I’ve heard of Snorkeling at Langkawi Coral Platform, Pulau Payar for some years by now which I never actually able to plan for one over the years due to pretty busy work schedules. Well, this has changed now recently when my friend told me about their planned trip and asking if my wife and myself would be interested to tag along to the trip.
We visited Langkawi Coral Platform of Pulau Payar Marine Park that are offered by Langkawi Coral, in conjunction of “Travel with a Green Heart Campaign” to Rainforest of the Sea Discovery in Pulau Payar. This is one of the Snorkeling Trip you can make yourself available for, as long as you have a day to spend, trying to break away from the routine city life to rejoin with the Nature over the weekend. You don’t even need to worry on taking leaves from your boss just to have a weekend out to the nature and enjoying the open sea, swimming with the fishes and if you dare, even chance to swim with the sharks. Not having to worry about booking for flight, bus or accommodation as all you need to do is drive to the departure point, park your car with daily rate of RM7 and then just sit back and enjoy the trip. Have I told you that you don’t have to worry about lunch ? The package will includes an International Buffet for lunch on the Platform.
Langkawi Coral Platform – Getting There
Our trip starts at meeting at the pier entrance which is Opposite Fort Cornwallis along Jalan Tun Syed Shed Barakbah ( GPS : 5.419728, 100.344506) which is just near the main entrance of Swettenham Pier at 7:30 to catch the ferry that departing at 8:15am sharp. We met up with our tour guide of the day, Mr. Jabri from Langkawi’s Coral whom briefs us on the trip, tagging us with the wrist band before departing the Ferry by the name ZON2.
A couple of friendly tips.
- Take a light / medium breakfast before you depart. Try not to eat too full if you could easily affected by motion sickness.
- Consume a motion sickness pill at least 30 mins before the departing time after the light breakfast. The ride could get a bit rough if the weather is in favorable in windy on the travel day.
- Do not feel shy to approach a staff if you feel dizziness due to motion sickness and they will takes extra cares on you. (e.g. passing you bags for you know what and also cleaning towels )
There are 2 decks on ZON2 that we travelled on and the view on the upper deck is pretty pleasing to be on if you don’t mind the extra wobbling that caused by the waves. They are TV in the lower deck cabin and also soda / snack on sales after the departure.
Pulau Payar is about 19 nautical miles South of Pulau Langkawi & 32 nautical miles north of Penang Island. The ZON2 we took cruised at about 40 knots and taking about 2 hours to arrive at the Langkawi Coral owned Platform anchored just near the beach.
Langkawi Coral Platform – Activities
We arrived at the Platform at around 10:30am where it was raining heavily but yet we are seeing guests snorkeling in the open water enjoying themselves. I guess what the heck if they could get wet if they are already in the water ha ha. We have then did a small tour on the platforms to better know the place further. There are again separated into 2 decks where the upper deck is not open on the normal time. The platform is taking the guest from both Penang Island and also Langkawi ( e.g. ZON2 continue to Langkawi after we alighted from it ). There are ample tables + chairs to accommodate pretty much of visitors.
So, what you can do next ? there are a few choices
- Just rest on the platform enjoying the environment
- Head over to the lower deck for the underwater observation tunnel if you don’t want to get wet
- Suit up yourself with the provided Snorkeling Mask and Lifejacket for the open water snorkeling.
- Corrective Goggles are also available on request with RM30 deposit and RM20 rental where the normal Goggles are included in the package )
- Just sit and relax at the lowered platform extension on the side if you don’t know how to swim or just want to sit there and feeding the fishes ( You can prepares some breads to feed the fishes.. that is one of the fun thing you can do there )
Well, what I did was to suit up myself for the open water snorkeling (Open water but to be responsible to kept ourselves within the guide line built with floaters, this is for safety as the staffs may not able to react to incident if someone swim away too far out ) as the last I did that was almost 12 years ago at Redang. My wife kind of having phobia with water even with the life jacket and hence she stays on the lowered platform with mk and Mr. Lam having fun with the fishes.
Langkawi Coral Platform – International Buffet Lunch
Langkawi Coral does prepares for the Vegetarian guests with the special request placed upon purchasing the tour package.
The International Buffet is served at 12:30 noon where we returned to the platform around 12noon and got ourselves rinsed with the fresh water available at the end of the platform ( there are also few more bathroom available at the middle of the platform ). There are plenty of foods available for the guests and you can check them out at the picture collage below for them.
Langkawi Coral Platform – Marine Park
After the lunch break, Langkawi’s Coral will starts another service where they will provides boats to ferry you to the Marine Park at the shore where you can enjoy sunbating, snorkeling there, jungle trekking, beach activities. The boat ferries will be running for an hour from 1pm to 2pm. If you do not want to go to the beaches, you can of cause continue to snorkel near the platform.
Few of us chosen to have a short trip away from the platform to the beach, the main reason would be the sharks are mostly to be seen there :P. Mr. Jabri has shared with us his experiences with the sharks and also other fishes in the past including his experience bitten by the shark in his earlier career in the marine park. He has prepare some baits to attract the fishes and sharks which I managed to record it on video.
We had some easy scroll around the beach listening to Mr. Jabri’s stories before we head back to the platform. It was almost 2pm when we are back on the platform again. We didn’t get back into the water but just relax on the platform while some getting themselves cleanup and changed to get ready for departure at 3pm. I had myself cleanup and wondering around at the underwater observation tunnel and further meeting up with the folks that just came back from their Diving trip. I had them poses for me to snap a few pics of them along with their gears. Langkawi Coral does offer 2 types of services to the Divers where those without License can sign up at the Souvenir counter on the platform where the Dive Master will brief them on the diving rules and at the end of the briefing, they will get to dive with the guide of the Dive master. Those with Diving license can then going to the other designated area for deep water diving.
Langkawi Coral Platform – Scuba Diving
Some of the pictures are courtesy of mk & Zemien
Langakawi Coral Platform Contact
Please contact Langkawicoral.com For information on the available Packages.
| Langkawi Saga Travel & Tours Sdn Bhd | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 16 Jalan Tanjung Bungah Georgetown, 11200 Penang, Malaysia |
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I have recently noted that I do not have the package price mentioned in my post since my friend has paid for everything on this trip. Thanks to google’s analyctics, I realized that a blogger from Seremban, Mellisa has wrote about her experience at the Langkawi Coral Platform. You can refer to her post on the expenses and also her activities at the Marine Park.
A very nice writeup. Let’s hope there will be more of this trip in the future for some weekend relaxation. 🙂
hi there, it would be nice if you are able to post up how much it cost you for this whole trip. 🙂 thanks in advance
Jaison,
My friend actually paid for me and I haven’t get the chances to ask him on the package price. The fastest way would be contacting the Coral Platform official contact for the pricing.
Jaison,
I hope I am not too late to reply to you on this. You can refer to this blogger for the pricing her experiences. http://melissathegreat.wordpress.com/2011/05/12/snorkeling-at-pulau-payar-marine-park-my-memorable-experience/