We headed to the famous Langkawi in Malaysia over New Year, check out our latest dive site review

When it comes to scuba diving in Malaysia the west coast isn’t the most obvious choice, but as I found recently in Pangkor, it does offer some exciting opportunities for those willing to make the effort. We’d decided to see out and say good riddance to 2020 in one of Malaysia’s most famous islands - Langkawi. Known more for its duty free status and party vibe, Langkawi isn’t the first place that springs to mind for scuba diving, but after failing to squeeze in a dive in Sibu I was desperate to get in one or two more dives before the end of 2020.

Having already booked accommodation in Langkawi over the New Years period it was simply a case of looking for a dive operator that could take two keen divers on a days scuba diving. I’d dived around Langkawi about 18 months ago at Pulau Payer, a marine park about 45 minutes boat ride from Langkawi - while the diving here was OK, getting there from where we were staying would turn out to be a time consuming affair - the dive centre that operated there was about another 45 minutes car journey away and by the time we done the round trip a whole day would have passed. We decided on going with Langkawi Scuba, based in Cenang, very close to where we had booked to stay. After exchanging a few emails with them we were booked on for two dives on the morning of 31st December - what better way to close out the year?

We stayed at a resort called Bon Ton - antique wooden villas from around Malaysia that had been moved and lovingly reconstructed - which if you ever get the chance is a fantastic place to stay. We were warmly greeted by the staff there and before we could move our own bags the staff had taken them to our villa and giving us a welcome drink, it was a hot day so a cold beer was very welcome indeed!

We settled into a hard afternoon of relaxing by the pool, soaking up some sun and enjoying some refreshingly cold drinks - which made for a perfect day. The restaurant at Bon Ton, Nam, is also very highly recommended serving a mix of western and traditional Malaysian fare, the tasting platter is well worth making a trip there just to have that. We booked in for dinner in the evening, the food was fantastic and settled down for the night in our villa before our scuba excursion the next day.

I jumped out of bed the next morning, made breakfast (you get bread, fruit, yogurt, cake etc dropped off the night before for you to make your own at Bon Ton) and got my gear ready. I’d decided to travel light this time so had only brought my smaller Sony RX100iv camera in underwater housing and mask, so I didn’t have to lug around my BCD, reg and fins with me. It was about a ten minute grab ride to the beach and we got to the dive centre right on time. The owner, Warda greeted us and got us to fill out the various forms and check the gear was working and fitted correctly. She then informed us that the boat had a slight problem and there would be an hours delay whilst they changed a part out, this being Malaysia we weren’t overly concerned and proceeded to wonder along Cenang beach in search of a coffee - only to be rung 2 minutes later saying the boat was fixed and here! We headed back, grabbed our gear and headed for the boat ready for the trip out to some of the nearby islands. Warda gave us a briefing saying that she planned to use a buddy line, as it was only three of us, it shouldn’t be a problem as the visibility was likely to just be about 2m and therefore we needed to ensure we didn’t lose each other straight away!

The boat sped away and headed to the first of the nearby islands where our guide duly jumped in the water to check the visibility, she came back up to the surface after a minute and stated that it was not good, but another of the islands had been pretty good yesterday so why don’t we try that one. On the way there we noticed some ripples in the water and to our delight we spotted a number of porpoises around us just breaking the surface - this was starting to be a very good day indeed. Once we arrived at the site Warda again jumped in and came back up to the surface grinning from ear to ear - the visibility was really good (for Langkawi!) and was around 5 to 6m and so we wouldn’t need to use the buddy line. I was really pleased about this as it meant that I would have a bit more freedom to take the pictures I wanted to without being overly rushed, however I would need to ensure I didn’t get too carried away as the last thing I wanted to do was abort the dive because I lost my buddy!

The first dive at Cepu island was good, the visibility was better than expected and we managed to drift along in a very mild current and try to look for seahorses and frogfish. Unfortunately we didn’t manage to find any on this dive, but we did manage to see scorpionfish, lionfish, some schooling barracuda and even a cobia that did a brief swim by. The coral was also better than I had expected, however there were a number of old fishing nets draped over it and a number of fishing lures that had been discarded too. We were quite shallow on the dive, about 10m so air consumption wasn’t going to be a problem and we stayed down for 60 minutes before surfacing for our safety stop. Everyone was really pleased with the dive and we climbed back on board the boat for some hot coffee and tasty Malaysian snacks during our surface interval.

We all agreed that as the visibility was so good we’d drop down at the same site and spend a bit of time looking for frogfish and seahorses as we hadn’t seen any on the first dive. This time the gods were smiling on us as Warda almost immediately found a frogfish hiding in-between some cracks on the reef. After that it seemed like everything we wanted to see made an appearance, another couple of frogfish, a seahorse and nudibranchs - a macro photography paradise and I was in heaven snapping away. We even saw a number of dancing shrimp in one of the barrel sponges too. I must admit, I had not been expecting to see quite as much as we did today. I think there must be something about the low visibility sites that force you to look harder at the coral reef and therefore you see more small life as you’re not distracted by the larger fish.

Once back on boat the boat we headed back to Cenang to rinse ourselves and our gear off and head back to Bon Ton to get ready for our New Years celebration. I was really pleased with the mornings diving, such a great way to end 2020 on a nice couple of scuba dives!

Once we were back at the resort we decided we start the celebrations a little early as we had such a fantastic dive and enjoyed a couple of well deserved cold beers and a light lunch before the main event later that evening. We’d booked in at Bon Ton for New Years and were delighted when we saw the menu, a 6 course meal to enjoy and see out the year in style with a few glasses of red wine. Thankfully the restaurant was busy enough to have a celebratory atmosphere without being packed out and allowed us to kick back and enjoy the evening.

Would recommend staying at Bon Ton to everyone as well as diving with the fantastic Langkawi Scuba, I will definitely dive in Langkawi again if the opportunity arises.