Diving Holidays

Bali - 8th to 12th August 07

The LivingSeas team spent 5 days diving in Bali, and here’s a trip report for all of those who missed it.

A total of 12 divers in total went to Bali. The first group went up to Bali on the 7^th of August. The group comprised of Andrew, Matilda, Thomas and 2 other divers. The second group was headed up by Leon and we left on the 8^th with 7 other divers.

We all travelled to Bali by way of Jakarta on Garuda Indonesia. The second group managed to get stranded in Jakarta for 4 and a half hours. Wasn’t a really good start for the trip and we lost one evening because of that. We only got to the hotel at 10 plus at night after a short drive from the airport.

Needless to say, we were all tired and spent some time catching up with the first group, who had a nice day shopping and enjoying the food at Kuta and Sanur Beach.

The accomodations were really nice and a good end to our harrowing day at the Jakarta airport. We stayed at the Puri Sindhu Mertha Suites which is down the road from Bali Scuba, who arranged all our diving for us. Read about the hotel at  http://www.sindhumertha.com/, highly recommended for any diver thinking of going to Bali.

Some pictures of the hotel.

Diving Day 1

Early on the 9^th (Happy National Day) we got up and packed ourselves into the a few vans to head out to Tulamben for our first day of diving.

After 2 and a half hours of driving during which I conducted a Nitrox course for three students, we arrived at Tulamben to start diving. We unpacked our stuff and headed out to the beach.

Everybody knew the beach was black and rocky, but I guess we weren’t expecting the rocks to be so big. After gearing up, a group of women came to carry our gear to the beach, which was a good 5 minutes walk away from the restaurent where we set up our gear.

We split into two groups to dive, one group diving Nitrox and the other diving normal air. The air group went ahead first while we analyzed our gas and got prepared for our first dive in the cold water.

After reaching the beach, we donned our gear and walked into the water, all the while trying not to slip and break an ankle on the rocks on the beach. The rocks continued a little into the water and soon we were able to sit back on our backplates and put on our fins.

We swam out a few metres and descended into relatively clear water, and headed down to the USS Liberty. The wreck was nice and big, but unfortunately, the condition of the wreck wasn’t too good. There were areas where you couldn’t actually recognize the wreck as being a ship once, it was all broken up and covered completely with coral.

After an hours dive, we surfaced and walked back to the restaurent feeling great that our first dive in Bali went well, apart from the fact that some divers ended up being beached whales on the rocks (I’m not saying who…)

All of us were pretty cold after getting out of the 26 degree water, but we warmed up a little after basking in the sun for a while.

For our second dive, our excellent dive guide Manu brought us to Tulamben Drop Off, a short swim over black sand to a rock outcropping that descended to 70+ metres. We swam around the wall and turned back at the other side. We spent another hour in the water, slowly getting used to the water temperature.

The marine life at Tulamben is pretty nice, much richer than that which we normally see at Tioman or Aur and the visibility is pretty good, easily 20-25 metres when we were there, but according to Manu, it wasn’t a good day.

Lionfish at the Drop Off

Our third dive of the day at Seraya was easily the best, with the black sand home to a number of interesting creatures such as nudibranches, stonefish, lionfish and some weird crustaceans that I’ve never even seen before.

Anybody know what this is?

We had to take a “Tugong”, a traditional Balinese boat, over to Seraya beach, which took around 15 minutes to get to.

“Tugong”

Picture of Bali on the way to Seraya

Once there we got into the water quickly and dived into the water. We saw many nice things, including a Moray Eel getting cleaned by a whole gang of shrimp.

Andrew’s friend

After getting out of the water we got back onto the “Tugongs” and headed back to Tulamben to await our night dive at the Coral Garden.

By this point late in the day, with the wind picking up and the sun setting, everyone was getting a little cold, with some divers even opting out of the night dive. Most divers got on their hoods and got ready to do the night dive.

Cone-heads getting ready for the night dive.

We entered the water directly off the restaurent and started the night dive. It was a good dive, with a lot of nudibranches and a really huge slug.

