Diving Indonesia in January

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

AussiePro

Registered
Messages
50
Reaction score
3
Location
Queensland, Australia
# of dives
I'm a Fish!
Hi all, my wife and I are planning a diving holiday in January for two to three weeks. I had never really considered Indonesia before but our local airport just went international with flights direct to Bali. Not really interested in diving locally in Bali, unless I can be convinced otherwise, but thought it would be a good stepping stone to better locations in Indonesia. Lembeh and Komodo spring to mind.

First question is obviously going to be weather related at that time of year. We live in North Queensland so we understand the tropical storms at this time of year. Does this put much of a dampener on diving? Does the runoff water impact on visibility to a great extent?

We both love macro photography but I don't think either of us want to get stuck diving muck for two or three weeks. Is there much pelagic action? Should we visit a couple of locations while we are there to get variety?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
Have a look at this book Diving and Snorkeling Guide to Bali (Paperback): Tim Rock, Simon Pridmore, this guide tells you all you need to know about Bali's world. Welcome to Bali! This is truly one of the finest places in the world to dive. The sheer diversity of underwat. If you are landing in DPS then there are some good options for diving in Bali other than just Tulumben - the guide gives a good insight into the better and lesser known dive sites. With the amount of time you have there would certainly be enough diversity if you combined say Bali and Komoodo to keep you happy. Aquamarine do a diving safari around bali and out to Nusa Lembongan which you may find of value.
 
Presumably another Townsville resident? :)

If you're landing in Bali, the flight gets in at 1.30am. Stay in town for the night and then head up to Tulamben to dive the Liberty wreck for a couple of days. The mola mola don't show up at Crystal Bay until ~June, which doesn't fit in with your proposed trip timing. There's then a direct flight from Bali to Manado on Garuda that leaves at lunch time and gets in around 3pm. You could then split the rest of your time between muck diving in Lembeh, and reef diving at Bunaken. Give you a bit of a taste of what Indo has to offer.

With the weather, you'll get afternoon storms that might last for half an hour or so, but it's not constant in my experience.
 
Hi all, my wife and I are planning a diving holiday in January for two to three weeks.

We both love macro photography but I don't think either of us want to get stuck diving muck for two or three weeks.

So much to consider!
To answer question about weather, it is the rainy season but the rain shouldn't ruin ruin the diving. I've been quite a few times in the rainy season and it's never ruined a trip.
Since your flying into Bali why not dive and see it?
The diving is great with nice reefs and Manta's off Lembongan, (I've seen Mola in January!) to Tulamben and the great macro diving, and they have some nice reefs there also. Since you love macro photography Tulamben is a no brainer. Bali is a wonderful place with great topside to go with the great diving. The people are sweet, the scenery is beautiful, and it's gotten into my blood.
If your going for two weeks I would give Bali a week and if you don't think you want a week of muck in Lembeh, do Komodo for the second week. Komodo is great, that time of year the liveaboard choices are limited as the traveling boats have moved to Raja Ampat. Lembeh does have fantastic muck, and it also has coral habitat but not stellar vis, but you wouldn't be staring at black sand all the time. It really is a top notch destination for macro photographers. I'm doing a 11 day stint in Lembeh for my forth time there and then doing Komodo from a resort in January. Komodo has great pelagic action and great macro also, this Jan will be my first time diving from a resort but I've done Komodo liveaboards the last two years in a row, so either I'm gullible or it has great diving.
If your going the 3 week route you could do all three!
So many choices, have fun!
 
Just back from 30 days of diving/snorkeling in Indonesia - Bunaken/Siladen, Lembeh, Menjangan (Bali) and Komodo (gave Raja Ampat a total miss because of the high price of EVERYTHING).
Bali? Not the best; not close. Menjangan is overrated; time consuming trips EVERY day; substandard local boats (no tank wells; no boat toilet); toilets on M are filthy. Reefs are generally sloping; not very exciting topography; we saw very little pelagics; no-one had seen mantas for months. Permuteran has way-substandard reefs for Indonesia. Spoke to folk who had been to Tulamben and to Bunaken, and they opinioned that T is not a patch on Bunaken. No idea about about Nusa Lembongan island.

Komodo: You have to dive in the park for great reef life (overfished elsewhere). To get to any dive site(s) you therefore need to be on a boat. Day trips are VERY time consuming (no accommodation in the park), which = need a liveaboard and that = $$$$. High DAILY park fees. But the diving is awesome.

