Following last year’s positive experience at Lang Tengah, we made a returning visit to the same island again. After Similan Islands live aboard and the trip to Pulau Sembilan (had good seafood, not so great diving), this is my third diving trip for the year, and that’s 24 dives logged this year. Can’t say I’m complaining. 
arriving at Redang Lang Island Resort’s Jetty
We charted a bus and left KL at around 10pm on Thursday night. After spending a night largely freezing our asses off in the bus and had breakfast at Kampung Cina’s kopitiam, we hopped on the transfer boat, and 45 minutes or so later, we arrived at Paradise.
The fine white sand and crystal clear water always has a way of making the journey worth it.
and here’s a slice of paradise here in Malaysia
After lunch, we started diving. There were 5 dives in two days, and they are:
finally, a photo of us underwater
We were pretty fortunate on our dives and managed to spot leopard shark on two separate occasions. First at Tanjung Terunjuk on day one and again at Karang Baha on our last dives. However, the sharks were pretty shy, and on both occasions swam away before we could approach close enough for a Kodak moment.
By rough estimates, the sharks were at least 8-9 feet in length, and absolutely stunning.
a shy green turtle hiding beneath a boulder
This was also Haze’s first real diving trip, the two leisure dives at Pulau Sembilan she did (and I participated) had visibilities so poor that there isn’t actually any hint of leisure in them.
On these dives, we were blessed with visibilities in excess of 20 meters on all dives except the two occasions when we veered off to the slightly more challenging areas to spot leopard sharks.
those elusive razorfish
At Redang Lang, like most other resorts, food is included, they are edible and very average. Breakfast, lunch, tea, and dinner served at the “canteen” area everyday, and dives are usually scheduled in between meals.
a relative of bad joke eel is found here too
Luckily for Haze and a few others, Redang Lang’s rental gears are all new this year. Often times at budget dive trips the rental gears can be quite… disappointing. This was one of the reasons I bought everything I need sans weight belt and scuba tank.
Lydia making friends with Nemo and family
It was a good couple days of divings. We boarded the bus again on Sunday and left Paradise reluctantly. It was another 10 hours or so before we reached KL (traffic was a bitch, and we made too many stops).
Guess it’s time to plan another trip.
nemo, sea fan, plenty of fish, and this interestingly shaped dead coral.. ermm
James helping out divers taking off their fins before boarding
KY, Haze, Terence, Celine, James, baby and mom, Lydia & the rest
p/s: all photos taken with Olympus E-PL3 with this set of gears.
The biggest appeal of diving to me is the calmness I get when underwater, listening to nothing but the breath that I take and the bubbles flowing out from the regulator, the sense of weightlessness and the ability to move about without restriction in 3 dimension. It is a form of freedom you never get on land.
The magnificent seascape and underwater creatures, well, they are just a huge bonus. While no picture can convey that sense of liberty, here are some underwater pictures I took from various dive sites at Similan Islands.
My gears were Olympus E-PL3 with the underwater housing coupled, Inon UWL 100 & Dome port, and a single Sea & Sea YS-01 external flash.
swim through, Deep Six
I logged 14 dives over 4 days of diving living aboard M/V Vilai Samut operated by Liquid Adventure. (previous year experience here). The boat departs from Khao Lak at night, so night one started before day one. The sites we went to were:
Day 1:
tiny black reef fish atop table coral at West of Eden
We were lucky to have excellent visibility of at least 30-40 meters in more than 70% of the dives, and had at least 20 meters in the rest of the dives too. Comparing with Pulau Sembilan/Lumut’s 5-10 m visibility…
Anyway, I hope you enjoy the pics, and say no to shark’s fins!
giant spiny lobster, night dive at West of Eden
sea snake, Koh Bon
the reef at Koh Bon
clown fish in anemone, night dive at Elephant Rock
an unnerving cuttle fish, night dive at Elephant Rock
lion fish, night dive at Elephant Rock
Dave convincing a lion fish to pose, Richelieu Rock
cleaner shrimps, Richelieu Rock
chevron barracudas, Richelieu Rock
star fish on coral, night dive at Koh Bon
boxer shrimp, night dive at Koh Bon
porcupine fish, Bon Soon wreck
Bon Soon wreck
ghost pipe fish, Bon Soon wreck
Here’s a short video compiled from the video clips I took during the dive trip to Similan Islands. Looks like I’ll need a video light or shoot almost exclusively on shallow water under bright lit condition to make this better.
Most clips were shot with Olympus E-PL3 (except those not underwater, shot with Sony Xperia Arc), using Inon wide angle converter with dome port, no red filter (which I had and probably should have made good use of.. gah!)
Hope you enjoy!
Just got back on another excellent live aboard diving trip at Similan Islands, as with last year, the experience was nothing short of awesome. The photos are now transferring onto the computer and waiting to be processed, in the mean time, here are a couple photos from the trip.
dive buddy Dave in picture, at Koh Bon
Proper blog post on the trip, more photos, and perhaps a video is on the way soon as I get some time to work on them.
moray eel in full view, Koh Bon, Thailand
Back to the office tomorrow, been an awesome CNY holidays away from work, and the dive trip made it so much sweeter.
Hope your holiday was well spent too!
By the time you read this, I’ll be on MV Vilai Samut and diving somewhere near the Similan Islands, and hopefully underwater enjoying a bit of compressed air. (last year’s trip here)
The difference is this time, the good people at Olympus has loaned me the following gears to pair with my E-PL3:
Olympus PT-EP05L underwater casing with UFL-2 flash
That’ll be the original PT-EP05L underwater casing for the E-PL3 and the UFL-2 underwater flash, coupled with a sync cord and a short arm. Together this makes a very compact underwater photography system with picture quality that should rival the much bulkier underwater SLR systems, not to mention at a price that is quite a lot cheaper. (the casing is retailed at around RM 2k, while you can hardly find any SLR UW housings cheaper than RM 5k).
In fact, this is so compact you can essentially operate with just one hand, great for when there’s a current, or that your buoyancy skill is a bit suspect.
all buttons are clearly labeled and quite easily accessed
When considering moving from compact camera system (I also use a Canon S90 with Ikelite underwater casing and a Sea & Sea YS-01 flash) to SLR or 4/3 format, the underwater accessories was always a consideration for me. After a bit of research, I came to like the Oly even more.
They are one of the very few companies that offers complete underwater photography solutions. Check out their underwater accessories page.
Arm, bracket, flash systems, housings, conversion lenses, and even weights. All theses saves a lot of hassles trying to mix and match products from different manufacturers and hoping that it all gels together.
Olympus UW casing with Inon UWL 100 & dome port
the bare Oly casing isn’t really much bigger than S90′s
That being said, the PT-EP05L casing does play well with third party accessories too. I’ll be fitting it with my Ikelite bracket from my S90, and even the Inon UWL 100 & Dome port fits right on the the casing and should give me a very good wide angle coverage. (I put the Sea & Sea flash just as a demo and most likely won’t be using it on actual dives).
Lets hope there are already some decent underwater photos in my memory card by the time you see this. Will post the results soon!
P/S: the dive trip is from 3-8 February and we’ll be on radio silence. I’m gonna miss the Superbowl. Hope you had a great Chap Goh Meh too!
