Alluring Lang Tengah

Went to Lang Tengah Island last week. For those who are clueless to where this lovely island is, its smack right between Perhentian and Redang islands, off Terengganu shores. If you still donno where I'm talking about, go brush up your geography ;p
Previously, I went to Perhentian Kecil and I enjoyed that place tremendously. Then, I was told that Lang Tengah is the most beautiful island of the three. With high expectations, I was looking forward to this trip. The boat ride was around 1 hour and when we were near the islands, checked the waters. Clear and blue. Good :)

The beach at the resort we were staying

The moment we stepped on the shore, however, we were not that pleased. The beach was scattered with dead coral bits, all washed up to shore. So, we needed a lil getting use to the sand. With that, we got biased. At that point, we still think that Long Beach was better.
After staying there for 4 days though, my opinions changed. Prickly beach aside, Lang Tengah is really one precious little gem. The corals are abundant, some are so near the beach that you'd only need to wade 6 steps into the sea and you can see corals between your legs (in my case, a huge sea cucumber!). I never got bored of the snorkelling there (as I dont dive), we snorkelled a few times a day. You can also choose to snorkel around the island (by boat)
We managed to see so many corals and fishes that was so breathtakingly beautiful. I think the most exciting part was to snorkel near an area called blue coral. Yes, obviously the corals there are tinge with a slight neon blue, truely awesome. But the star of the sea there was the black tip sharks. We were the only one there early in the morning and I was hoping that the sharks had their breakfast already ._.". We saw a couple of baby sharks, playful and were swimming close to us. Then when we snorkelled to the deeper end.. the fishes parted, and the mother shark appeared!! Quite large, I'd say around 1.5 meters, she was my most enxiciting encounter there.

At the end of the rocks lies the mother shark....

We also snorkelled at an area where there are supposed to be turtles and sting rays. Guess our luck was down, didnt get to see them. We also missed the morray eel, a rather elusive creature.. :(. We saw lots of parrot fish, clown fish, sea anemone, some huge sea clams, sea urchins and lots of fishes that I dont know the names..

The far end of the rocks are the turtles and stingrays rumah..

The locals are a friendly lot, one brought us to see other parts of the island and to look for 'blue sand' at night. Hav you heard of blue sand? I sure didnt and was I like a jakun! You just need to gently scratch the shore(where the sea is lapping) at night (without light) and you will see tiny specks of blue blinking lights in the sand! Its like looking at stars... it blinks for a brief 2-3 seconds, but it was truely amazing. I think those blue things are micro organism, got a fright when we touched them, blinked an angry blue glare at us.. then fade away.. but then again, I really dont know..

Lovely sunset at Lang Tengah

Over all, I had a fantastic time there, looking forward to go back to Lang Tengah next year.