Monster slug

After ending the night dive, we settled down for dinner at the restaurent and an early night’s sleep for our travel to Padangbai for our next day of diving.

Diving Day 2

To get to Padangbai for our dives at Gilis, we had to leave early in the morning for an hour’s drive to Padangbai beach. Once there, we piled onto the boat and headed out for a 30 minute speedboat ride to the Gilis islands.

The speedboats that Bali Scuba provided where nice and fast, very suitable for a day’s diving off the boat, ample space for 8 divers, although the waters were a bit rough for walking around when the boat was in transit.

The water temperature was colder than the day before at Tulamben, down to 25 degrees at some point.

Our first dive was done at the Gilis Mimpang, and the whole group did a nice drift along a gentle sloping reef. Visibility was good, but unfortunately,  there wasn’t anything much to see, just some fish along the way and two white tipped sharks on the bottom of the reef.

We moved over to our second dive site, Grand Canyon,  after an hours dive and while the divers were relaxing, a Mola Mola came up to the surface next to one of the boats, presumably to see why there was a stream of warm water there (again, I’m not saying who…)

With the excitement of seeing a Mola Mola on the surface, the hunt was on! This was only half an hour into our surface interval, but all the divers were so excited to see a Mola Mola that we quickly geared up and headed into the water again.

We descended quickly, this time the reef was a very steep slope next to the island and quickly became a wall dive. We swam along trying to find the Mola Mola, but we never saw it again.

This dive site had huge rock features and was interesting that the seabed was some 40 metres deep , Grand Canyon, indeed! We were staying at a depth of not more than 20 metres enjoying the view of the seabed some 20 metres away. Some of the divers had their first experience of a wall dive and kept descending, but we managed to keep the group together as we went around the island. All in all, a nice dive, but uneventful.

For our third dive, perhaps sensing that we were getting bored or perhaps because the winds were picking up, Manu recommended that we head back to Padangbai to do a dive there. So we headed back to Padangbai and did a dive at Blue Lagoon or Turtle Neck.

This dive was the best of the day, and we saw a lot of interesting things, including a whole family of frogfish hiding out under a large rock.

The frogfish family

After this dive, our boat headed back to Sanur, while the other boat had to go back to Padangbai to take the bus back to Sanur.

On the 45 minute journey back to Sanur beach, we got a good look at the Bali shoreline, with their colourful kites and buildings. We also got a good look at Nusa Penida across the strait, where we were to do our last day of diving.

We got back to Sanur about 4pm and headed back to the hotel to relax and wait for the other group of divers. When they got back, we all headed out to Seminyak for dinner on the beach.

After a $1.8 million seafood dinner (sounds a lot, right? Rupiah mind you), we headed down to Kuta and for some shopping. If you love surf gear, this is an excellent place to be, every single major surf brand is represented there. We shopped around for a bit before heading back to turn in for the night.

Diving Day 3

Finally! An interesting and challenging day of diving!

We started off early (as usual) and got onto the speedboats at Sanur Beach. An hour’s ride away and we reached  Nusa Penida.

Our first dive was at Blue Corner, whilst Manu had a different idea and headed to Crystal Bay to do his first dive with a group of four divers.

Blue Corner is a deceptively easy dive site, with calm seas and no current visible on the surface. However, once your head descends below the water surface, you find out that you’re actually moving along the reef at close to 1.5 knots.

A real ripping current, we had some trouble keeping up with the dive guide, who quickly headed down the reef and was hiding at the edge of the drop off. We headed over to him, all the while moving backwards, and finally, the whole group dropped past the edge of the reef on the wall.

We drifted along the wall for an hour, enjoying the cold (25 degree) water and the reef life. Nothing much special here, as we couldn’t really stop for long to check anything out. Important point to note here is to keep close to the reef! A few divers strayed too far out from the reef and got swept along faster than the rest of the group.

The reef goes down to 40 plus metres again and we kept looking into the blue to catch a glimpse of the Molas who come to the cleaning station here. We weren’t as fortunate as the other group of divers, who were the first boat at Crystal Bay and the first to see the three Molas there.

