Redang Trip - Day 2

8 June 2011 ( Day 2)
Mum woke us up at 6am, planned to catch the sunrise but it was drizzling! So we slept back again. 6.30am, Mum came rushing into our room and asked us to go out immediately! Without cleaning up, we ran out to the beach, saw the sun slowly beaming out from the back of an island...

The beauty of the scenery could only be felt at the actual scene. No words could best describe my feelings at that moment. And to our amaze, while the sun was arising, we heard someone shouted "Rainbow" from afar. We tilted our head back, and there it is, a perfect semicircular rainbow ran across the sky!

It was a rare opportunity for me as I had never see a perfect ray of rainbow like this in the hectic city! Normally, the rainbow would be partially blocked by blocks of buildings in the city! The moment was really perfect cos you could see both sunrise and rainbow being opposite to each other! But it only last for a few minutes :( So we must always cherish the exact moment! and capture the right opportunity! :D

7am, breakfast time! After breakfast, we assembled at the Recreation Centre at 9.00am, prepared for our 2nd snorkeling session at the sea! This time we would be heading to Marine Park Centre! Sat on the boat, off we go again! A few minutes later, we arrived at the destination. Met the person who told us about baby sharks( I actually forgot his face until he called me lol )who named Faldi when we got down the boat. He asked us if we saw the sharks haha! Then, we continued walking across the jetty. Upon crossing, I looked into the sea water and OMG! There were lots and lots and lots of fishes down there! The water was so clear that you can see every single of them! Colourful and in groups! Couldn't imagine how excited I was the moment I saw it!

"Take nothing but photos, leaves nothing but footprint" That was what the guide told us during briefing. Then, without further ado, we jumped into the cooling water and swim with the fishes! Collected some breads who were thrown by other people and fed the fishes! I found that one kind of fish love to eat bread the most ...called Sergeant Fish.

Sergeant Fish
Image from web

You could see a whole school of them coming to you when you are holding a bread! By the time would be the chance for you to touch them! And I actually had fun cheating their feelings by letting an empty hand(without any bread) out to them, and they actually got hooked! muahaha *evil smile* We spent quite a long time snorkeling around that area...couldn't find dad n mum cos they went on their own way. Then, Joo and me went to the toilet...we saw the protected area for turtle eggs near the beach when we were heading back to the sea. In the end, we found dad n mum and they told us there were many nice corals at the deeper area near the jetty. So we went there for the 2nd time(we were blocked by a guard on our 1st attempt earlier on, cos he said the current there was strong). True enough, the corals there were really really nice! And we saw many big fishes enjoying their time near the corals! Saw a big bumphead fish with some tiger stripes too! The quantity of the fishes at the deeper area were lesser, but the fishes were bigger in size! We only spent quite a short time at the deeper parts and it was time! So we decided to swim to the jetty instead of the shore cos we were nearer to it. But I was too busy snorkeling while swimming and by the time I lifted my head up, I realized I was swimming towards the shore but not the jetty, both of my sisters were reaching the jetty already! =_= Thus I continued to swim towards the direction of the shore, got up there and walked across the bridge to the jetty to meet up with the rest. Then, there we go again, back to Redang Bay Resort!

12pm, we went for lunch break like yesterday. 2.30pm, we were readied for our last snorkeling trip at the open sea! This time we were "released" at the "real" open sea, as in it was far from the shore this time! We went down right into the Deep Blue Sea. It was really quite deep here. And WOW AMAZINGLY AWESOME! The corals and the fishes, SPECTACULAR!  First special thing we encountered was when Joo pointed to me a few ball-liked blue glowing coral, and when looked carefully, there were some green ones too! According to another Chinese tourist nearby us, there were lots of soft corals here! Indeed, I saw lots of corals swagging in the sea. Unlike the hard coral, there all just stand still. I was too excited and shouted to my dad and told him to see the blue glowing coral! Perhaps I was too loud, I grabbed a lifeguard(Hafiz)'s attention...he shouted towards us:"Christmas Tree!" indicating that the corals we were seeing are Christmas Tree! Amusing ha! And ohh...we saw something like Sword Fish swimming just right under the water surface! It was semi-transparent! There were quite a lot of them...after research...found that there are called Half Beak Fish!

