A couple of dives in Bali
G'day folks,
Just thought thati'd give you a little trip report from my recent sojourn to Bali.
Because I had to change my visa status here in Oz, the Australian government decided in its infinite wisdom that I must leave the country, get processed abroad, and then re-enter Australia as a newly minted permanent resident. Living here on the West Coast, we decided that the minimum travel time was important so chose the short 3.5 hour hop to the Indonesian island of Bali.
Because we knew that some time was going to spent standing in queues/filling in paperwork/providing amusement for consulate staff etc, and having a non-diving partner, I knew that I couldn't arrange this as a 'diving' holiday, so I resigned myself to just fitting in a couple of dives here and there as and when they could be arranged.
As it turned out, I only managed to get 4 dives over 2 days but they were still well worth the effort.
Dive day 1: Tulamben
Despite a 3.5 hour drive through Bali's scooter thronged road system we arrived in good shape at Tulamben to see blue sky, flat sea's and a throng of lucky divers who chose to stay here and dive every day.
After the obligatory release forms and kit fitting, I slipped into my wetsuit and turned for my tank/BCD to see it being hoisted onto the head of a diminutive local woman who nimbly strode off along the pebble beach without a care in the world. What made this even more remarkable is that she was already carrying someone elses kit on her head to begin with. Goggle eyed with admiration and with my spine compressing in sympathy I hurried to follow to discover that the the pebbles on the beach are of a uniformly ankle twisting size and that care should be taken when traversing them.
At the waters edge I retrieved my gear and kitted up quickly before wading into the water and proceeding with the first dive.
The USAT Liberty is a justifiably famous shipwreck for divers in Bali. Lying on her side, roughly parallel with the shore, she rests a mere 20 metres or so from the beach. The water was warm, visibility was 20m + and the descent to the black volcanic sand was easy. A few short finstrokes away towered the stern of the wreck. Coral, Sponge and fishlife abounded and we swooped and soared around and through the skeleton of the ship. The sheer varirty of life that has made this site its home is simply amazing and I am convinced that I never saw the same fish type twice. Just before the deepest part of the dive at around 27m an enormous school of Trevally swam past, blocking out the sunlight for a couple of minutes as we hovered and basked in the warm glow of an experience that so few of our fellow humans will ever enjoy.
On the bow is the remains of the ships gun which now points downslope and provides a handy foothold for more coral, crinoids, ascidians and sponges and makes a beautiful picture, ( if only I could afford a camera!:( ). Round the bow and a gentle ascent wending through the holds and under and over collapsed hull plates while stopping now and again at large gorgonion fan coral to look for pygmy seahorses, ( no luck, our dive guides theory is that the heat generated by the powerful light systems of so many photographers has driven them into hiding). Eventually we ascend above the wreck and spend our safety stop hovering over the black sand and watching a couple of clown anenomefish darting around their swaying home before a gentle swim to the surface and a short wade back to the beach where our cylinders etc are removed and again lifted onto the porters heads while we discuss the dive and gingerly walk back.
After a leisurely surface interval of Bali coffee and tasty Nasi Goreng its off for dive two. Again, a repeat of the superhuman balancing by the porters and this time we turn in the opposite direction along the beach and head toward a rocky headland that juts out into the sea.
This dive is along a wall that drops off to some 80m or so and is again a riot of colour and life, Blue spotted rays, Lionfish, Moray eels are all in abundance. A small garden of eels wave their heads in the current. Small brightly coloured Gobies stand guard while their cohabiting shrimps houseclean. Several Blue striped cleaner wrasse advertise their services and tend to their patient clientele. A gentle swim around to 25m before we turn and ascend slowly retracing our path along the wall returns us to the gently sloping shelf of the beach where we off gas at 5m while another tightly packed ball of Trevally parts around us and closes again behind like a silvery living curtain. All too soon, it is over and we are back on terra firma for a shower and an ice cold Bintang before climbing back aboard the transport and the drive back to the hotel.
