Marine Conservation Park

By this time the dazzling fireball of a sun had evaporated all the remaining clouds that hadn’t fallen in the storm last night and the sky was a brilliant blue without any cover. At 10am we finally reached the jetty and as the six boats queued up to drop us off at the jetty, we patiently amused ourselves watching the many schools of yellow and black fishes that swam close to the boat under those crystal green waters that defined all the shallower areas of the sea.

After roaming about the tiny conservation park located on the shore of the small island, -if it could be called a park, being composed of less than ten wooden huts, of which one is a marine lab, one is an education centre with no doors and the rest are changing areas, toilets, cafes and rest pavilions- we decided to head right out into the waters in order not to waste any of the one and a half hour given to us to explore this conservation centre which was truly all underwater.

Harry spotted us again as we neared the beach and came over.

“You guys want to follow me again?” He offered, holding up a big float as the day before.

“Sure!!” We both agreed gaily, in unison. It was only with a guide that we’d dare venture beyond the crowded areas where the rest of the tourists were disturbing the waters too much for even the fish to swim properly, much less us.

Unfortunately today, the moment we hit waters waist-high, a middle-aged woman with her 3 children picked up on the secret and sought out the guide like a hit-man, and assassinated our plans.


“Mr. Guide, can you bring us along as well?” She insisted and immediately helped herself to a prime spot of the float while arranging her children around her before waiting for an answer.

After all, Harry was an employed snorkeling guide and could not do other than to comply with hotel guests’ wishes, so he promised to bring me out later after he has first shown these customers around the jetty first. However, there were too many of us to hold onto the float all in a bunch, so Cherlyn decided that she would wait out the short trip and at this time, another young Malay man, dressed in surf shorts and no life jacket that we presumed to be another member of the resort staff appeared and whisked Cherlyn off with him.
 
As I frantically called out to her, Harry reassured me, “Don’t worry, your friend is with an experienced guide like me,” and being nothing I could do about it, I complied and let him bring the mother hen, her chicks and me out to sea.
 
The marine park was a shallow area, being only 10 to 15feet at the deepest. At the shallowest, our stomachs were barely afloat above the corals; hence it was also the place where the most interaction between fishes and snorkeling humans can be achieved, and also the greatest detail into the holes and caves of the corals can be investigated.
 
Large schools of silver pomfrets swam and reflected off the sunlight en masse like a huge mirror as they appeared from below the shadows of the bridge linking the jetty to the mainland. Other schools of yellow and blue diamond-fishes thronged around the humans in order to get a bite of the bread that they knew would be delivered to them everyday at this time. Although the park received hundreds of tourists a day, it was still beautifully conserved as a fine of twenty-thousand Ringgit was imposed on anyone who removed anything alive or dead from all the reefs around Redang Island.
 
After visiting a large moray eel, the color of soot contrasted with a brilliant delineation of fire-red on its dorsal and pectoral edges, we headed back towards the beach to drop-off our passengers. Then we headed out to sea again, this time heading far left towards open water. There we encountered less people but along the way, we picked up a group of four giggling girls in bikinis of various shades of pinks. As there was not enough space on the float for four adult girls, I held the hand of the one who was wearing a white and pink bikini.
 
We visited a palace of gray rocks decorated with golden and brown corals, where a school of steel-green diamond-fishes swarmed us for food. Stretching out my hand to touch them as they were clearly not shy of humans, I was nipped at by two of these bold swimmers. I quickly withdrew my hand, shocked but very amused at being able to finally admire all these beautiful sea creatures, inches away from my face.
 
Edging away from that rock, we were at the deepest area of the park, just beside the buoy line marking the deep blue sea beyond, whereby the guide had prior warned, in his broken English, “Got big fish, sharks, alligators… and monsters there! So don’t go out.” Harry signaled to me to hold onto the buoy line and the float and then he disappeared below to pick out a large round ochre-colored rock about the size of a football. As he surfaced and turned it around, I was surprised to find that it was actually a starfish! It was a cushion-star, seemingly embedded into a large rock like a fossil, but the whole was really a rock-hard starfish.
 
“Want to play ball?” Harry asked, and threw the cushion-star to me underwater.
 
I caught it and passed it onto the other girls and we passed the cushion-star back and forth, the objective being to catch it before it sunk too deep into the ocean and beyond our reach unless we dived after it. We got bored quickly though and decided to move on.
 
Harry found a sea cucumber that had blue-ringed short rounded tentacles on its sides and dived to grab it for us. By this time, I was pretty uninterested in sea cucumbers as I’d seen tens of them from yesterday’s swim around the hill, and they all moved sluggishly and had no other activity, so they were extremely easy to just reach down and grab. The girls screeched as I handed it over to them, squeezing the water out from the jet-hole in one end, and they happily watched it sink downwards as none of them had caught it.
 
It was time to drop off these new passengers for we’ve reached the extreme left of the enclosure, so we left them at a shallower area and moved on in search of the shipwreck on the right side of the bay.
 
Finally I was left alone with Harry and to reach the shipwreck, we had to pass by the jetty once again. There, I encountered the cameraman and was told to pose underwater without my life-jacket. So I removed it and posed for my only underwater photographs, as my camera was not waterproof.
 
