The club recently organised a weekend liveaboard dive trip to the Jubilee Shoal area, somewhere in the South China Sea off the east coast of Johore, north of Pulau Tioman. Thirteen of us were involved in this first club expedition to Jubilee Shoal and the plan was to try to make about seven dives. The party drove up to Endau on Friday night, where we boarded the boat captained by Michael (a soon-to-be 854 member) and spent the night on the boat, anchored in the mouth of the Endau river.
The boat set off at about 7 a.m. next morning and it was at about 8 a.m. when the first dolphins were sighted. Of course, I was still in slumber land when they appeared. Thankfully, there were a few more sightings during the trip when I was wide awake, including one occasion when four or five individuals rode our bow wave for a few short seconds, to whoops of delight from several of us.
Our first dive was at a World War II Japanese wreck sitting upright in about 23 m of water off a small vegetated mound with a lighthouse, called Pulau Varella (reminds me of Pulau Jong in Singapore). Having only dived in Singapore before this, I was naturally thrilled by everything around me, from the 18-20 m visibility, to the abundant and diverse marine life concentrated around the wreck. The highlights for me included seeing a barramundi cod, moray eels, huge blue-ringed angelfish and porcupinefish. The guns of the boat are clearly visible and make for interesting, if not "touristy", photography.
The next two dives were on Jubilee shoal itself. On the surface, both sites could be described similarly as being "in the middle of nowhere" - there was no land in sight. Below the surface, the terrain was flat with the depth at about 15 m. Coral was distributed in patches and mounds of various sizes in all directions. On one of these dives, we were amazed to encounter a large stingray (more than a metre long), with its tail missing, being followed closely by an equally large cobia (a large predatory relative of the remora or suckerfish). Michael told us later that it is not uncommon to find stingray tails, barbs and all, in the stomachs of cobias.
Dive number four was a night dive back at the Pulau Varella wreck. The nocturnal fauna was absolutely incredible! (Yes, yes…it’s my first night dive too). The sea fans and feather stars were crawling with small crabs and shrimp that hide during the day and there were also a good number of fish that aren’t seen during the day. We also came across a metre long box fish or puffer which, like many of the fish here, didn’t seem to be afraid of us. Sea urchins were out in force, which was the one slight discomfort about this dive (and most night dives on coral reefs, I’m told). The best thing about this dive, however, was the hot mug of coffee that greeted us on the boat after that!
Sunday saw us diving at two other wrecks, "Kapal Timur" or "East" wreck (about 27 metres deep) and Rompin wreck (about 21-23 metres deep). Wow! Saw my first shark!…..well, actually, saw the tail of a shark….actually it was a pretty small catshark hiding in a low crevice with only the tail clearly visible. Oh well, better than nothing. Other highlights for me include seeing a school of barracuda swimming around the Rompin wreck, large red snappers hiding within the wreck and, later on, a sea snake. I was told that the other group saw a huge Potato Cod right on deck of the upright wreck, "Kapal Timur". Michael brought up a large hammer shell from one of these dives, which when opened, revealed numerous tiny crustaceans including an attractive male/female pair of shrimp. These spend most of their lives sheltered inside such shells picking off scraps of food.
Our last dive of the trip took place at "Bird" Island, a small rocky island just west of Pulau Tioman. This place was less spectacular compared to the earlier sites, with less diversity of fish and coral. The shallow parts (about 9 m) of the reef slope were choked full of branching coral which smothered everything else below it.
We headed back to Endau for a tasty dinner and some cool, refreshing beer before heading back to Singapore. Overall, this was an excellent dive trip for me (obviously!) and pretty good for the more seasoned divers among us (so they tell me). The dive site conditions are good for greenhorns like me to get a first taste of overseas diving, night diving, and wreck diving (without penetration). This is a good weekend run to make, especially with the whole boat filled with our own kakis.
Many thanks to Chen Ping and Philip Loh for organising the trip; Alice and Michael for preparing the delicious meals; and everybody else for making it so enjoyable.
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