Dive Malaysia

If you are travelling before or after the monsoon (End October-March) you have the islands of Tioman. Redang and Perhentians to choose from which are all great places to dive and plenty of dive schools to do the course with.

You could also do it in Penang or Langkawi but the diving is not up to much there.

If you have a little time, definately go to Sipadan in Borneo, I have dived in Oz, Honduras, Costa Rica, and Kenya, but this definately tops the bill for me!! You would need to fly to Tawau (but this would be cheap with Air Asia), and then transfer to Semporna (the town base for the diving), but it is definately worth it!! There is a really good company there called Scuba Junkie, who I would reccomend highly, and they have courses running all of the time, there are other companies there too.

I'd second post 2, if you get the chance head over to Sipadan it's genuinely one of the worlds top ten dive spots! Also plenty of muck diving to be had on the other islands in the area. I spent a few days diving with Scuba Junkie last year and they're a good outfit. If you do go for this I'd recommend getting in touch with Scuba Junkie as far in advance as to dive Sipadan itself you need a permit of which only a limited number are available a day.

If you stick to peninsula Malaysia and you're outside of monsoon season then yes, Tioman and the Perhentians would be a really good place to do your course., Not so sure about Redang although to be fair I don't have too much experience of it. I found with Tioman it gets really busy at the weekends with Singaporeans: no bad thing but something to be aware of.

Just for diving you could try Tenggol: fantastic place, all there is there is a couple of dive resorts and a white sand beach. I don't think either do courses although I could be wrong.

Thanks for the advice people.

I intend on diving the Perhentians however I 've had mix reports about when the rainy season will hit that area. I'm currently in Penang where it's lashed it down all day, however it rained real hard in Phi Phi before I left Thailand. Could you advise?!?

Cheers
Si

We go to Redang, which is not far from Perhentians, every year at this time (will be there next Tuesday for 2 weeks) and the weather is usually OK with perhaps rain late afternoon early evenings sometimes, but with global weather the way it I think it is a matter of luck what you get.

I think the weather is OK in Redang at the moment apart from afternoon thunderstorms which is normal for the region anyway.

Just go to Perhentian anyway as even if it is raining it will not be for the whole time(hopefully)!

id say go to PERHENTIAN ISLANDS MALAYSIA. Its really beautiful and a great places to do courses as the class sizes are usually small. i dived with sunlight divers which was awesome! I did my advanced there and a few people made the rescue which looked really fun!

im there now. perhentain: the weather is good. should be open until end of Oct.