Needlefish (top) and halfbeaks at the Marine Park Centre.
Image from web

I was too excited once again. Asked Hafiz, who was still guarding nearby whether the fish will poke? And he actually bluff and said yes! =_= Letting out an evil smirk some more! tsk tsk Then he actually dived in and took a sea cucumber up for us lol. And to eat the sea cucumber, we need a plate! So he dived down again to get a "plate" for us! It was a pink-coloured coral with body full of thorns, in a bowl shape. After that, we saw him attempting to catch "Nemo Fish aka Clown fish" but failed. So me and my sisters continued with our snorkeling session. After a while, Hafiz approached us, let out a life jacket and asked us to hold it, then asked if we wanna go "jalan-jalan". I was like huh pergi mana? Wonder if there's some secret places within this blue sea? Or maybe he wanna bring us to the shore which is so far away? Ended up he brought us swam around that area! We snorkeled while we hold on to the life jacket, while Hafiz hold another end of it, dragging us with him. It was much faster and easier with him pulling us. So there we went, away from the rest of the people snorkeling near the boat! There were a school of black fishes, some colourful small fish(where I named it the flapping fish) cos of it's bird-like flapping pectoral fin! Really cute the way it flap! Like some flying glowing fish! There were lots of pretty corals, and 3 of us was really AMAZED by this one!

Christmas Three Worm
Image from web

Hafiz actually dived in to touched it. The thing that shocked us was, when it was touched, it actually retracted into the hole! And after 3-4 secs it came out again! And I really love their wonderful colour. At first, we thought Hafiz was kidding when he said these corals are Christmas Tree, but after researching, it is really known as the Christmas Tree Worm! And it's ONE of the MOST AMAZING DEEP SEA CREATURES!We swam back to the boat area and Hafiz brought us back for the 2nd round! How nice of him! People actually need to pay extra to get a personal guide! lol But we had Hafiz for FREE! haha sounds bad but I must said it was really nice to know him, a person full of nonsense humour! :D

Oh forgot to mention that a personal lifeguard of a Chinese lady actually caught a Nemo fish and showed us! Really cute! He took a sea cucumber as well and when we squeeze it, it actually splashed out some water haha!

It was almost time to board the boat. But me and my sis insisted to show mummy the Christmas Tree Worm. So we swam as fast as we could even though the guards were whistling on the boat! Mum and me actually doubted if we should give up cos it was quite far. But since we were already half way there, we decided to go for it, cos it might just be the ONLY CHANCE! And yay mummy saw it in the end, but didn't see it retract though! A lifeguard swam to us and brought us back to the boat in the end! Haha we were the last to board it! :/ But it doesn't matter, we felt contented!

Back to the resort, had our tea break. And it was leisure time again! We decided to go to the Shark area to snorkel again, this time with daddy n mummy! The sun was still hot so daddy n I wanted to rest at the hammock area while the rest went for snorkeling first. Soon, the sun was setting down and Joo came and asked us to join them at the sea. This was our 2nd time snorkeling at the shark area. Joo told me the guard there was really friendly and he brought them to find the baby sharks, and she was so happy cos this time she saw it! And not only one shark , but 4 or 5! This time we went the other way so that we won't hit the coral area and got cut again. And I saw 3 of them this time! The sharks were like the gangster among those small fishes, swimming gracefully with a sense of awesome dignity. We actually had fun chasing them though haha!

Blacktip Reef Shark
Image from web

The fish that bit me when I feed it!
Image from web

It was nearly dark so we headed up to have our last dinner. It was BBQ dinner this time! The food prepared were awesome, including lamb(the tastiest), beef, chicken, sambal fish, hotdog, meatball... It was the most scrumptious meal we had there! After our dinner, it was drizzling a bit but we insisted on going for a night walk. Fortunately the rains stopped after a while. We walked passed a souvenir shop at other resort and bought some stuffs...then we walked to other resorts such as Redang Beach, Laguna, Redang Reef Resort...The nightlife here was pretty peaceful except that there were some stage performance and disco going on at certain places. Another discovery that surprised us was spotting the Blue Sand! You can only spot it at the front beach of Redang Reef Resort! We saw many people gathering there searching for something and found out it was blue sand! Just swept softly at the surface of the sand and you may seek a tiny sand glowing in blue colour! It was only 1-2mm in size, and it's actually a live creature! How cool!

After that, daddy mummy read newspaper at Laguna Resort's lobby. 3 of us went to the stage area, sitting down at the bench, looking at the sky full of sparkling stars, enjoying the music sang by some singers there. Well, I wasn't enjoying that much though, my limbs were seriously itchy at the moment! So I asked my sisters to go to the hammock there and relax a while then go back. Along the way, we passed a Night Disco. The DJ was asking everyone to join in so we did the same. We formed a circle with the rest of the participants on the sandy beach, and sing along with the song 浪花一朵朵...we danced along and ran towards the middle of the circle as the DJ said so. It was really a fun moment to experience something like this! Then, we headed to the hammock area to chill a while and I decided to go back because I was really uncomfortable with my itchiness! Went back to the room and had a freaking hot bath to kill my itchiness. Felt much better. I also took out my plaster to have a look at my injury, the cut I got while snorkeling at the shark area yesterday.

My finger actually shrank till this state due to long hours of soaking in water. Went to sleep after then. Till then.

End of Day 2. To be continued...