The Aur Island () is an island in

Mersing District Mersing District is one of the 10 districts district in Johor, Malaysia. Its seat is located at Mersing Town. Etymology The "Mersing" name is derived from the Chinese "Mau Sheng Port" (茂盛港) since 1880 and further simplify to Mersing. Mer ...

Johor Johor, also spelled Johore,'' is a States and federal territories of Malaysia, state of Malaysia in the south of the Malay Peninsula. It borders with Pahang, Malacca and Negeri Sembilan to the north. Johor has maritime borders with Singapore ...

Malaysia Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...

. It lies about east of Mersing Town and is part of the Johor Marine Park. Its corals, lagoons and offshore pools make it a tourist attraction. It has for many years also been a frequent stopover point for

fishermen A fisherman or fisher is someone who captures fish and other animals from a body of water, or gathers shellfish. Worldwide, there are about 38 million commercial and subsistence fishers and fish farmers. Fishermen may be professional or recr ...

. There is also a smaller island close by,

Dayang Island Dayang Island () is an island in Mersing District, Johor, Malaysia. It is one of the three islands of the Aur Island chain. The name of the neighbouring island, Aur Island, means "bamboo island" in Malay and both islands have been known to Chines ...

, which is separated from Aur Island by a narrow channel of about width at the narrowest point. Both islands are home to Singaporean diving companies, divers reach the island by chartered boats from Mersing or Singapore.

Diving

Due to its distance from the mainland of Peninsula Malaysia, Aur Island offers clear water at its dive sites. Marine life commonly seen by divers include

manta ray Manta rays are large Batoidea, rays belonging to the genus ''Mobula'' (formerly its own genus ''Manta''). The larger species, ''Giant oceanic manta ray, M. birostris'', reaches in width, while the smaller, ''Reef manta ray, M. alfredi'', reac ...

barracuda A barracuda is a large, predatory, ray-finned, saltwater fish of the genus ''Sphyraena'', the only genus in the family Sphyraenidae, which was named by Constantine Samuel Rafinesque in 1815. It is found in tropical and subtropical oceans worldw ...

s, whitetip sharks,

rays Ray or RAY may refer to: Fish * Ray (fish), any cartilaginous fish of the superorder Batoidea * Ray (fish fin anatomy), the bony or horny spine on ray-finned fish Science and mathematics * Half-line (geometry) or ray, half of a line split at an ...

napoleon wrasse The humphead wrasse (''Cheilinus undulatus'') is a large species of wrasse mainly found on coral reefs in the Indo-Pacific region. It is also known as the Māori wrasse, Napoleon wrasse, Napoleon fish, ''so mei'' 蘇眉 (Cantonese), ''mameng'' (F ...

, jacks,

trevally The Carangidae are a family of ray-finned fish that includes the jacks, pompanos, jack mackerels, runners, trevallies, and scads. It is the largest of the six families included within the order Carangiformes. Some authorities classify it as the ...

yellowback fusilier The yellowback fusilier (''Caesio xanthonota'') is a pelagic marine ray-finned fish, a fusilier belonging to the family Caesionidae. It is native to the tropical Indo-Pacific, being found in shallow water from the East African coast to Indones ...

turtle Turtles are reptiles of the order (biology), order Testudines, characterized by a special turtle shell, shell developed mainly from their ribs. Modern turtles are divided into two major groups, the Pleurodira (side necked turtles) and Crypt ...

, angelfish,

titan triggerfish The titan triggerfish, giant triggerfish or moustache triggerfish (''Balistoides viridescens'') is a large species of triggerfish found in lagoons and at reefs to depths of in most of the Indo-Pacific, though it is absent from Hawaii. With a len ...

and

bumphead parrotfish The green humphead parrotfish (''Bolbometopon muricatum'') is the largest species of parrotfish, growing to lengths of and weighing up to . It is found on reefs in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, from the Red Sea in the west to Samoa in the eas ...

Climate

The Aur Island weather is affected by the monsoon winds that blows from

South China Sea The South China Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean. It is bounded in the north by South China, in the west by the Indochinese Peninsula, in the east by the islands of Taiwan island, Taiwan and northwestern Philippines (mainly Luz ...

and the

Straits of Malacca The Strait of Malacca is a narrow stretch of water, long and from wide, between the Malay Peninsula to the northeast and the Indonesian island of Sumatra to the southwest, connecting the Andaman Sea (Indian Ocean) and the South China Sea (Pa ...

. The northeast monsoon blows the wind from South China Sea from November to March and this is the time when the east coast has heavy rainfall. Sea activities at this time are confined and the main activity at this time is usually the maintenance of boats and fishing related equipment and kite flying. The west coast of Aur Island is influenced by the southwest monsoon that blows the wind from the Straits of Malacca during the months of May to September. The periods between the monsoons are usually marked by heavy rainfall. The mountains have lower temperature range due to their higher altitude and the temperature ranges from .

History

The 1804 naval

Battle of Pulo Aura The Battle of Pulo Aura was a minor naval engagement of the Napoleonic Wars fought on 14 February 1804, in which a large British East India Company (EIC) convoy intimidated, drove off and chased away a powerful French Navy squadron. Although the ...

between the British and the French took place in the island's vicinity during the

Napoleonic Wars {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Napoleonic Wars , partof = the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars , image = Napoleonic Wars (revision).jpg , caption = Left to right, top to bottom:Battl ...

Geology

The island spreads over an area of 7.2 km².

References

External links