Bali Diving

Bali is a place that conjures varied images in my mind – think of Kuta and there’s sun, sand and sea. Not forgetting pubs and blondies surfing the waves in bikinis and board shorts. Think of Ubud, there’s yoga, green padi fields, organic food, zen everywhere, yoga again. Tulamben, diving!

And so the three of us newly accredited Rescue Divers, Jacky and Fong, landed on Bali island on 24^th August. We stayed at Sanur, at a place called the Sanur Seaview Resort. Ironically it’s one of the furthest resort from the sea, you can hardly see the sea actually. But it’s a nice decent place, with a pool with water so still it looks un-used for the past decade. Service was pretty good, but there weren’t many guests in the first place so we have their undivided attention.

Checking in to Sanur Seaview

Dinners consisted of a walk down the beach to the other resorts, which were along the beach and had a FULL view of the sea. We concluded that whichever restaurant we went, the menu would be the same. The view is also the same, it’s the same sea. The main difference would be the ambience of the restaurant, and the dogs that sit around our table. Yes every restaurant have their own gang of dogs, not the same.

Came across a cool open-top car on the way to dinner

First dinner for the trip

 First two days were spent diving at Tulamben. After meeting our instructors and settling payment at the dive shop, off we went on a 2.5 hours van drive to Tulamben. 

Manta sighted at the dive shop

Also whale shark and grey shark

Once there we immediately geared up for the first dive of the trip. It was a shore dive, ie you just walk down from the beach and start diving. Sounds easy right? Not when you have to waddle against the waves with your full tank and gear on you. But it’s fast, within minutes from shore you’re already 10m underwater.  Exiting the water after the dive was more difficult; now you have the waves behind you and pushing you off balance. I kept stumbling as I made my way back to the shore.

Frogfish

Harlequin Ghost Pipefish

Nudibranch

Another Nudi

It's a pygmy seahorse, can you spot it? 

Tulamben is famous for its wreck dive – the Liberty Wreck, the submerged USS Liberty. I wonder why and how a ship that big could have sunken so close to the shore. Or maybe it was intentionally sunk for leisure diving purposes. Fong was doing her Wreck Specialty, so she was on her own with her instructor doing their stuff on the wreck. I was doing my Underwater Photography , Jacky his Nitrox, and two of us were diving together with our instructor. First dive, well….. nothing exciting to see, but was happy to practise some of the underwater photography techniques. The concepts of underwater photography are very similar to on-land photography, but the subject may move very fast (if it’s a fish and not a coral) and the photographer is usually in a floating position subjected to the movement of the currents. The low lighting conditions and back scattering effect of flash light makes underwater photography even more challenging; but it’s also more rewarding. The Underwater Photography course was a short 1-day-3-dive programme, but it did make me see underwater photography in a different angle, sorry for the pun. As with all courses, completing it just means the start of the learning journey, still have lots to learn and improve.

Nemos again! 

Coral?

The next few dives at Tulamben were basically the same – usually at the Liberty Wreck, nothing exciting to see, but happy to apply photography skills to “normal” subjects and seeing the composition and colour of the photos improve. Also started to use my Gopro and tray to shoot videos underwater. Shooting a Gopro video underwater is pretty fun, but a Gopro lens is basically wide-angled (even with the macro lens you don’t get close-up shots). The video captured was pretty decent, the link is provided later.

Fast forward to Day 4, and we’re headed to Crystal Bay, where the famed Mola Mola lurks in the cold deep waters. There are so many dive boats in Crystal Bay, they have a unique way of greeting one another:

Dive boat 1: Mola mola?

Dive boat 2: No la, no la.

Jacky

If you’re amazed at the number of dive boats on the water, wait till you see the number of divers underwater! It looked like an underwater movie screening; every diver (about 100?) is trying to be stationary along the vertical reef and looking out at the big blue. Then all of a sudden, somebody bangs his tank and points to a certain direction, and everyone else also points in the same direction. And lo and behold, the grand entrance of the star of the day, the Mola Mola. This Mola x 2 had a broken dorsal fin, maybe it was bitten by another fish. The Mola x 2 is also called the Sunfish, probably because it was big and round and looked like the sun. These creatures probably have never seen the sun, they prefer to be in deep cold waters, under 21 degree celsius.

We had 3 dives at Crystal Bay, saw 2 Molas in dive 2 and nothing in dive 1 and 3. Not too shabby, some of my friends don’t see any in the whole trip. And I managed to catch a 1-minute video of the Mola, though it was far away. One of my newly-made Singaporean friend on my dive boat caught a close-up video of the Mola, really cool! However he was also the one who scared the Mola away because he was getting too close. You can see him in my video below. 

Bali Dive Video

Enough of diving. Day 5, we went to Kuta for a day trip. Check out the beach, shop the numerous Quicksilver, Billabong and Ripcurl shops that line along the streets, go for spa…..you know, touristy stuff. Highlight of the day was lunch, which was at this cool Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. Restaurant, yes the Bubba from Forrest Gump movie. I so loved the movie, and loved the restaurant. Needless to say, everything from the menu to the merchandise were themed after the movie. They were also showing the movie on TV. It was the Jacky and Fong’s first time watching the movie and I think they liked it, even though the movie was on silent and we could only read the subtitles. Thanks Fong for finding out about this place. I wonder if there’s a branch in Singapore; there’s one in Hong Kong though.

Bubba Gump Shrimp and Co.

Food is good too! 

All time favourite, A&W! 

Kuta Beach, must surf these waves one day

Cool hammock in the mall 

One of the many beach wear shops in Kuta

Fong shopping for a new bikini 

Day 6, time to head back to Singapore. I’m happy to have gained more insights into underwater photography, happy to see the Mola Mola, happy to be diving with my favourite dive buddies Jacky and Fong again. Unhappy that….the next day I’ll be flying again, to Cambodia on a work trip. L

Diving in Bali – Checked.

Sighting of Mola Mola – Checked.

Dining in a Bubba Restaurant – Checked.

Surfing a wave in Kuta – Unchecked. (Must leave something for the next visit)