Following a late (yet thankfully uneventful) flight from Myanmar, I hitched a bus from Penang airport and arrived at just on 5am at the port town of Kuala Besut, gateway to the Perhentian Islands (pronounced “Per-hen-tee-an”, not shee-an).

There are two islands, Pulau Kecil and Pulau Besar, meaning little island and big island respectively. Descriptive; yes, imaginative; no.

It was a simple matter of being herded along with a crowd of other Westerners, being given a boat ticket and forking out 70 ringgets. My 5am brain didn’t really register the possibility that I was being ripped off or sold a fake ticket, but a helpful local told me the ticket and price were good, so I grabbed a pot noodle from 7-11 and dozed with the other zombies until the boat rolled up at 7am.

30 minutes of saltwater splashing my face through the orange glow of sunrise, and I was jumping onto the sandy pier of Pulau Kecil. Not bad!

I was so used to doing things spontaneously in Myanmar that I hadn’t really planned anything for when I arrived. It turns out that the Perhentian Islands are a popular spot for Malaysians to go to for the weekend, so it being Friday, it was busy. After two hours of trudging around the beaches, turning down a 30 ringget/night sweatbox (12 people in a room with no air-con or windows?!) and considering trekking off into the jungle to sleep in a makeshift hammock on the suggestion of some nutter, I found myself at the Bintang View chalets, in proud occupancy of what I can only describe as a wooden box with a mosquito net in it, at the reasonable price of just 70 ringget/night. I even had to share with a lizard. In honesty, I think my very soul was abraded by this experience.

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Nonetheless! I dropped my bags and “locked” my room/box, then wandered on up the beach to the dive school, “Anti-Gravity Divers“. I found them online and they’d responded to a WhatsApp message saying they had availability, so as the dive prices are fixed island-wide I figured I couldn’t go wrong! I was promptly introduced to Ray, who I thought was appropriate name for a dive assistant, and within minutes my face was glued to a MacBook as I was force-fed nigh on 5 million hours of PADI videos. Another chappy called Sam was starting the course at the same time as me, so we paired up and powered through the underwater brainwashing experience together, fuelled by coffee and excitement.

We’d just finished the videos when the instructors from the final dive came in, so we worked through our test papers, shared a beer with our instructor (Johanna, from Finland – again appropriate for a dive instructor), and the conversation left us itching to get going the next morning. Add in a guitar, a ukelele, a couple of solo travellers, a few more beers, a stop-off at the monkey bar on Long Beach to play with the kittens, and a rather late night later we were TOTALLY ready for diving at 8am the next morning.

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Sam and I did actually make it to the course on time, we got our kit together without a problem and were by this point pretty excited to jump in!

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Johanna is an excellent instructor, and for 3 days solid we had an amazing time learning, diving, messing around under the water and seeing aquatic life so alien and interesting that if you’d told me I was swimming through the atmosphere of Saturn I’d totally believe you.

Honestly, being underwater is another world. The only way I could think of to share it all with you was to whack this video together. I would encourage you to pay close attention to what is probably the world’s only footage of a hardcore long-haired triple underwater rock-out:

In case anyone is interested, all my action cam shots are taken using a Veho Muvi K2. It’s way cheaper than a GoPro, but in most lights the quality is just as good and the waterproof case is practically bulletproof.

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Aside from diving, in honesty, Pulau Kecil is a bit strange. Food is generally of low quality and quite expensive. The accommodation is tough to get hold of and you can expect to be warm, damp and sandy at night, sleeping to the sound of dance music pumping out of the oversized speakers that line Long Beach like coconut palms. But if you can see past these somewhat minor inconveniences, the water is crystal clear and stuffed with reef fish, soft corals that wave and squidge in the swell, table corals bigger than actual tables, and enough turtles, sharks and rays to make The Little Mermaid feel under-cast. I had a brilliant few days seizing the opportunity to start diving, got my PADI open water qualification, and wouldn’t change a moment of it for the world.

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 At some point, I managed to log into wifi and received a message from Clara saying she was actually coming to Malaysia – and that she could meet me in Penang in a couple of days. The timing would work out well, so I figured I’d find my way back there. Besides, I came to the country with no plans, so thought it would be a good idea to follow someone else for a little while! I booked my overnight bus and after my last dive with Anti-Gravity I was waving farewell and hopping the boat back to Kuala Besut. See you in Georgetown, Penang!