Diving!
Trip Start
Mar 18, 2010
1
5
6
Trip End
May 25, 2010
Pemuteran, Bali, Indonesia
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Once in Pemuteran, I realized that I was not in Kuta anymore. Apparently, there's a law that shop owners are not allowed to hassle you at ALL and that beach-goers will never have people trying to sell anything to them. Pemuteran is a quaint little town with mostly high-end resorts, and a couple of smaller dive shops / bungalows / home stays. The place I stayed at, Reefview Bungalows, was very nice and had all the amenities I needed. The room had an outdoor bathroom, air-conditioning, breakfast was included, and they also have a dive shop associated with the Bungalows.
The second day that I stayed with them, I was able to head over to an island off of the northwest tip of Bali called Menjangan Island (meaning Deer Island in Bahasa Indonesian - there are wild deer on the island, hence the name) to do two dives. There were tons of AMAZING fish and coral to see, but unfortunately there was also a lot of garbage floating in the water as we got closer to the island. Java, where Jakarta (the capital of Indonesia) is located, produces all this waste and, sadly, there's really no control over it. On our way over to the island, we saw flying fish and a GIANT herd of dolphins far off in the distance.
I was able to complete seven dives here, which were all so different and so amazing. One of them was even a sunrise dive, which meant I had to be up at 5:00AM to get in the water just as the sun was rising.
After staying in Pemuteran for four nights, I thought it was a good time to move on to my next destination, Lovina. The ride over was about 45 minutes to an hour, and followed the coast along the whole way. We witnessed a motorbike accident, which I wasn't exactly surprised about, as the drivers in Bali are lunatics!!!