Out of Manado - €120 return from Bali with Lion Air from Denpassar to Manado: 1) Bunaken (Sulawesi):great wall drifts and edge-of-reef snorkeling. Big stuff, mass reef fish, small critters; 2) Adjacent Siladen snorkeling is mind-blowing (N of the new pier). You stay right there = no waiting for daily transfers like at Menjangan (I used Two Fish - €50 per day room and meals; dives extra). Weekly park fee. 3) Lembeh - greatest muck diving in the world; astonishing 'alternative' critters and macro stuff. Lembeh Dive Lodge gives outstanding service. I came back with 690 photos from my Manado trip. Bali paled thereafter. Komodo was as good as the Manado sites but $$$$.

So maybe a week on Nusa Lembongan (Two Fish have a lodge there also) and 10 days in north Sulawesi? I would go for that option like a shot :)
 
Just back from 30 days of diving/snorkeling in Indonesia - Bunaken/Siladen, Lembeh, Menjangan (Bali) and Komodo (gave Raja Ampat a total miss because of the high price of EVERYTHING).

Bali? Not the best; not close. Menjangan is overrated; time consuming trips EVERY day; substandard local boats (no tank wells; no boat toilet); toilets on M are filthy. Reefs are generally sloping; not very exciting topography; we saw very little pelagics; no-one had seen mantas for months. Permuteran has way-substandard reefs for Indonesia. Spoke to folk who had been to Tulamben and to Bunaken, and they opinioned that T is not a patch on Bunaken. No idea about about Nusa Lembongan island.

Two options :
- you have to go to Tulamben to check by yourself.
- speak to more experienced guys, next time (you can speak to me for instance :blinking: )

After 15 years diviing two or three times a year in Indonesia (of which 7 times in Bali in almost all the dive spots around and off the island, 3 times in Bunaken, 6 times in Bangka, 4 times in Lembeh ), my opinion is that Bunaken isn't worth more than 2 days diving while you can spend two weeks and more diving Bali.

That said I agree with you that Menjangan is not worth at all, no fish... but READ THIS : this is absolutely no comparison with the other spots in Bali, you won't have any pelagics in Bunaken like on Gili Mimpang, Tepekong or around Nusa Penida/Lembongan. No such amazing wreck like the Liberty in Tulamben, no great muck diving like Seraya, Melasti or the liberty slope in Tulamben, no rhinopias like on Padang Bai jetty, No live coral and gorgonians like in Amed, I could go on and on for hours...

Anyway since you've been to north Sulawesi without diving Bangka you probably missed a lot on knowing what is a lively reef. You should return to both N/Sulawesi and Bali and do some serious diving.
 

I purchased the book "Diving and Snorkeling Guide to Bali" By Tim Rock and Simon Pridmore, and the formatting is terrible. The fonts look poor on a macbook retina - they do not scale to high-res hi-dpi screen and look smudgy and un-smoothed like a printer running out of ink. Like it has been formatted for 720p cellphone screens only. Then I tried various epub readers on windows 10 with my dell XPS13. This one has a 3K hi-res screen and the situation is even worse. The book appears thumbnail sized and does not scale to fullscreen at all. I then tried the calibre e-book convertor to read it on my Kindle. It appears to have some kind of DRM because the conversion to Mobi or AZW3 crashed my Kindle. The screen froze with some odd pattern on my screen and it required a hard reboot.

So the situation now is that -
while I can barely read this book on a $1900 macbook pro - it is not enjoyable.
I cannot read it on a $2200 Dell XPS13.
I cannot read it on a $300 Kindle Voyage.
I didnt even bother trying with my Android tablet because it has a 2K screen.

The publisher (Blurb) has only a no-reply email-id. The website contact submission form does not work. So I have been unable to get any kind of help in fixing this. I lost AUD 15 on the book, and a lot of time wasted (I am yet to finish planning the dive itinerary for my trip next week)! Sigh!

Edit: the contact form worked after I submitted this post. I will update if they fix the quality of the e-book or not. This post is just a heads up in case you are planning to purchase the e-book right away.


Pearlman
 
Last edited:
Wow thats weird..mine is fine ??? no problems on either IPad or Laptop..be interested to hear what the publisher says.
 
Thanks for all of the information so far. I'm feeling very overwhelmed. At the moment I'm inclined for a few days in Bunaken, a few in Lembeh and finish it off with a few days in Bali. Is this a good mix?
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/perdix-ai/

Back
Top Bottom