Diving in Pangkor

by Peter
(Malaysia)

Pulau Sembilan

Diving at Pangkor is not for everyone available anymore. However, it is where I learned diving. Well, not at Pangkor itself. But I guess most of you don't know where Pangkor is. Pangkor is a small island on the west coast of Malaysia, roughly in between Kuala Lumpur and Penang.

Pangkor is not known by most divers. That is not surprising as there is no dive club anymore. But when I learned diving some years ago, there was one. And the place to dive were the Sembilan islands, about 45 minutes by speedboat from Lumut/Pangkor.

Was it any good? I would say yes, I did some 50 over dives there. The main problem is that Pulau Sembilan (not to be confused with Sipadan) is not everyday good for diving. About 10 days a month the water is clear. The rest of the month you can be lucky.

But it is worth to dive here. There's still some good coral left, and despite Sembilan is not a marine park, there's still a good assortment of fish available. Including what? Including barracuda's, white tip- and black tips sharks, seahorses, turtles and leopard sharks to name a few.

Probably the best place is White Rock, a rock with a lighthouse surrounded by coral. This is the best place to find large schools of barracudas hunting.

Around the main island there's a few turtles and surprisingly the local divers who have their own boats and do spearfishing leave the turtles alone. I wrote some more about diving in this part of Malaysia on my own Diving-at-pangkor page.

Feel free to check more about the little Pangkor island in Malaysia