The Pantai Penyabong trip in 1996 | FishingAdvNHF

    Back in 1995 after I picked up the fishing rod again it is an one way ticket for the journey, I fished in most of the freshwater reservoirs here and caught my biggest Snakehead which was 6kg (read the story here)and I went to most of the beaches and jetties for the saltwater assaults, My catches were mostly small fishes and the species were boring. I always dreamed of going abroad to hunt for the monster fish, during that time my dream location is Australia. (Influenced by the fishing magazine)

    I bought my first car in 1996 and it was a humble Daihatsu Charade 1.0L Turbocharged Engine, this tiny little machine gave me a lot of joys and sorrows. I got this car through Ken and again he made a killing on my purchased which I ended up paying 20% more and he never stopped doing so, although I didn't manage to prove that if I had paid more by repairing my car at the workshop he recommended.

    Few months after I got the car Ken asked if I was interested to explore beaches in Malaysia, he read on a magazine about this place called Penyabong which is located at the states of Johor. I was a bit reluctant to do so as I wasn't sure if my car could handle the distance of the journey, it is around 160km from Johor Bahru. Ken managed to convince me with the promise of splitting the cost of repair if it was needed, so off we went with my Daihatsu Charade on our rest day to the Penyabong.

    After some 5 hours of driving with many wrong turns we arrived at the place, the Pantai Penyabong (Penyabong Beach). It was around 3pm and the weather was perfect, I drove my car on to this stoned porch which I guessed it was a makeshift car park, back then there was only a Malay food eating house and three wooden houses right beside it, a few children were staring at us from their door step wondering what on earth were we doing here. Straight after I got off my car a gust of warm tropical wind blew towards me, the salty scent of the sea coupled with the rotten stench of some sea creature carcasses on the beach instantly reminded me of my home town, Pontian which is also a fishing village at the west coast of West Malaysia.

The Pulau Penanduk

  This place was quite deserted and it was so peaceful, we walked straight on to the warm beach which the soft and fine sea sand would bury your feet immediately, the gentle wave rhythmically splashed on to the beach and it was getting louder as we approaching the clear greenish-blue sea, you could see your feet clearly when you step into it, the cool and clean South China Sea makes me felt like jumping into it. Just a stone throw away there is a small island named Pulau Pelandok (Pelandok Island), it is covered with lot's of greenery plants making it looks like a broccoli flower on the sea, sitting there alone for god know how many millenniums already it give the place a very unique and relaxing view.

    There were two units of four wheel drive jeep parked on the beach, according to the villagers they were foreigners who worked in the city and they always came here with their diving gears, there are some ship wrecks around this area and as the place was unpolluted yet corals and beautiful tropical fishes lured the divers back weeks after weeks.

    When we left Singapore to here we brought our fishing rods as well, after some break at the Malay food stall we went on to have some surf casting there. We had some frozen prawns with us to use as bait and Kent had brought some lures to try here. We stopped the fishing at around 6pm without catching any fish, it took us another 4 hours to return home. Although no monster fish was caught I wasn't disappointed as this beautiful and peaceful Pantai Penyabong has worth every efforts we spent to get here.

A Jetty was built and it destroyed the view

    Human being are great destroyers of nature and it proved again when I returned to Pantai Penyabong after almost 12 years in 2008, it was given a complete make-over to the worst. The once clear sea is so milky now that I will never consider dipping my feet into it and the soft and fine sea sand was no where to be found, probably buried deep underneath the rough sand that was brought in from elsewhere, reclamation works were done here as I could see major landscape changed. I really don't understand why the reclamation is needed in Malaysia, it is a big country with vast land to spare, besides wasting the money it destroyed the natural habitation in the area. A long and huge fishing boat jetty extending towards the Pulau Pelandok was built and it spoiled the unique view of the lone island sitting in front of the beach, engine oil from boats floating on the sea surface and smell of gasoline is so strong that the natural scene of the tropical beach had vanished. Cars and motorcycles almost filled up the whole car park (It's now a tared surface car park) I lost the luxury of parking my car freely as I did in 1996. Countless of houses were inserted here and jammed the whole area, the population of the once tiny deserted fishing village grew so much and I regretted I took so long to revisit the place as I will never get the chance to see the paradise again.

P.S. I didn't take any photos in 1996 and it was another set back, photos show here were taken in 2008

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