Watercolours Dive Centre Blog

Turtle watching is even more popular on the islands this year. Snorkelling boat operators have been swimming down and grabbing turtles to bring to the surface for snorkellers to see. Tourists are holding on to the turtles, or swimming so close to them and stopping them from coming to the surface for a breath of air.

If you book on a snorkelling trip and this happens then please show your dissatisfaction. And please email me with the details so I can continue to highlight the environmental concerns we have on the islands. The photo below show tourists holding a turtle at Redang Island, but we have seen this happen here all too often too.

In a presentation made at the International Coral Reef Symposium in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Reef Check Executive Director Gregor Hodgson announced that coral reefs in the Indo-Pacific region have largely recovered from the devastating bleaching event that killed up to 90% of corals on some reefs in 1998. He reported that 10 years later, recovery has occurred more quickly and more completely than expected. Caribbean reefs, however, are losing about 3% living coral every four years due to a combination of human impacts.

Read further details here

Getaway is an Australian travel show shown on channel nine. They visited the Perhentians and Watercolours this week to film a few dive sites and around the islands. A big thanks to Chris, Rochelle, Tangles and Nat and the Getaway team for choosing Watercolours to show them around. We had a good time

Congratulations guys on getting a whale shark encounter at Tokong Laut this morning. The grinning divers are Jules, Wid, Petra, Sarah, Jonny and Claudia.