Snorkeling in Marine Park @ Redang Island (Episode Two)

Part two of my snorkeling in Pulau Redang and this time, we shall be on our way to the protected Marine Park [this is kind of weird as i thought the marine park comprises of a much bigger area, including Redang and Perhentian islands].

While waiting for the boat to set off, we found schools of little fishes surrounding the boats' perimeter! There were literally thousands of them and you are only seeing a small percentage. 

Passing by an island en route to the marine park; it's easy to recognise this island due to a rock shaped like a head. It also happened to be one of our snorkeling destinations which i would cover in another post. 

Twenty minutes was all the boat took to reach the marine park; yet another island known as Pulau Pinang. However, we could not disembark as the jetty was used by another ferry.

Waiting for over ten minutes might seem short for many of you but for the bulk of us who could not wait to jump into the water, it was god damn frustrating!

Eventually, the boatmen turned to another disembarkation point a few hundred meters away. A floating jetty! I am not sure if there is any weight limit on these things as there were hundreds of us lining up to get into the island.

It was yet again another round of waiting. Impatience got to me (impatience is my middle name) and i jumped straight into the water after realising how slow the queue is moving!

Ah ha! No wonder the queue was moving like a tortoise; visitors had to get into the waist-height water and this certainly didn't sound good for people who brought along non-waterproof bags and cameras.

After knowing the truth (curiousity is my middle name as well), it's time to begin snorkeling! 

Due to the massive number of tourists descending on to this island, the underwater stretch nearing the main beach had terrible visibility. This area next to the floating terminal was in fact better although snorkeling in seemingly more polluted water is not exactly a good idea.

We swam away from the beach and frankly, were kind of disappointed after hearing from the presenter (at the briefing session) that there were a lot more fishes in the marine park. 

In a way, he was right. We caught sight of fish species as long as our arm but the view of the underwater world was dreary with dead and unexciting corals.

I came to the conclusion that fishes were attracted to this area for a one simple reason.

Food! 

Both of us got bored after half an hour and proceeded to the beach for an exploratory walk. 

Pinang Island is more than a place for snorkeling and has quite a number of landing sites for sea turtles. I would have loved to explore further except for one thing.

There were just too many people snorkeling around the permanent jetty - my interest was piqued.

The above was exactly what i saw when i jumped in. Many many fishy-fishy! 

Most of them were of a species that was also very common in Krabi. 

Depth of the water. Thank god for the invention of life jacket as anything deeper than three meters could be quite frightening for weak swimmers like myself. 

Now, could you guess why there were so many fishes around the jetty? It was truly amazing as they were not afraid of humans at all.

Once again, i confirmed the conclusion i mentioned earlier. 

Non-swimmers were throwing bread into the water from the jetty and it was essentially a fertile feeding ground for any lazy fish! 

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For the first episode, click here!