Kampong Tanjong Gemok Sports & Outdoors

It was my first time on a liveaboard - The Beach Boy - and found that it was literally a very MOVING experience *lol*.. the boat was in constant motion, from the Friday night we boarded when there was a blistering hurricane type wind and this single hull 75-footer bore the full brunt of it... oohhh... not good. But apparently there was a hurricane from the Philippines that swirled down our way before making its way up to Japan, so i'm sure that was quite out of the ordinary.

We never actually made it to the Kuantan wrecks (5 hours from the mainland) off the state of Pahang, Malaysia which was our original destination. But we did visit two wrecks off Pekan not so far away - a Japanese World War II fighter plane (broken into 3 pieces but both airguns still intact!) and also a cargo ship from the same period.

Then we called upon some islands further south for a further 2 dives as well as a night dive. The night was much calmer as we came in to a secluded bay out of the wrath of the open South China Sea.

The next day we sailed on down to Tioman Island off the state of Johor, Malaysia... but we didn't manage to dive the Sawadee wreck (and so my miserable attempt to take my PADI Wreck Specialty Adventure Diver certification never happened) due to the whole site being invaded by jellyfish...

So we moved to some other islands and dived some really beautiful sites with wonderful healthy coral, e.g. Tiger Reef, Bird Temple Reef and Bird Temple. Beautiful!!

Equipment: There are quite a few liveaboards in Malaysia. The ones I've heard of are the MV Grace, MV Kaleebso, MV Midas, MV Scuba Explorer, The Divemaster I, The Beach Boy, The Dream Voyager etc. and they generally cruise all around Malaysian waters, although some stick to certain areas only, e.g. MV Midas in Langkawi.

The Beach Boy is a single hull 75-footer vessel and was generally comfortable. Hearing the other old-timers compare it to other liveaboards I gathered that the pros for the Beach Boy is that it had a good water supply and clean toilets, hot water showers, and good, efficient boat crew led by Captain Ah Kee. Apparently the Kaleebso, one of the most popular Malaysian liveaboards, has a much better cooked and variety of food. Accomodations are in doubles, triples, quads and family size (fits 5 people). Toilets are round by the side of the boat, so if u wake up in the middle of the night in a storm, it's pretty miserable to get out there. But when the weather's good, it's all good.

I found liveaboard diving to be very efficient and a great way to pack in lots of dives in a short amount of time. We made 7 dives in 1 and a half days, could've been more but we travelled to dive sites that were pretty far away from each other.

Also, you may want to think about seasick pills. It was funny. I never get seasick but the morning after the hurricane i felt pretty bad so i took a pill, and within a minute i threw it all back out so... so much for that!! I immediately felt better though... and then we went down for a dive and got rid of that rocking feeling and after that, it was home free!!!