LOCATION:
Chebeh Island is located to the northwest of Tioman. The island is basically the northernmost island that makes up the Tioman archipelago. Dive boats will take about 30 minutes to get here from Salang, or slightly more if you are departing from Tekek or Air Batang. This particular dive site is on the eastern portion of the small island of Chebeh.

DESCRIPTION:
This was truly an amazing and unforgettable dive for me. For the first time since being certified as a PADI scuba diver, Chebeh offers the best visibility that I have encountered thus far in Malaysian waters.

There was barely any noticeable current despite the choppy water surface. I descended to about 20 meters and the whole dive was at about 15-25 meters. The visibility was amazing, I estimated to be about 20-30 meters, which was comparable, if not better, with my recent dive at Nusa Menjangan in Bali.

The main highlight here definitely goes to the infinite garden of gorgonian sea fans, of varying colours of course. Most of the sea fans are of white in colour, but I did see some variations such as light pink, blue, milky green and rusty red. I barely could concentrate on one photography spot because the next cluster of gorgonian sea fans seemed to be better than the other. Indeed, I had a field day with my camera.

There were other types of soft coral too, though somewhat less spectacular, but still worth mentioning. I saw various colours of dendronephthya soft corals, yellow pore coral (Porites lutea), green staghorn (Acropora sp), whip corals (that looks like dead branches, but don't get fooled, they are still corals), sea anemone, etc.

Among the fish that I encountered were various damselfish, a "friendly" teira batfish (Platax teira), a rare  and elusive six-banded angelfish (Pomacanthus sexstriatus), and a one-metre long great barracuda at some height above me, as if it was patrolling the area.

Before I forget to mention, the dive master brought us through a number of swim-through among the many large boulder rocks, just for fun I guess. Overall, this dive at Chebeh was simply memorable and highly recommended to avid scuba divers who come to Tioman.

MY RATING: