www.freeflowdivers.com

Recent Trips

INTRODUCTION

I always enjoy Bali.  This was my 3rd visit and the 2nd that included diving.  All visits included delicious foods and lovely people.  As before, I chose to do my diving with Aqua Marine Diving.  Annabel, the delightful English owner, has lived in Bali for 15 years.  Her Indonesian staff are friendly, efficient and all speak English very well.  I was met at the airport by a driver who remembered me from last year, went  to my favorite not too big hotel, Kumala, then to the office to finalize my individual dive safari details.
I was traveling alone so the schedule was totally up to me.  Diving with AMD means traveling via comfy van moving day to day with all your gear, tanks, weights, towels, your own driver and diving guide.  Vans can accommodate 6 divers, have aircon & are very nicely equipped with great reading materials on diving, Bali cultural activities, and general traveling in Indonesia topics.  Fruit juices and bottled water in the cooler were available as you wished.  Breakfast and lunch on dive days is included.  Since each trip is a custom deal, you have picked your choice of number of dives and where you wish to visit and for how long.  Sounds ideal?  Well it is!  My plan was a day at Secret Bay, ½ day at Puri Jati then on to Tulamben for 3 days to include Seraya Secrets, continuing on to Padang Bay, Blue Lagoon and the east coast islands with a total of 8 days diving. 

Day 2 the plan changed.  But, not a problem.  My driver, Wayan simply phoned the office told  Alina the new schedule if it changed the hotel arrangements, then we went diving.  If I wished something to eat Wayan would head out during my dive and pick up the special lunch…usually nasi or bami.

I was eager to return to Secret Bay.  Black sand beach entry and funky strange critter territory.    Hotel choices are slim.  I chose to return to a probably not even star rated hotel called Sari.  It’s 5 minutes from the dive entry point.  Any other quality hotel is at least 45-60 minutes drive away.  My dive guide was Katut a delightful Indonesian instructor.  Other than this first dive day we were in the water by 6:30 each morning, my choice.  I’m into long dives so every dive here was 80+ even one that was 109 minutes……we must have found something really good there at the end!  Katut never stopped looking for critters, never said a word about how long a time I spent underwater.  And he was VERY good at spotting interesting critters. 

186 minutes of 2-day dives then we walked in for a night dive to see the bobbit worms.  Katut carried with him a nice little skewer of freshly BBQ’d little fish to tempt the bobbit’s from their hiding holes.  Very strange critters!  The bobbit worms were a bit bigger around than your thumb and zipped up to grab the bait then instantly disappeared again.  Their heads look a bit like the body of a crab.  Dives here are quite shallow maxing out at maybe 10 meters.  Vis was not too bad at 4-5 meters for muck diving.  On dives here I saw snake eels, flatheads, cockatoo waspfish, various scorpion fish, several types of pipefish, razor fish, frogfish and seahorses.   Last year there had been a large amount of green algae covering much of the dive area.  This time it was absent and far fewer critters were to be found.  So one day was plenty to see the site and we headed to Puri Jati early for day 2. 

Puri Jati is a dark black/brown sand beach that stretches along the northern shores of Bali.  It’s about 45 minutes drive on to Lovina for the nearest hotels.  Aqua Marine has been diving this site for just over a year.  Most of the interest has been from photographers.  A family lives on this stretch of  beach and provides fresh water in a tub for gear & personal wash up after your dive.  They also serve a good noodle soup, coffee and cold soft drinks..  We arrived,  parked under the trees, and set up a large tarp to keep the gear out of the sand.  It’s a place most might find dull and boring.  That is until you start spotting mimic octopus in 2-4 meter depths!  Let me back up a bit…..the bottom here is gently sloping dark brown sand with less than 5% cover of very thin grass (robust ghost pipefish) in a few places or deeper small 10-15 cm tall lavender sea pens and purple soft corals also not taller than 15-20cm.  Your first thoughts will be “why am I diving here?”  I spent 1-½ days at Puri Jati with a total of 6 dives.  The plan had been for 2 dives here. 

2 dives were dull and boring.  Katut was hunting for stargazers.  It was the perfect looking bottom condition, but we were unlucky.  I did see lots of a new to me variety of mantis shrimp.  These were beige all over with brilliant purple tails and frontal fins.  Lovely colors I’ve not seen in photos before.  Fish were few and far between. 

We did see several scorpion fish varieties, bottom dwelling razor fish, pipefish and small flatheads, down deep we found 1 flying gurnard.  But the reason to visit this area is the mimics.  The best dive here included 2 Ambon scorpion fish, an unknown pipefish/Pegasus sort of critter not in any of the ID books and 4 mimics.  Katut told me there have been times when he has not seen mimics.  I was there over full moon in May and the mimics. were out in force.  On 4 of 6 dives I spotted several mimics. on each dive.  Sometimes they were not venturing out of their holes.  Other times they were out doing all the famous mimic imitations.  The best one we saw (that 109 minute dive) was a small mimic that was “floundering” along when a solid white mantis shrimp passed a few meters away.  The mimic turned blood red and changed to his lionfish disguise.  A second or two later we heard the mantis’ shell being crunched as he was eaten.   This is why you dive Puri Jati!

Onward to Tulamben.  Here I again stayed at a delightful small hotel called Paradise.  Very good foods, lots of choices, nice staff and small prices.  It has a nice house reef of beautiful corals, loads of fish and is maybe 300 meters from the Liberty wreck.  Toward the east 100 meters the other direction is the dive site called “the wall” and further around the corner is Seraya Secrets.  Our 6:30 morning dives were always at the wreck.  The resident bump head parrotfish herd, yes they look like a herd of buffalo, parade by leaving the wreck each morning.  Besides the beautiful soft corals, large aggregations of big fish, endless visual stimulation of colors and shapes….well I really enjoyed each dive at the Liberty.  The best find here was a lovely purple leaf fish.  By the end of our dive there would be over 100 others on the wreck.  Early it was just the 2 of us and the bumpheads. 

Daily I did 2 or 3 mid day 90-minute solo dives on the house reef.  Just trying to get all those fish to pose for photos in the crystal clear 4-10 meter depths was great fun.  Then Katut & I would head in for the dusk and night dives.  Some days we varied and headed to the wall for a good drift thru 3 different areas.  Best find here was a large school of square spot anthias.  Another short boat ride took us to Seraya Secrets to locate the 2 thorny seahorse.  In the past there were 5 I was told.  I was averaging 6 ½ -7 hours underwater daily, my kind of holiday!    I was enjoying myself so much that again the plan changed.  I decided to stay for the entire rest of my diving at the Tulamben area. 

Bali does have some interesting and beautiful diving.  I really enjoyed diving with Aqua Marine.  Annabel’s’ guys all are hard working, always seem to be wearing a smile and do seem to love their jobs.  Maybe its just Bali and its different culture, but it brings a smile to my face just thinking about returning.

Sally Schroeder