The Liberty Wreck
Trip Start
Jan 19, 2010
1
48
85
Trip End
Ongoing
Tulamben, Bali, Indonesia
Saturday, July 3, 2010
We made it to Tulamben thanks to Shaula's thorough reading of the Indonesia Lonely Planet. We have come to really detest Lonely Planet and I find that although really useful at times, it is highly overrated.
We had a tranquilo night, knowing that we were going to do the first dive in the early morning (another early morning, Dios mio, what's going on with me?). We had signed up with a local dive master that was all giggles and jokes. The name of the dive shop, SEA HUA HA HA says it all. He likes the sea, and he likes to laugh. It's his diveshop, he can name it whatever he likes.
The USAT Liberty was torpeoed by the Japanese during the WWII, but it did not sink. It was towed from the Lombok Strait and beached in Tulamben. It wasn't until 1963 until the activity of Gunung Agung (the highest volcanoe in Bali) made her "slip" into the sea. It's a really accessible wreck, you can dive it as an Open Water, hell I think you can even snorkel it, since I think the deck is already lying at 5m or something. ANYWAYS, I'm not an encyclopedia and I want to tell you about the crazy dives we had.
Being the air-sucker that I am, I was the first one out of air. Yes, I could really just say that we stayed deep (30 what meters?) expecting to see a mola mola (a sunfish, the weirdest thing ever) for too long, but I'm really just quick on air. Suker, our giggly divemaster, let me share his tank. After a while, it was Shaula's turn. All this in the purpose of staying down for as long as we could, because it is a MASSIVE wreck and there's just so much to see!
We did two dives, had really exciting swimthroughs, the kind of sucky visibility we had (bad mojo again?) contributed to the somewhat spooky atmosphere of a wreck. We saw a massive barrracuda and of course the usual load of fishies.
The Liberty Wreck was really one of the highlights until now in my diver's log and doing it with somebody that wasn't more observant to the PADI guidelines than to real life made it all a lot more exciting. I didn't feel exposed ONCE, I even felt babysitted at times. So, points for local diving!