After another hour getting used to the water, we ascended and got back onto the boat. We headed out to Crystal Bay to find our own Molas.

By the time we got to Crystal Bay, there were close to 20 boats in the water and it looked really crowded. Thankfully, you don’t really notice the other divers because the dive site is really huge.

We got into the water after an hour’s interval and once we descended, the divemaster immediately begin banging on his tank and swimming forward pointing at the Mola Mola in the distance.

Needless to say, all other divers in the area were heading out towards the drop off to see the Mola Mola. It got really crowded with divers breathing heavily and bubbles everywhere. Our group was slightly behind some other divers so we didn’t manage to get a good glimpse of this particular Mola Mola.

Disappointed that we might have missed the Mola Mola, we headed along the wall at a depth of 25 metres hoping that the magnificent fish would come back.

Halfway down the wall, we saw a huge dark shape approaching in the distance. Being the furthest away from the wall, I got my camera out straightaway and started filming.

The Mola Mola was at a depth of 33 metres, and headed straight for me! I filmed the fish approaching and right when it was 4 metres away, it turned and missed me by 2 metres.

Mola Mola - Shot at Crystal Bay, Bali on 11 August 2007

It was a great moment, having filmed the Mola Mola up close with no exhaust bubbles from other divers spoiling the shot. I was truly ready to go back to Singapore, my mission completed.

Nevertheless, it was still early in the dive, so we ascended a bit to 20 metres and proceeded to cross the channel to the other end of the bay in an attempt to see the Mola Mola again.

The visibility was so good that at 20 metres, we could see both the seabed at 60+ metres and the surface. It was a little disconcerting to be so far above the seabed, and I’m sure people with a fear of heights might have problems with that dive.

We reached the other end of the bay before long and started our ascent as the Molas had decided to go deeper out to sea.

Great dive, and we got some excellent footage, everybody was excited that we managed to see the great fish, and so close too.

Other divers were not as fortunate to see the Mola Mola so shallow and some divers had to go down to 50+ metres in 19 degree waters in order to get a good look of the fish.

We heard later that there were 3 Molas in the area, and throughout the day it was the same three Molas hanging around at Crystal Bay.

After this dive, we proceeded to go to our last dive site in Bali, called Ped. It was a nice easy dive along a reef, very much like Blue Corner, our first dive of the day.

One special thing about this dive was the temperature. We finally got to experience cold water! The dive started at 26 degrees, which everybody was kinda getting used to already. Then we hit a thermocline, and the temperature started dropping, degree after degree, until the temperature was 22 degrees and everybody was shivering too badly to bother about the reef. Man, was that cold! Luckily, we were able to escape the temperature by ascending higher, out of the thermocline.

After another hour long dive, we ascended and headed back to the boat. The end of our last dive in Bali!

We packed up our gear on the boat and headed back to Sanur. Considering our last cold dive, it didn’t help that it started to rain on the way back to Sanur, and after we got our wetsuits off, too!

Once at Sanur, we piled into the little vans and went back to the hotel to get showered and washed up. Our gear came a little while later, sent over by the DMs, who were very helpful in washing our gear for us.

Sad that this was our last night in Bali, some of us decided to go to check out the Bali Blast memorial down in Legian. We had dinner at some tourist trap and headed down to Legian. After a few photos with the memorial, we went for some last minute shopping before heading back to the hotel.

This time, we didn’t bother sleeping early and stayed up late talking about diving and all our experiences with the Mola and with the cold water.

The next day was uneventful, with everyone dreading the trip back to Singapore. Thankfully, we didn’t have any delays with Garuda and made it back to Singapore at the designated time.

We were sad that we were back, but yet, we’re already making plans to go back in September 2008. This time, we going to go Tech in Bali! Bali Scuba has facilities for Tech diving, so some of us are planning to go back in full tech to wait for the Mola, and to check out the deep reefs at the Tulamben Drop Off.

Join us next year for more Molas and cold water!