Snorkeling the Perhentian Islands, Malaysia

By Rory

Posted January 14, 2014

Snorkeling the Perhentian Islands is one of the most popular reasons to head to these beautiful islands in Malaysia. And on our second day here, that’s exactly what we did.

Snorkeling right off the beach on Kecil Island

These Malaysian islands have some of the best snorkeling around and there are so many great places you can go to take advantage of the aquatic life that surrounds you. Some places are accessible right off the beach while others, it’s helpful to have a boat (unless you’re into swimming ridiculously long distances). Since there are so many places to snorkel on both Kecil and Besar and because locals know all the best snorkeling spots in the Perhentian Islands, we opted to go on a snorkeling tour instead of on our own. And for the cost, at 30 RM (around $15 USD), it was well worth the trip. They were organizing the snorkeling tour directly through our hotel at the Shangri La Resort and we ended up going to 5 separate places on both the Perhentian Islands.

Snorkeling the Perhentian Islands

So what can you expect to see while snorkeling the Perhentian Islands? Well, aside from the all the plentiful fish you’ll see along with some healthy corals, you may come across a few other species. You’ll see reef sharks which are pretty much harmless but very cool to see. You’ll see plenty of manta rays and may even come across an eel like I did. I was swimming over a huge rock close to the surface when a huge green moray eel came up out of its hole directly at me and drove me out of the water. That was not cool and I’m sure it looked hilarious to my tour mates. We were also taken to a beach section on Besar to swim with sea turtles and luckily had found one within just a few minutes. I was able to follow behind this turtle for nearly 3 minutes even as it surfaced for air and it was large, probably two feet with its shell diameter. We were lucky to see one as it is rare to swim with them here and there is a Turtle Preservation and Conservation movement on the island. Believe it or not, only 1 in 1000 turtles survive from birth. For more about the Perhentian islands sea turtle conservation, here is a link to HOPE (Help Our Penyu) which is just one of many volunteer organizations set up for sea turtles. For this fact, it was definitely a pleasure to have been able to swim with them while here.

One of many sea creatures we came across that day…

Overall, our snorkeling trip in the Perhentian Islands was great. It lasted about 5 hours and of course, you can always go snorkeling on your own here right off the beach. To me it seemed the snorkeling was better on Kecil island but that was because it seemed to have twice as many areas to go snorkeling. Should you opt to avoid going on a snorkeling tour, be sure to have a water taxi take you over to romantic beach on Kecil Island. It was our last stop on our snorkeling tour and probably the best. It’s a small secluded beach area and had the clearest blue water I’d seen anywhere along the Perhentians. Romantic beach also had a great amount of fish, corals and sharks that we had seen that day. Just on a side note, be sure to bring plenty of sunscreen for your day in the sun. It seemed most of us were sun burnt before the tour was over and it’s not surprising as you’re spending hours floating around in the water. So hopefully you get a chance to make it to the Perhentian Islands and take a snorkeling tour yourself. It’s well worth it and one of the best snorkeling spots I’ve ever been. Stay tuned for more Perhentian Islands experiences….