One of the great things about living in Malaysia is public holidays, there are a lot of them, around 18 at last count but I can never be sure! With this in mind it makes it possible to plan a lot of long weekends to get out of the city and over to the east coast during the high season to go scuba diving and this August we have been lucky enough to have a few public holidays that fall around weekends. This time it was a Thursday that the whole country had off, so having booked the Friday as annual leave I headed over to Terengganu and to Pulau Redang.

Redang is famous within Malaysian scuba diving circles for having the best visibility of anywhere on the east coast of peninsula Malaysia so I loaded up the car with all my gear and headed there for a spot of relaxation and diving. I had booked to stay at the high end Taaras resort which sits away from the other resorts in its own secluded bay as I had managed to find a special offer amongst all of the RMCO deals that are currently available online I was pretty excited at the prospect a of a few days on the island and having been warned to pre-book my diving had contacted the dive centre there and was going to get in 5 days over two days. I set off pretty early in the morning, around 5am and although the boat wasn’t until 12:30 I didn’t want to get stuck in the traffic heading out of KL due to the public holiday, this meant I could take a nice leisurely drive across the country without having to get stressed. I arrived some hours later in Merang, parked the car in some private parking, registered for the boat and paid my marine park fees. It was a short ride over tot he island, about 30 minutes where we were greeted by air conditioned vans to take us to the resort. Being a long weekend, check in was a little chaotic, but soon enough I was all sorted and on a golf buggy being driven to my room half way up the hill.

Once settled i wandered down tot he dive centre to speak to the team there and drop of my gear ready for the dives the next day. The team there were really welcoming, especially Deen who helped find me a spot in the gear room to store my equipment and explained to me what time I needed to be at the dive centre and checked over my certifications and log book. That having been done I slowly walked back to my room, set up my camera ready for the morning and checked everything worked and with that the last task of the day was complete, I could then wandered down to the beach bar area and have a well deserved cold beer and a spot of early dinner before heading off for an early night.

Most days at The Taaras they do 3 dives, two in the morning and one in the afternoon, but as I was diving on a Friday it would only be one in the morning and one in the afternoon due to Friday prayers. This was no problem and I arrived at the dive centre after breakfast just after 8am ready and raring to go. The guides explained that the visibility hadn’t been so good the last fee days so we would be going to a site just within that was a little more sheltered and hopefully this would have better vis than other sites around the island. The first site was called TG Tokong and after a short boat ride we arrived, geared up and back rolled in. The visibility wasn’t as bad as had been said, but it was the legendary crystal clear waters that everybody raves about either but I could settle for it, I was diving at least and therefore I was happy. Thankfully, I had set my camera up for macro with a magnifying lens, strobe and snoot and I was greeted by a number of colourful nudibranchs. I was really enjoying the dive when all of a sudden the divemaster indicated that he was taking a number of divers back tot he surface as they’d run low on air, thankfully the other guide and I both had plenty of air left in the tank so were able to carry on exploring the corals and looking for cool macro subjects. We stayed down for another 15 minutes or so before coming back to the surface, climbing up onto the boat and heading back to the dive centre. After showering down it was time for a spot of relaxation and lunch before the afternoon dive.

The days second dive at at Bahagia Wreck which was a very short 1 minutes boat ride over to the buoy, it hardly seemed worth it. Still, there were only two dovers this time, myself and another brit so that meant more space on the boat and more time tome able to take photos. as we sank below the surface you could that that the visibility had improved from the morning and we immediately set about exploring the wreck. Ourdive master even found some boxer shrimp in the hull of the sunken boat which we managed to get a good look at and even saw some small cleaner shrimp gliding around just in front of them too. After 15 minutes or so we moved away from the wreck on started to look around the coral reef, the coral was in good condition and we saw a number of nudibranchs, a green turtle and lots of beautiful chritsmas tree worms. Photographing these guys can be incredibly frustrating, you have t move close to them incredibly slowly as the slightest movement causes them to retract back into their hole and not come back out for quite a while. I was lucky enough to capture one or two photos before the guide asked us how much air we had, again my dive partner was low on air, but we had a trainee divemaster with us, so he took my buddy back to the surface while the DM and I had another look round the wreck.

After the dive it was time to clean up and head back down to the beach bar as it had just passed beer o’clock on my watch! One of the highlights of the day is to enjoy and ice cold beer after diving, however I couldn’t have many as I was due to dive the next morning too. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw that the resort was doing a baby turtle release in the evening as I joined the crowd on the beach to look. It’s always great to see resorts and hotels contribute towards conservation, especially in Terengganu where it is still legal to collect turtle eggs and sell them, hopefully the Malaysian government will address this soon. I did feel slightly awkward as the amount of people crowding round to watch the turtles was large and the release was being done in bright daylight, so exactly how much chance these cute little turtles have of serving is anyones guess. Still was great to see so many children involved and if nothing else it helps to educate people about the precarious situation turtles are in.

The next day I was down to do three dives which I was thoroughly looking forwards too, however the skies were grey and there was a bit of wind. The guide was talking about doing the first dive and then potentially cancelling the second if conditions weren’t great - while I agreed with him outwardly as the right thing to do i was hoping inside that conditions would improve. The boat in the morning would head out for two dives before coming back to the centre for lunch, the first dive site was TG Chagar Hutang. The visibility was good to start with, but after a while the current picked up and vis deteriorated, unfortunately the there wasn’t a huge abpumt to see, one giant barracuda in the distance excepted. Appratnly sometime whale sharks are seen at this dive site, but today wasn’t the day, again the rest of the group ran out of air before I did, so I stayed down with the guide while they surfaced. I might as well have come up with the others as not a great deal to see. When we got back tot he surface the wind had definitely picked up a bit and there were more waves than before, we clambered back onto the boat and headed for a sheltered cove for our surface interval. The second dive at Telek May Delah was somewhat better with a number of nudis, christmas tree worms and small things to see.

The days last dive was just within the bay at Teluk Kerma, the coral was beautiful and due to it be a bit more sheltered the visibility was brilliant, crystal clear in fact. The one other diver with me was someone who hadn’t dived in 11 years and had done a refresher the day beforehand. You couldn’t have told as her skills were really good, I guess it is a bit like riding a bike! After swimming alongside the reef and spotted a number off christmas tree worms and nudis were found a swim through into a small cavern, I had to stay back as you could see the rays of light coming down through the water, it was really beautiful to see.

The last dive was certainly the highlight of the weekend, really loved the crystal clear water and macro life that we saw. It was with a slightly heavy heart that we made our way back tot he resort and started to wash down all the equipment as I had to make the journey home to KL the next day. Still, I would really recommend The Taaras Resort 7 Spa to anyone who wants to dive at Redang. Lovely accommodation and a great dive centre as well. The one tip I would give you is to book your scuba dives ahead of time as the centre can get very busy and sometimes doesn’t have space for people.

I stated at the Taaras Resort and Spa at Redang Island for 4 days, 3 nights. While not the cheapest resort on the island it benefits from being in its own private bay and not having to contend with guests from other resorts crowding you out on the beach. To get their from KL by road it is a 4.5 to 5 hour car journey depending on traffic to Merang and a 30-40 minute boat journey to the island. Alternatively you can fly to Kuala Terengganu and get a taxi tot he jetty. The dive centre at the resort is also fantastic but I would recommend you book your scuba diving in advance to ensure you have a place as numbers can be limited.