Mon 5th August... We'd booked up the snorkelling trip the other day from Coral Bay. 25RM each featuring 7 snorkelling sites around both Perhentian Kecil (small) and Perhentian Besar (big) islands. An early start. Fortunately they were able to pick us up from Mira Beach at 10:15am to take us round to Coral Bay for fitting of fins and mask before heading out to D'Lagoon - our first stop.

We saw some great fish. I think we saw a couple of King Fish on our first dive - rather large shark like fish that zip by. We all saw a huge turtle too! It was on the sea floor when we first came across it (probably having a nap?!), but it soon swam up to the surface for a breather. After that we followed it a long way until it decided it had had enough and slowly, majestically disappeared into the depths below. We later saw a couple of reef sharks too, around (surprise surprise) shark point off the southern end of Perhentian Besar. They didn't hang around for longer than a few seconds though!

A couple of women cutting up King Fish on the beach.

We stopped off at the fishing village for lunch - which, unfortunately, we were to later regret for the next few days! A good snorkelling trip nevertheless.

Tues 6th August... Sick bellies all round for the Daneng Gang!! I awoke in the middle of the night feeling decidedly queasy and had to dash for the loo and chill on the beach for a while. Adrian, Denise and Mette Louisa were similar, except that they went the full hog and were blowing chunks too! Dang, what was going on!? Everyone else at Mira were perfectly ok, so that ruled out the Tuna we'd had the night before. The only other place we'd eaten was at the fishing village! And the only thing that we'd all had was the chips!! Dang, poisoned by chips!! Perhaps it was the fat they were cooked in or something??!

We didn't do a great deal the rest of that day!

Weds 7th August... A trip to Coral Bay (with the Swedish couple). I passed on the shake this time (the stomach really couldn't take it) in favour of tuna and tomato sandwiches - I had to eat something.

I've mentioned before about the impressive lightening storms that can be observed from the beach at night. Well, possibly that evening...

Quite spectacular... a storm is brewing on the horizon.
Unfortunately, this one got a bit too close!

It's a torrentual downpour!
No chance of getting back to the hut in that!
"Dang, I've left my washing out!!"

Everyone else had made it back to their huts.
Our hut wasn't really worth getting back to!
Adrian, Denise and Mette Louisa 'sheltering' in the restaurant... "But we're still getting wet!"

Where Am I ...?

Mira Beach, Pulau Perhentian Kecil (Small Island). Off the north eastern coast of Malaysia in the South China Sea.