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Pulau Tenggol lies in the southern waters off Terengganu. Pulau Tenggol is divers' paradise, especially for folks from nearby Kuala Lumpur and Singapore dry and thirsty for a weekend getaway packed with undersea adventure.

Its deep green waters are protected by a marine park status. The island's rocky terrain extends beneath the surface of the surrounding waters, creating a dramatic canvas for diving.

Pulau Tenggol offers a colorful plethora of dive sites with various flavors to satisfy divers with ranging interests and levels of diving proficiency. Calm coral gardens with their colorful marine life provide an unforgettable experience for beginning divers. More experienced divers can pump up the adrenaline doing dives in farther, more demanding sites such as the affectionately named 'Fishbowl' and 'The Highway', where strong currents, deeper waters and pelagic prevail.

Best way to dive is by liveaboard though and we enjoyed a great time on their "flagship" M/V Vincent. This is a large 66 feet x 15 feet wooden-haul dive boat with 3 decks. The lowest deck has 5 cabins (4 twin-share and 1 triple-share) each constructed with a window and air-conditioning. Two hot-shower toilets for common use.

Vincent Divers specializes in weekend Diving to Tenggol, Aur, Tioman, Kuantan wreck, and the Anambas Islands.The food was excellent. The food is western and chinese and our menu included oxtail soup, chicken rice, sashimi, herbal chicken and satay.

We dived at Teluk Air Tawar (Fresh Water Bay), where a healthy mix of both hard and soft corals houses a surprising abundance of marine life. The seabed here slopes gently down from the beach and some 600-ft from shore, a sharp drop to about 90-ft spreads a large field of sloping reef rich in marine life across the bay. We enjoyed a close encounter with one of the resident turtles. You can also chance upon a herd of grazing Humphead Parrotfish in as shallow as a few feet of bay water, swim around and spot dozens upon dozens of colorful nudibranchs, or even barracudas. This calm and sheltered bay has consistently served up surprises, as different types of marine life are encountered at different times of the day or night. The night dives here were particularly gratifying.

Main attraction of Tenggol is Kuantan Wreck. Kuantan Wreck is resting on her port side, at 23m deep. The top of the wreck is at 14m and is easily dived by novice divers. Surrounding the wreck are large wire-mesh fish traps scattered by local fishermen, a telltale sign that the wreck has developed into a reef city and is home to abundance of fishes. Her length is about 80m and she is 10m wide. The propeller is still in tact and quite large. It is covered with growth and its crack is also the home of a baby moray eel.

She carried crude oil when she sunk. The wreck is situated at about 20 sea miles off the coast Kuantan. There are two resident, big, groupers of 1.5m and 1m in lenght, sometime you'll see two leopard sharks, a guitar shark, schooling jacks, bat fishes, barracudas, giant sting Rays, snapper, eels and turtles....!

Tenggol is still a fairly virgin dive area, we didn't see any other dive boats, and obviously there is plenty of marine life to admire.

Whale Shark at Tenggol, by Barbara Phua

Best time for whale sharks sightings are between July-September. But we saw one in February which is quite usual.

The visibility generally between 10m - 30m depending on the tide. The best visibility is between March-June.

To get more information on Vincent Divers, visit their Website...

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