17 April

We rose after 10 in the morning after a long and deserved sleep, from here we headed down to the restaurant for our toast and coffee breakfast. From there we walked down to the beach, grabbed two sun benches where we soak up some sun before the heat starts to push us towards the shade. I head to some of the locals to rent fins, mask and snorkels and we set off for the reef only 15 m from the side. You can swim out about 80 m to a wooden deck where one can retire to catch your breath. The whole way is filled with hard coral and abundant fish, visibility is almost 15m! Some include large Grooper/potato fish with two large remora's, clown fish, barracuda, sweet lips, box fish. Flute fish and a brown cuttlefish that upon my intrusion into its spaces shoots 3 m away and turns see through!

We spent the rest of the day sunbathing and lazing on sun benches reading books and watching the view. I needed to make some calls to Dell to ensure their agent will be arriving and be able to find our accommodation. After 45 minutes of frustrating call centre calls I am told it is to expensive for Dell to send one of their agents to the Perhentians and they require me to take the ferry to the mainland where he will be waiting for me. I understand their point - it costs RM 70 to take the ferry and then he will need to sleep and eat on the island, quite an inflated price range, but now I have to incur the costs! I head back down to the beach and Leanne and I take another snorkeling expedition even if its only to clear my head. This time seeing a nice 2m black tip reef shark passing us, parrot fish, blue spotted ray and much the same we had seen on our first visit.

We retreat to an adjacent restaurant where we were disappointed with what we received, we ordered mackerel or marlin with a peppercorn and sweet and sour source. Luckily the marsbar milkshake makes up for it. We head to our room and start studying for the following days Peak Performance Buoyancy (PPB) and navigation dives, more than you would think one would need to study on an island.