“Pulau Aur? Where’s that?” That’s the response I got from 8 out of 10 friends who asked me where I went for diving last weekend. Well, I’m not surprise at all as Pulau Aur is not very well known among non-divers. In fact, I myself came to know about the island just last year. Kinda ashamed actually. Aur is different from the other islands in Peninsular Malaysia that I’ve been. The hill is made up of rocks & big boulders.
The Diver’s Lodge at Pulau Aur
The chalets of the resort, Diver’s Lodge we stayed at were actually built multi-levelled on rocks. Luckily ours is at the bottom. My friends & I started our journey from KL @ 5.30pm. After our dinner stop @ Ayer Keroh Jejantas, we had a surprised gift – a flat tyre! We’re travelling @ about 120km/hr and luckily we managed to bring the car to the side of the road safely. It was caused by a nail. Trips to Aur for Reef Check survey were always filled with adventures. I knew the last group who went there a month ago had to wait @ a floating dive centre (basically a pontoon where tanks are kept) for more than 2 hours because the tide was too low for them to cross to the resort. Phew… anyways we managed to change the tyre & continue our journey.
We were supposed to arrive at The Jetty @ 11pm to catch the midnight ferry. However, due to the earlier incident, our F1 driver had to put his driving (speeding) skills to test to catch up with the lost time. He was zig-zagging on the estate road with no street lights, in slight rain & light mist. My leg stepped on the imaginary breaks for countless time and I held my breath everytime he swerved a corner! Luckily we’re not underwater where holding breath is a big no no. The call from the ferry operator @ about 10.50pm who threatened that he wouldn’t wait for us didn’t help at all.
Finally we arrived safely @ the jetty @ around 11.30pm. After meeting up with another group of people who’re going for Reef Check as well, all the 8 of us hopped onto the ferry which was already waiting with some passengers (locals of Aur which we later found out) on board. We chit chatted for a while before we hit the sack. The double decker bunk bed was beneath the deck with air-cond. It was surprisingly comfortable, or maybe I was just too tired after the long adventurous night.
Low tide at Pulau Aur jetty at 1130pm
My watch showed 4.30am when our ferry moored. My sleepy eyes were all cleared after I saw the scene in front of me. I didn’t expect the tide to be so low and definitely didn’t expect the big ferry to moor just by the pontoon (floating dive centre). There’s no jetty. Seeing that, I was all prepared to stay on the pontoon for another 2 hours like the last group. But I guess lady luck was on our side because a small boat came by & the boatman asked us to leave our dive gears on the pontoon and grab our other belongings to be transported to the resort, merely 150m away. It’s hard to imagine how one side was deep enough for the ferry to moor & the other side was so low tide where the corals actually showed within the 150m right? I later found out that the channel (between Aur & Pulau Dayang) is V-shaped like a valley. The deepest is actually as deep as 45-50m!
Getting to the resort was no easy task. You might think that 150m is nothing, but first the boatman had to maneuver through the shallow water to as close as possible to the resort. Since the tide was so low, we had no choice but to walk the remaining 50m. We’re like being placed in a minefield half blind folded as we had to walk through the reefs in the dark with only dim lights from the resorts and try to avoid stepping on mines (corals). Do you know that corals are actually animals??!!!
Final challenge was to climb up the stairs to the resort’s first platform. I felt like going through the obstacles of an army camp! We had to lug our heavy luggage up the 45 o wooden stairs. Phew… but we passed! We checked into our room @ around 5am. 4 pax in a room with double-decked queen bed. The rooms are equipped with very basic amenities. I would consider it as quite small for 4 pax. I guess with close to 100% of the guests are divers, rooms are just for the night sleep, so the operator didn’t invest much in the room.
Written by Meun.