Bali - underwater adventures (MW)
Trip Start
May 14, 2011
1
49
69
Trip End
May 14, 2012
Pemuteran, Bali, Indonesia
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Our first dive location was the wreck of the US war ship The Liberty at Tulamben on the East coast. For $100 Aussie, we got a great room, breakfast and two dives (including all gear) with one guide / instructor each. It was not only a memorable experience for the trip so far, but one of the most enjoyable things I have ever done.
Almost as soon as we dropped beside the wreck a school of thousands of large Jack fish were circling and funneling above us. Safety in number tactics from the Giant Trevally waiting patiently on the outside of the school for the unsuspecting. It was like being in a Nat Geo documentary. We had two hour-long dives and were surrounded by fish the whole time who live on the wreck which is almost completely covered in coral. We made a few passes through the holes in the wreck and it was a surreal environment.
Only wanting to dive once, we were planning to head over the mountains to the rice terraces, but as soon as we finished on the wreck, we were looking at other sites, and the top of the list was a wall dive on the very other end of Bali - we loaded up the brakeless Honda and took off.
We made our way to Pemuteran close to Menjangan Island where there is a wall of coral and apparently Bali’s most impressive diving and snorkelling site. This site was a little more expensive, but we played the broke backpacker card pretty well and they ended up negotiating against themselves to drop the room rate and we were in.
The dive here was insane. The whole sea floor (ranging from horizontal surfaces, 45 degree slopes and vertical walls) was completely covered in coral with not a bare patch of sand or rock. There were fish everywhere and some were so well hidden we were staring at the end of the instructors finger for 30 seconds before we could see the outline of the camouflaged fish in the coral.
I can completely understand the draw to diving for so many people and we’ve started talking about becoming certified and making this a regular activity. Even our cheap little underwater camera can give some indication of how much is going on down there.
