Dive Sites

 

 

Diving the sites described here on a more or less regular basis, I am still striving to explore new spots in order to give my guests even more exciting diving options – and thus more reasons to come back again and again. For safety reasons mainly due to the typical currents around Bali as well as other external factors even scheduled dive trips cannot be guaranteed under all circumstances.In such cases we will offer safe alternatives on short notice.

I will also schedule certain dive sites only when timing is promising – regarding local weather, tides, lunar cycle and season, so that according to my experience there is a good chance to actually see what makes these sites most attractive, e.g. Mantas, Mola-Mola etc. Nevertheless I will never ‘guarantee’ certain sightings.

Training Level Requirements

Some of Bali’s dive sites require a certain level of training and experience, mostly due to depth and currents. Please see description of dive sites for details.

Please understand that I can make NO EXCEPTIONS regarding maximum depth ! But you will have the opportunity to easily catch up with the required training level: E.g. Open Water Divers, being limited to max. 18 meters, who want to join a diving safari to Tulamben and Menjangan will be offered the chance to start or even complete their AOWD course with the ‘Deep Diver’ Adventure Dive in Tulamben and be ready to enjoy deeper dives when we get to Menjangan. Same for AOWDs and beyond who want to go for the Deep Diver Specialty Course, they can choose a similar option.

Typical local hazards are currents (tidal or rip currents), up- and down-wellings and the usual potential dangers when diving wrecks and drop-offs.

Water temperatures

During the rainy season (approximately Nov to April) you can expect 29-31 degrees, even down to 30 meters depth. The only exception are cold upwellings where temperature can drop to freezing 20 degrees. But as we are usually not staying there for long, 3 mm Shorties will still do.

Visibility

Normally good to very good (15 to 30 meters). Still currents can sometimes bring plankton-rich water which will cause visibility to drop. You might get rewarded though by encounters with aquatic life which is known for following the plankton (Mantas, Mola-Mola and who knows what else).

Cold upwellings can have an adverse effect on visilbility too. General rule for Bali: expect the unexpected !

Biodiversity

Bali and its eastern neighbor island Lombok are separated by an invisible line, the Wallace Line, named after Alfred Russel Wallace, British naturalist and contemporary of Charles Darwin.

It is actually just one of a system of such virtual lines (Wallace-. Weber- and Lydekker Line), defining an area which has become known as one of the world’s most important incubators for new species of aquatic life.

This is why we enjoy an unbelievable extent of biodiversity in the waters around Bali and further east (Lombok, Komodo, West Irian) as well as up north to Sulawesi and as far as the Philippines.

Diving legends like Jacques Cousteau have commented enthusiastically about this area and it is no surprise that it has become a first address for the word’s elite of underwater photographers like Tim Rock, David Doubilier, Kurt Amsler and many others.

Sometimes you will meet whole teams of National Geographic photographers and celebrities like Australian movie directors Ron and Valerie Taylor have been seen here again and again. Prestigious international underwater photography and videography competitions and accompanying workshops like the Hugy Cup keep coming back to Bali.

Aquatic life highlights

Mantas are frequently seen at Manta Point / Nusa Penida but can also unexpectedly turn up on other sites around the island.

But the most sought-after species which attracts divers to Bali might well be the Mola-Mola or ‘Great Oceanic Sunfish’.

Those peaceful giants grow up to 3 meters. They are normally living deep and only sometimes seen far out on the ocean, floating on the surface. Here near Nusa Penida they come as close to the shore as hardly anywhere else in the world to meet with their typical cleaner fish.

The Shark population unfortunately is declining like everywhere else in the world. Still we meet the occasional White-tip or Black-tip reef shark or Bamboo shark. Bigger Rays are also around as well as their more frequently seen smaller cousins like e.g. Blue-spotted stingrays.

Encounters with Whale sharks or the odd Hammerhead are possible but you have to be very lucky.

Turtles are protected now and their population seems to be recovering, but slowly.

Photographer or naturalist – amazing surprises are in store for you wherever you go around Bali if you are a macro lover. Nudibranchs are dotting the reefs in an unbelievable variety of colours as well as crustaceans, cleaner shrimps, ribbon eels and the odd leaf scorpion fish. Watch out even for pygmy seahorses and ghost pipefish ! Garden eels, shrimp gobys and even the unique mono cellular algae Ventricaria ventricosa populate the sandy shallows.

Another highlight are night dives with the stunning Flashlight fish (Photoblepharus palpebratus), herds of Bumphead parrotfish, Spanish dancers and Giant moray eels.

Then there are the Maori wrasse better known as Napoleon, big Groupers, Giant trevally, big schools of Jackfish, Barracudas, Squids and Octopodia and many members of the Scorpidae family like Lionfish, Stonefish and Scorpionfish.

Many holes in the steep and densely coral-grown drop-offs are home to reef lobsters.

And then there are the usual reef-dwelling suspects – Sweetlips, Bannerfish, Butterfly fish, Anemone fish, Batfish, Pufferfish, Angelfish, Surgeon- File and Pipefish in big numbers and many varieties.