposed spotting seemed to whet his appetite, since he declared excitedly as we climed back into the boat, “now we find sharks...we see sharks today”. And so, off we went to the infamous spot from the day before - Shark Point. Who would have guessed that those nervously floating around in life jackets would be now so willing to gamely chase sharks around significantly deeper, and more open waters.

Arriving, he jumped straight into the water just as at the previous stop, again assuring us it was safe as he began leading the expedition through the deep and apparently shark infested waters, pointing and summoning us to follow. We were on the shark trail now.

Soon he got excited and started pointing, and quickly three of the group (of five) including Elisabeth spotted the target - an approximately 150 cm Black-Tip Shark apparently close by. Now we were in hot pursuit. It was kind of like one of those chase scenes from the old Dukes of Hazzard T.V. show (only this one in the water, rather than the heart of dry county somewhere in the heart of the U.S.), where the Duke Boys would inevitably triumph over the police cars chasing them, leaving the police cars often crashed and spinning their tires futilely in the air - there was no doubt who the winner of our little shark chase would eventually be, but we did our best. Over the next while, two more sharks were spotted, and two more Dukes of Hazzard style chases once again occurred. Frustratingly, I myself never managed to spot any of these sharks that day. Perhaps I was simply trying to hard to see what was evidently right before my eyes. Or perhaps I just didn’t really want to, I don’t know!

After this shark chasing episode, Elisabeth was happy to declare that she had at long last all but conquered her deep water fears (yes, this only two days after wandering through the Malaysian jungle having another one of these fear conquering episodes, as I wrote about in the last entry.

But the day was not over.

After a pleasant lunch stop at a fishing village accessable only by boat (as were all the spots on the Perhentian Islands, since there are not roads on these islands), that involved excellent food and a lot of sheep, we were off to the final stop of the day.


"Please can I have some sandwich?"
"No!"
"Please?!"
"No!" etc...


Our boat for the day...

As we pulled up to a clear, sandy bay, one with beautiful clear blue water, but not a coral or rock of any sort in sight - and hence not much in the way of fish and therefore not much point in snorkelling - we wondered just what our guide was thinking - perhaps to offer us a pleasant, if not all that exciting, swim to ‘cool off’ before we headed home? We didn’t have time to question him, as he quickly started shouting, “there, big turtle! You lucky today!”

And there it was, calmly swimming close to the sandy bottom, and clearly visable in the clear waters, undoubtedly the largest live turtle I had ever seen. We jumped in and just like that were swimming along with him (or her).


Not something you come across in the swimming pool...

Our trusty guide, yet again proving his worth, quickly spotted another sea turtle, and then another, each swimming contendely along and each of whom we duely followed for as long as we could. Quite an ending to our little 5 hour trip.

A little epilogue:

A day later, back onshore, our trusty and fearless guide of the day previous was warning us that when swimming in a nearby bay a short hike from where we were staying (where we had been swimming that very morning!), we should stay in the bay and not venture too far out, since there could be 4-5 metre Black-Tip Sharks lurking out there, and unlike the 1-2 metre versions of the same species, the sort we were chasing the previous day, the larger ones could be dangerous. Not exactly reassuring.