Pulau Tenggol, Dungun

- June 03, 2016

Pulau Tenggol has been promoted quite aggressively by our Malaysian Tourism since 4 years ago. The result is quite successful to attract our local citizen to make their visit on this beautiful island. Pulau Tenggol is located off Dungun Jetty. The nearest airport is Kerteh Airport which at this moment only Malindo Air will fly to this airport. From Kerteh to Dungun is only need less than 30 minutes. As for other local aviation companies will only land at Sultan Mahmud Airport, Kuala Terengganu which needs at least an hour to reach Dungun.

You may need to take a 45 minutes boat ride to Pulau Tenggol. You are advice to book in advance with the resort that you are going to stay on this island first before you visit. The reason is there is no public boat or ferry to take you to this island. All the boats at the jetty are resorts' respective private boats.

There are 3 resorts on this island only and only able to find two resorts in the website and another one I am wondering if there are still operative. Due to lack of choices, prices can be less competitive and not really a lot to compare. During my visit on this island, I chose Tenggol Island Beach Resort because their price is relatively cheaper than another resort which is known as Tenggol Coral Beach Resort. However, that is the big mistake that I have made which had ruined my whole trip. I will briefly explain it to you further below.

Some of the facts that you should know about Pulau Tenggol. As you can see during the day, surprisingly there are no one coming out for snorkeling. This is because there are irritating sand flies lurking by the beach during the day looking for human to sting. They are more annoying than mosquitoes. You are only able to be out for a walk by the beach at night. No restaurants here so you have to dine at your own resort. You can see baby sharks when you are snorkeling by the beach itself which is very awesome and the corals here are still very well preserved.

These are the dive sites at Tenggol Island. There are people who are able to see a baby whale shark here! It is highly depend on your luck but definitely not with Tenggol Island Beach Resort.

One of the main thing about this island here is their corals are still remain very beautifully intact.

I heard from the dive masters working here told us that one of the popular dive sites which is known as Amazing Grace has been fully destroyed by illegal Vietnamese fishing boat last year. Their fishing net was left underwater because stuck on the corals. Malaysian Coast Guards should really take care of our boundaries well to avoid such thing happens again.

The other favorite site is this house wreck which is sunk just in front of the beach with 25 meters deep.

You can spot some giant barracuda here.

The big problem with Tenggol Island Beach Resort is their service. From the land transfer service to diving itself. The driver which is known as Jack has the worst attitude with reckless driving without even bother the safety of the passengers in his vehicle. Just when I thought that is worst enough, after I went diving with them, it just got worsen. Can you see the amount of divers in the picture? Yes, there are 8 divers and with only 1 dive master. How ridiculous can this be?

Only 3 out of 8 with AOW certification and the dive master is taking everyone to 30 meters deep. PADI needs to take a good look on this issue and retract their license if possible. The resort just broke 2 major rules which the first is having more than 4 divers under one dive master or instructor. Second, for taking Open Water licensed divers more than 18 meters depth.

Due to having too many divers with only one dive master, our dive sites are basically all the same with lots of beautiful corals. super clear water and with not much attractive sea creatures to see.

The best you would enjoy is the clownfish. For your information, all these sites we were brought to are all snorkeling sites. One thing I do not understand is the resort has 2 dive masters but they only use one until when there are 13 divers were going to dive, then only they have 2 dive masters to follow.

The dive master purposely chose all the super clear water dive sites for easy observation over all the divers. So basically, he rarely spot any special fishes to us except this.

A tiny lobster under the sea cucumber. Yes, that's the only thing he did pointed out to us throughout 5 dives.

As for diving price, it does not comes cheap. RM85/dive without any equipment rental. Tenggol Coral Beach Resort is about the same price but Tenggol Island Beach Resort got a cheaper diving course package rate. However, the point is with the same amount of money that you have to pay for fun dive, you are required to change your own tank, setup your own gear, carry your own tank to the boat and clean your own gear. Pulau Perhentian got a cheapest diving rate which is only RM65/dive inclusive equipment rental and they are willing to help you carry the heavy tank for you to setup your gear. I cannot accept when they have to make female divers to carry their own tank all the way to the bench to change. This is an absolutely horrible service.

There is nothing wrong with the island and the sea. They are stunningly beautiful but when you are having a trip with such a resort, everything is ruined for you. You would wish to end the trip immediately.

Due to our dive master is not function-able to show us around, so we hunt the sea creatures ourselves. We tried to make a good dive out from the worst. All the below are the fishes that we spotted ourselves.