Located 20mins along the north coast from Labuan Lalang, Pemuteran is a small collection of resorts located on the beach. The diving here is on 500M wide coral-covered banks or mounds that go from the sand floor, at around 25M, up to about 6M from the surface. The top coral cover is a mixture of hard, soft and fire corals with some sea fans and sponges deeper.
No currents to speak of and visibility is usually good, but varies quite a bit due to shallowness (wave action stirring up the bottom, run-off after rain). The coral cover was very badly affected by coral-bleaching after El Nino in 1998. Apr-Oct gives good conditions in Pemuteran but during the NW monsoon (Dec-Mar) conditions are usually poor (Jan and Feb is v wavy). Due to the easy conditions, and close proximity to the resorts, you can night-dive at Pemuteran – not only on these coral mounds (takas) but also on the reef just off the beach.
