Bali is one of the most enchanting places to visit. Towering volcanoes, ornate temples and a fascinating culture never fails to captivate. But what many people don’t know is that Bali has some truly world class diving. For the past two years, I’ve led groups of experienced divers and underwater photographers to Bali — all of whom were stunned by its beauty. Hopefully this four-part blog gives you an idea of what Bali has to offer and also an insight to my favourite itinerary.

Part 1 — Menjangan and Secret Bay

With Bali’s wide variety of diving adventures, the smart move is to stay in different areas to appreciate the diversity of choices. Located north-west of the island, with elegant villas built over natural thermal springs, Mimpi Menjangan Hotel offers the option of diving around Menjangan Island’s rich reefs and Secret Bay’s critter haven.

Finger dragonets, catfish and seahorses are common sightings. We also had the pleasure of seeing a couple of large turtlehead sea snakes and also the Banggai cardinalfish. At night we tempted out several bobbit worms in the shallows and saw various crustaceans, including mantis and tozeuma shrimps. Secret Bay is quiet this year — with only two shaggy frogfish currently in residence (there are usually more).

However, Menjangan Island certainly makes up for Secret Bay’s lack of activity. One particular dive at Garden Eel definitely ranks as one of the most beautiful dives I can remember from recent years — and I dive a lot! With great visibility, the corals, crinoids and sponges looked absolutely stunning in their full multi-coloured glory, surrounded by schools of fish. Other dives yielded ghost pipefish, pygmy seahorses, mating cuttlefish and all the reef fish you could wish for — Menjangan is certainly underrated as a diving spot. Sadly, our three days at Mimpi passed too fast.

Part 2 — Puri Jati

Zen Hotel, located at Bali’s north coast, is approximately an hour’s drive east from the centre. This small and stylish boutique hotel is perched on top of a hill with a stunning pool which seems to merge with the ocean. Here for two nights to dive Puri Jati — a relatively new site that was a closely guarded secret until a couple of years ago, but now it’s commonly listed on most of the island’s diving maps.

Quite a contrast from Menjangan — with low visibility, dark sand and thumbnail-sized cup-corals. However, it’s only upon a closer look that reveals a concentration of cephalopods that I’ve not seen elsewhere. The mimic octopus is the star of the dive — we found several of them on each dive, and I was able to see two together at the same time. Although I didn’t see a white-v octopus, but I did see the biggest blue-ring octopus I’ve ever seen, as well as countless smaller margined octopus hiding in shells, plenty of cuttlefish and a bobtailed squid. This site is a must for cephalopod lovers.

But it’s not just about the molluscs. We also saw Ambon scorpionfish, devil scorpionfish, blue-finned lionfish, blue-eyed stingfish and cockatoo waspfish. Others sightings include lots of seahorse, pipehorse, robust ghost pipefish, flying gunnards, mantis shrimps and snake eels.

There is no dive centre at Puri Jati — so diving there does require some planning. We dove with the excellent guides — Graham, Yan and Anton from Diving 4 Images, who ensured we saw the very best of this site.

Part 3 — Seraya and Tulamben

Our third destination was at Scuba Seraya Resort, a few minutes drive to the east of Tulamben, Bali’s most famous dive spot. This is my favourite stop on the tour and we were here for four nights. This is a small resort (my group filled it completely) with a fabulous house reef and easy boat access to the USAT Liberty wreck and other dives around Tulamben. I also met up with FiNS contributor Jez Tryner – who popped in to say hi!

Most mornings we started the day with a dive on the wreck. My group are a well-travelled lot and they rated it above the Umbria in Sudan and the Yongola in Australia as a wreck dive. High praise indeed - I don’t really need to say more! The pink leaf scorpionfish is still in residence - he must be the most photographed leafish in the world. The traditional time to dive the wreck is on the first dive of the day, but also try it as an atmospheric dusk dive and as a night dive to see the sleeping bumphead parrotfish.

We also dived at Batu Niti, a pretty site with resident pygmy seahorses at the moment and also at Alamanda, where we saw a nice school of bumphead parrotfish. But for the most part if we weren’t diving on the wreck then we were diving on the Seraya house reef. Unfortunately the resident wonderpuss octopus had moved on just days before we arrived, but the resident frogfish (two species), thorny seahorse, ornate and longtailed ghost pipefish, harlequin shrimps, Coleman shrimps, tiger shrimps and zebra crabs more than made up for it! There weren’t as many nudis as I have seen here as in the past – I only saw about 20 species! And I also got some nice shots of mating cuttlefish and spawning triplefins.

This is my third year in a row visiting Seraya at this time of year, and each year I have found completely different critters dominating the attractions. The house reef is certainly a dynamic site and one that you can visit time and time again. That thought certainly eases the sadness of having to leave.

Part 4 — Pandang Bai and Nusa Penida

Our final stop was on the east coast of Bali at the unique and intimate Watergarden Hotel, in Candi Dasa. This was a perfect base for three days exploring both the diving along the coast and to head out to the island of Nusa Penida for the chance of encounters with large pelagics. We dove with Geko Diving, based in Padang Bai, who run an excellent and friendly dive center with fast boats ideal for exploring the area. And their dive shop seems to have just about every fish ID book every published!

On our first day we explored the sites of the Blue Lagoon, spotting a posing pair of giant frogfish, a pair of shy leaf scorpionfish, ghostpipefish, a massive stonefish and several banded sea snakes. Sadly we couldn’t find any wobbegong sharks, which are usually fairly commonly seen here (although we did see a whitetip and green and hawksbill turtles). Night dives here seem to always yield several Spanish dancer nudibranchs.

The next day we had our fingers crossed as we explored the chilly waters around Nusa Penida hoping for an encounter with the enigmatic Mola mola (Ocean Sunfish). Our luck was in and over three dives at Crystal Bay I saw 6 sunfish, and had two face to face encounters with the alien-looking massive molas! We also dived at Manta Point and after the sunfish I have to admit that the mantas looked rather unimpressive, although much more elegant. Our final dive of the trip was looking for molas again. And we were rewarded with a really special encounter – drifting right up to a giant Mola mola being cleaned by bannerfish, emperor angelfish and moon wrasse. What a finale.Once again Bali provided us with unforgettable encounters, weird creatures and world-class underwater photo opportunities. Above the water the smiling welcome from the Balinese people and the excellent accommodations combined to make this a very special trip.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 28th, 2006 at 11:30 am and is filed under Destinations.