22 April

We slept late compared to the previous day, up at 07h00 to be at the dive shop at 08h00 for our last fun dive which I negotiated into the price. Kitted we head for Pinnacle, also a premier dive sight and where we would have had our deep dive had we not gone to Redang. There's a strong current and the swell doesn't help much either, we are told to swim and meet at the buoy about 50m from where we backdropped into the water, given its not far but with a strong swell and current it eats away at your energy levels.

At the buoy, 10 of us huddle around to get a hand on the line in order not to be washed away. Our instructor arrives and we do a controlled decent along the buoy line to the bottom, where we follow the current until we reach the edge of the Pinnacle. Think of a cone shape with the point protruding out of the water and then you'll know how it looks like. In all honesty this dive was more enjoyable than Redang and we saw more, maybe we were just spoilt for choice or its because this is just a normal fun dive where we have the opportunity to explore more (still following the dive master) and Brie is not always on my case about something… The fish life is extremely abundant and we saw eels, all the fish seen on previous dives and a 2m black tip reef shark swimming past us and returning again! After 50 minutes we head up to the boat and return to Long Island.

We had previously wanted to do a snorkel expedition seeing as it was highly recommended even by the instructors and they guaranteed you would see sharks and turtles. On the way there we split and I went to talk to the Dell technician and asked him to leave the laptop at Senja seeing as we would be in transit between islands by the time he finished. Leanne was busy with the company we had paid the day before to go on the snorkeling expedition. They had cancelled their trip as the visibility at 4 of the 7 sights were poor. Luckily the ones we wanted to go to, Shark point and Turtle bay had good visibility. We went to some other operators and eventually found one who was willing to take us.

On our way with our personal chartered boat (small one)we head around the islands to shark point, it even has a rock that looks like a fin. We drop in and within minutes see the first black tip reef sharks. Inquisitive but shy they will come close but then swim away again. Both Leanne and myself came about 1m from them. Swimming in packs of 3 or 4, the ones we were swimming with were all about 1.5 to 2 m long. I even swam next to one for as long as my breath kept me under almost touching it. Although there were many fish about nothing compares to what you see when scuba diving!

From here we headed to Turtle bay, in all honesty this is only a sand bottom bay in the middle of the two islands. The next minute the boatman called out "jump, Turtle" we barely had time to wash our masks. I drop into the water only to see a turtle about 8m below me, it takes all my strength to gasp air and swim down to it, I had hardly reached it before it shot away. Half drowning I try to surface as slow as possible. The boats almost 50m away and my energy levels are not what they should be, Leanne is another 100 m from me, I opt to swim for the boat and hold on to the side while he drives towards her. Again he shouts "Turtle" and I head down to the bottom this time being able to swim along side it for a while before it also shoots away. Leanne at least had better luck with less effort, she was able to swim above one for quite some distance while it surfaced right in front of her. We head off for the last site, a lighthouse about 500m from the Small island. Here we see some soft and hard coral but not as many fish. At least we saw a beautiful Yellow Eyed eel lying full length under the soft coral allowing one to get a full picture of its length and size.

Back on land I head to Sharool while Leanne goes to Senja for a fruit platter, about 30 minutes later I join her and meet a girl from the Netherlands touring Perentians and Langkawi who had joined Leanne in my absence. Just before leaving she introduces us to woman from Paris with whom we have difficulty communicating taking into account my French has deteriorated since school.

After they leave we head off once more to the BBQ before retiring for the day at our lodging. We have an early morning tomorrow - we have to be at the jetty on the other side of the island with all our bags.