Snorkeling on Coral Island, Malaysia

One of the popular things to do in Langkawi that we wanted to do was go snorkelling. We had to get up early because to get to Coral Island it’s a 1 hour bus ride and then an hour long ferry ride. We waited at the place where the bus should have picked us up and finally the bus came, 45 minutes late. We thought maybe it wasn’t coming, so Neve and I had walked 2 minutes home because it was hot out and boring. My dad had to run to get us while my mom waited and made sure that the bus didn’t leave without us. The bus driver almost left without us, so my mom had to stand in the doorway.

When we got to the boat station, we all followed a man through the station onto a boat. It was really old and made of metal. It was about 1 hour on there before we got to Coral island. We had to get on another smaller boat, because the big one couldn’t get too close to the shore. Then, we got snorkel masks and lifejackets. We didn’t have to use the lifejackets, but if you use them, you can just float on the surface instead of having to stay floating on your own.

There were lots of colorful fish, some of the fish were rainbow and some were a really pretty blue color. We also really pretty coral, some of which was the color purple and little clown fish swimming in the coral. My mom, sister and I also so these really cool fish that were about 2 feet in length shaped like eels. They blended into the coral so we were lucky to see them. There were no jellyfish in that water, and there was a rope that went all around. They said that outside the rope there were big sharks and other mean fish, so we didn’t go outside it. I was still a bit scared that there could be big sharks inside the rope, but there weren’t any. There were smaller sharks, maybe a foot and a half long. I saw at least 5 of them. They just swam around, they didn’t bite anyone.

On the beach, the snorkel people were selling fish food and we watched some people feed the fish. It was really cool, the fish would all crowd around and I even got to touch some of the fish. They’re really fast, so it’s easier to touch them if they’re all crowded together. I don’t think we were supposed to touch them, but I think it’s okay as long as we don’t touch the sharks.

We got to snorkel for 3.5 hours and then we took the ferry and the bus back. I got a huge sunburn on my arms and my legs that really hurts, but other than that it was really fun.

In the evening, we were watching a movie and we heard sirens outside. We looked, but it was just a few police cars driving around. They were announcing something with speakers, but we don’t speak malaysian so we had no idea what they were saying.
15 minutes later, we started smelling something like diesel and then some gas stuff started leaking in through the windows of our cabin. We went outside and there were people in gas masks and hazmat suits spraying gas stuff around the houses and the field. They told us that they were fumigating for mosquitoes and that it wasn’t safe for us to be outside during it. We couldn’t go back inside because it was in there too, so we walked into town and got gelato.

When we went back home, it still smelled weird inside so we turned on the fans and sat outside for a bit. I hope that they don’t do it again while we’re here.

SophieRead more