OrcaNation - Rawa Island, Mersing

The main shop is at Rawa Island Resort, near the pier. Easy and convenient. The large dive shop on the end of the island is closed right now, but looks like a super nice place in an amazing location. Due to SOP's we could only do a shore dive. Of all the islands in the area, we'd heard Rawa had the best shore diving. That's why we chose Rawa. We also read reviews that the dive masters were great with kids. My 13 year old daughter has been nervous to do SCUBA. My two teenage boys absolutely love it. So we wanted her to do a discovery dive and see how fun it is. The dive master was excellent with her. It was a bit hard for her to do the practice and skills in the ocean. Currents are pretty strong along this beach and the reef is large so there isn't a lot of space to move around and do skills. I definitely would have preferred a small pool. But she did fine and then got to do a couple of fun days which really helped her relax and see how fun diving can be. The reef runs the length of the island. it's quite shallow. The 5 of us did a dive together. I felt like I saw more snorkeling, which isn't usually the case. The second day we just had our teenagers dive as my husband and I didn't want to pay for us to dive again, as there wasn't much to see. The teenagers loved the diving and said they saw more and went a little deeper the second dive. It's just a really shallow dive along the reef that we snorkelled for hours and hours each day. I would recommend it for diving for newbies. Those who want an easy shallow shore dive to practice. Otherwise I'd wait for boat dives where you can see a wreck or do deeper reefs that can't be snorkeled easily. The equipment was all in excellent condition. Their masks were quite nice. The shop is nice. They didn't have wet suits, but that was fine with such a shallow dive. Although if you have one, you may as well wear it to avoid the jellies. We did use our REEF SAFE sunscreen and I hope everyone will start to use it. There was definitely some coral damage from boats and some coral bleaching. I was actually surprised at the amount of trash in the water and along the reef. We've dived and snorkeled in lots of places that I would expect to be dirtier than Malaysia, but I've never seen as much trash in the water (cans, bottles, plastic, tires, ropes) as I did here. It was disappointing and I SO hope Orca Nation will organize some reef clean-up dives. We hauled several water bottles out of the water along the shoreline and picked up some large plastics floating in the water and stuff that had washed up along the beach. styrofoam also. Please please be aware of trash and where it ends up.