When I re-surfaced after the shot, I was surprised to find that Harry had in the mean time, packed up my life jacket and placed it on the float.


“Can you swim?” He asked.

“Yes.”

With that, Harry held my hand and we set off again, the float only serving as a little boat for my jacket. In this way, we covered distances much faster as both of us swam easily now, the jacket being afloat was too cumbersome and large to allow for proper swimming. We reached the shipwreck quite quickly and climbed over the top of the ship which had once really sailed the seas.
 
The ship was really just a small metal fishing boat. It had sunk and stuck its bow into the white sands below, jutting out at an angle of about 80 degrees vertically, and lying on its starboard side. The years had corroded its sides exposing various sized holes that allowed the sunlight to stream into the boat and stimulated an explosion of coral growth within. Two of the holes were large enough to peek into, and I was astonished to find a most beautiful garden within.
 
Small bright pink hard corals competed with their purple counterparts as well as yellow, orange and white flowers sought my attention, absorbing me into their splendor as they formed the most interesting wallpaper on the sides of the ship’s interior. Harry motioned for me to climb over to the other side and enter the ship. The corals here are so numerous and colorful that I’d completely forgotten about the fishes until a few brightly blue and yellow anthias came out from their camouflage behind the colorful corals and shot past my goggles. Combined with the stream of sunlight let in through the holes, it was magical. I felt like I was on an adventure to discover a lost ship, perhaps as exciting as when search-divers first entered the Titanic.
 
Fueled by my active imagination and the many movies that supplied it, I half-expected to come upon full sets of skeletons, the remnants of the sailors that had met such misfortune; fortunately they were not there.
 
In this parts, none of the other tourists had gone so far out as the guides had warned that due to the storm last night, dangerous water currents might still bring us out to sea beyond the shipwreck if we were to venture close. After exploring the interior of the ship briefly, Harry then brought me out and we headed back towards land.
 
Along the way, we came upon a large tunicate coral where giant clams were occupants of its sides. Since I was not wearing my life jacket, I was invited to dive down and touch them. They closed ever tighter and I was childishly delighted for a moment. Small clumps of yellow hard corals had begun to grow on the sandy areas and a large baby shark-like fish prowled the white sands. We quickly swam away and reached the beach on the far right of the island, away from the crowds.
 
On the beach, I scanned the seas in search of my cousin, but Harry noticed her heading back towards even further right of the beach.
 
“There! Cherlyn is over there. They have skirted that hill over there.” He pointed to a miniature version of the hill that we’d skirted the day before, which was located beyond the shipwreck.


I handed over my life jacket and goggles and stood on the beach to await Cherlyn. I couldn’t wait to ask her what she had seen as we were separated for the first time while snorkeling.

“Elaine! I’m so tired!” Cherlyn exclaimed the moment she spotted me further up the beach.


“So am I, but I’m so fascinated that I could perhaps go on until the sun sets!” I shouted back.

“Where did you go?” I asked her as she fell in beside me, and together, we walked after the guides, towards the shower rooms to wash off the sea water.

“He brought me out over the buoy line in search of turtles and not finding any, we went to skirt that hill,” Cherlyn grimaced and continued, “That stupid guide also made me stop and stand on the taller corals to rest. Those things are so sharp that I must have a thousand cuts on my soles by now!”
 
“Luckily I didn’t have to rest. I always signaled ok whenever Harry asked.” I exhaled relief. “What do you mean you went over the buoy line?” I questioned, alarmed.
 
“He said there were turtles out there and that it would be okay if we were just a little away from the line. We didn’t go too far and there was nothing but the deep blue sea out there so we came right back pretty quickly.” Cherlyn replied with a hint of disappointment.
 
“Okay, how was the hill? Was it interesting?” I tried further to extract delight from her.
 
“Not much, exactly like what we saw yesterday evening. Actually it wasn’t even as exciting, because there weren’t any sharks or squids or eels. Did you see any eels, by the way?” Cherlyn said, becoming even more down, as the briefing had clearly indicated that eels were to be found.
 
“Yes. I saw a large one, and one yesterday too, did I tell you? Wow! They’re huge!” I exclaimed and turned inwards to visually remember the magnificent snakes.
 
“Lucky you, I haven’t seen any. I like Harry better, he showed us so many things yesterday and he didn’t keep making us rest. I hate standing on corals barefeet!” Cherlyn complained forcefully.
 
By then, we had reached the shower-room, had a quick wash and were out to collect our belongings from Harry before boarding the boat and returning to Laguna Resort once again. This time, we were invited to climb to the roof of the boat on the journey back. As we passed by a beautiful beach, we saw three sea turtles swimming across underneath our boat. The boat stopped to allow everyone onboard a look and all were audibly amazed.
 
Despite the distortion caused by the ripples of waves, we could see the large turtles about the size of a small coffee-table each, swimming gracefully and leisurely beneath the clear green waters of the ocean. Apart from identifying them as the famous sea turtles of Terengganu though, we were disappointed to realize that we could not see any details at all. However, a look is better than none, and we were quite contented to continue our way back to the hotel for a much-awaited lunch.