Dive day 2 : Nusa Penida and Bandung straight
A couple of days later and I get the opportunity to dive again. This time an hours boat journey takes me to the Island of Nusa Penida, just off Bali's East coast. Again it is a perfect diving day, sunshine, flat sea and excellent visibility as we backward roll from the boat at a site called Crystal gardens. Again a veritable fish huggers smorgasbord of underwater life covers every square millimeter on an ever steepening slope. This time we descend to 32m before the dive guide signals us to wait where we are and he turns and fins off and down into the gloom. We wait, watching the reef fish for a couple of minutes before our attention is attracted by the dive guides rattle. Turning we see him 15-20m away along the wall gesturing for us to follow. Swimming along and down we reach 38-40m to see what the fuss is about and there, hovering 10m from the wall attended by its own little constellation of attendant fish is a Mola Mola or Oceanic Sunfish. Easily several metres across with no tail to speak of these have to be one of the weirdest looking denizens of the ocean but to get this close to one is an awesome experience. Apparently they congregate in this area every year for reasons unknown and Nusa Penida has to be one of the worlds top spots to encounter them.
Slowly we try to get closer to this enormous fish but suddenly it either notices us or simply decides that it wants to be elsewhere and with a brief flick of its fins it vanishes with a grace and speed suprising for an animal of its bulk and body shape.
With NDL looming we slowly ascend back up the wall, hunting for nudubranchs and examining more coral before the guide sends up his DSMB and we drift off the wall to safety stop on the current before surfacing to find the boat a couple of metres away.
As we drink a couple of bottles of cold water and chat happily about the dive the boat moves off to the north of the island where we moor up to a buoy in crystal clear water and break out the pre-packed lunchs, ( most of which, I admit, goes to feed the fish which swarm beneath us.). As we sit and sunbathe on our sheltered mooring we gradually notice that only 100m away the current is racing through the straight and our guide and boatcrew are huddled foreward whispering amongst themselves in conspiratorial tones.
For some reason the Pacific ocean north of the Indonesian archipelago is 30cm higher than the Indian Ocean to the south. This means that at certain times of the tide the waterflow through the straight is capable of slowing ocean going ships to a crawl.
Our guide turns to us and with a piratical grin tells us to kit up. In we go, descend along the bottom and suddenly the current catches us and we are off!:eek:
This is ,by far and away , the fastest drift that I have ever done. There is no way to stop and closely examine anything, even dropping down behind a rock outcrop means that we have to hold on for dear life and merely gives us an opportunity to gather our little group and our wits together before we rocket off again. Wheeeeeee! What a rush! The force of water is enough to cause my regulator to flutter and start to free flow if I try and look into the current, which is a fairly dumb thing to do as you really need to watch where you are going as coral smothered rocks loom,pass and vanish in our wake. It seems that we travel for miles but our guide signals us to angle up slope where the current slows to merely fast from the insane and again pops up his marker buoy and we surface to again find the boat right next to us, the crew grin widely as we hand up our weight belts and fins and climb aboard, each and every one of us has a face splitting smile and we settle down for the trip back to to Bali amid gales of happy laughter.
In conclusion, I sincerely wish that I had more chances to dive around Bali, There are many more sites that I never got a chance to visit and I will definitely be back to visit them. The people are fantastic, cheerful and friendly. The beer is good and cold. The food tasty and varied. The diving, spectacular and varied. Alll in all if you are looking for a dive destination in the tropics, Bali should be on your list for consideration.
my thanks to Scuba Doo diving, Kuta and Enya Dive in Sanur for the gear the dives, laughing at my bad jokes and smiling indulgently at my mangled pronunciation of Indonesian pleasantries. And to Michael from Germany and Maria and Patricia from Spain for buddying up with a lone diver.
Safe diving folks.
PS: Nobody paid me for this review..Bastards!:D
