100 Kilometers of Kedah Chasing sharks by day and a yacht’s wake at dusk, Marco Ferrarese discovers a few more surprises tucked down the less-visited coast of northwest Malaysia’s Kedah state.
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Photographed by Kit Yeng Chan
Baby blacktip sharks tempt swimmers in the shallows of Pulau Payar. Opposite: A Tropical Charters cruise around Langkawi.
“Stop being a fool or it will bite you.”
clockwise from above: Barracuda send
other sea life scattering in the Coral Garden dive site; making friends; the unspoiled horizon.
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My companion and voice of reason is right: trying to grab a baby blacktip shark by the tail is an act of pure madness. But conformity and safety be damned, for I have never swum that close to such a fearsome but elegant creature before, in the emerald green waters of Pulau Payar, midway between the better-known Malaysian islands of Penang and Langkawi. I’m not crazy, just overcome by temptation. Wherever I wade in this sea, a missile-shaped baby shark comes wriggling its tail in front of my nose, and the game’s on. It zooms forward, circles around the pier’s poles, and then loops back, darting all around me. From the water, the shark looks as if it were an unruly remote-controlled toy with no sense of direction, hell-bent on driving me crazy. The chase is unfair: I have no fins nor the buoyancy of a shark, and every time I get anywhere close to gripping its tail between my fingertips, the creature twists away. Luckily for my tired shoulders, I don’t have to fire off after that particular rocket, because as soon as it’s lost in the deep blue, another mini-shark drifts my way, and I have a new tail to chase.
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After a good half hour of serious paddling, I’m the exhausted loser of this man-versus-wild challenge. Letting the snorkel out of my mouth, I emerge to the placid sea surface, floating and soaking in all the sun I can as if I were a spent battery in need of a solar recharge. I close my eyes, feeling giddy on top of gentle waves that rock me up and down like liquid lullabies. am in Pulau Payar, the bestpreserved marine park on the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia, the largest in a single file of four protected and uninhabited islands— Payar, Lembu, Kaca and Segantang—30 kilometers southeast of Langkawi. With no hotels, it’s a great place to escape the development of other nearby Malaysian beach destinations. Diving and snorkeling here still feel like being lost in a remote paradise. The only way to visit Pulau Payar is as a day trip from either Langkawi or Penang. After a two-hour ferry ride operated by Langkawi Coral from the latter, we are ushered on a floating platform moored off the island, the waiting station for all visitors to the marine park. In a gambit to preserve the reef from global warming, a lifejacket-wearing guide briefs us on the local dos and don’ts.
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“Please do not step on corals, and only swim within the designated areas,” he says looking at each one of us with a serious brow. I’m relieved that attempting to catch blacktip sharks by the tail is not listed among the forbidden activities. The platform has ladders that dip directly into the sea. As soon as we step in, clouds of multicolored fish swarm around our knees, tickling us into taking a plunge into their emerald home. Floating on the water surface above, we get a bird’s-eye view of their submarine city, a cluster of rocks and corals that shape Pulau Payar fish world’s busy highways. The temptation to have a closer look is strong, so we get back on the platform to sign up for a fun dive.
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