Batu Malang

A small rock collection located in front of the white sandy beach of Coral Island is known to the locals as Batu Malang - The Unfortunate Rock. The saga says that the top-rock never touched seawater before and is hence considered unfortunate. Batu Malang is one of the favorite dive and snorkel sites on Tioman Island. We try to avoid it during the weekend since it is always crowded but enjoy it during the weekdays, when we are often the only ones there. It's a perfect dive site for the second dive of the day due to is maximum depth of around 16 meters and an average dive depth of around 10 meters. Batu Malang is blessed with an abundance of hard coral such as staghorn, table tops, potato, flower corals and coral bommies. Since it's so shallow, you have brilliant light and therefore amazing colors. Many of the sponge eating hawksbill turtle are seen here; the reef cuttlefish (sepia) make use of the potato coral reef to secure their eggs and clown anemone fish (Nemos) are found literally everywhere. On changing tides one can drift over whip coral covered bottom, where moderate currents bring in barracudas and lonely cobias. Batu Malang is also our choice for discover scuba students because of its shallow reefs and the guaranty to see a large variety of marine life such as; turtles, cuttlefish, lion fish, moray eels, black tip reef sharks, parrots, wrasses, blue dotted stingrays, scorpion fish and butterfly fishes just to name a few.