Every once in a while I have vivid dreams of flying through the air, where I gracefully dart and duck through the skies, picking up treasure as I go… Freud might have something else to say on the matter, but this to me is how snorkelling feels, as I can float and dive in seas that offer up tropical fish for treasure. It’s my one chance to fly without the fear of engines cutting out.

And I’ve not experienced better treasure than at Pulau Payar Marine Park situated off the coast of Langkawi. An hour’s boat journey (boat being massive tourist ferry with air con, Heineken and Pringles) takes you to a purpose built shaded platform just outside the coral reefs that surround this small uninhabited island. Here you have the entire day to do as you please, be it snorkelling, scuba diving or walking along the sparkling sandy white shores of the island. You also get a good chance to observe the differing attitudes that Britons and Chinese have to the sun. Most amusing seeing red-faced Brits alongside white factor 50 smothered Chinese.

But for me I could snorkel all day, as jumping into the warm glass-clear sea you’ll find Nemo and half his extended family, plus basking sharks, sea cucumbers and shoal upon shoal of tropical fish that shimmy and shimmer in the rays of sunlight. Think the tanks of fish in your local aquatics shop, but bigger. Much bigger and with infinitely more colours than the rainbow.

Unfortunately, such beauty has to pay a price, and this picture-perfect coral island serves as a stark warning to the dangers of commercialism, as boatload after boatload of tourists pull up daily, spewing petrol and fumes into the ocean. Yet I am ashamed to say I have been back more than once, as the lure of that glinting azure blue sea and the delights that lay within are enough for the tourist devil to wipe out the eco angel in me.