Bali - Nusa Lembongan

[MotuDiver]

Does anyone have recommendations for dive ops on Nusa Lembongan? I'm going there for 4 nights in August.

I guess we are looking for a dive op that will provide good local guides, but also let us reasonably dive our computers. We sip our air so we don't want to be forced out of the water after 30 minutes. FYI: We'll have our own equipment.

We are then headed to Liberty Dive Center in Tulamben for 3 nights, then we left 3 nights open TBD. Any suggestions for Tulamben or other "Must See" dive spots in Bali?

Any recommendations are much appreciated.

Best regards,

Patrick

About us: AOW w/Nitrox. 160+ Dives, wrecks, deep, strong current etc.

 

[rcaqua]

FWIW, A bunch of us (12 pax) went with World Diving on Nusa Lembongan last May. The owners, John and Sue, were great, very responsive, safety-conscious and also adapting to our varying needs, the instructor excellent (my daughter in law was doing OW, yes it IS possible at NL, and she had a ball). Their hotel simple but comfortable and very reasonable in price, food at their warung really good, altogether a very satisfactory experience. Diving was very good, (up to 70 minutes on one dive, so no worries there) nice mantas, pristine coral, quite a lot of current. August will give you a good chance of seeing the famous Mola Mola.

Hope you enjoy!

Rene

 

[Manneca]

I've dived with Two Fish on three trips. They use lots of local folks as guides. Maximum bottom time is I think 75 minutes (it might be 60). Anyway, my buddy and I have good to great air consumption; I've never had an issue coming up sooner than I need to. If one person is blowing through air, then the guide (depending on conditions and whether they guide thinks you're safe there) may go up with the low on air person. Occasionally, I've been the low on air person and I've gone up on my own. (I have my own SMB and I've done probably 80 dives with the same guide.) They do put people of the same experience level together, so if you're AOW you won't be diving with OW divers.

Depending on when you are there, you may need to stay at their resort to dive with them. Divers at the resort have first dibs. It's 5 bungalows, with two rooms each. Basic but clean. Hot water and a/c. It's very cheap. They are quite safety conscious, too. One year when I was there they were turning people who wanted to go to Crystal Bay away because in their view the conditions weren't safe. I've had them change dive locations on the fly because the currents were too strong.

 

[Luko]

Another recommandation for Twofish although the french couple Laurent & Stéphanie who were running the operation since the (young) start in NL (2012) is not there anymore. Fast speedboats, good guides, Nice and cheap accomodation around the pool.
Hope the newcomers will do as good (even though I doubt they can cook bread like Laurent used to ) .

Worlddiving is a good operation too, although their big boat carries a lot of divers and therefore is often "delayed on departure".
John is a very good and serious instructor, you can stay at Pondok Baruna garden which is equally good, may be better than Twofish accoms (but there's only 6 rooms), or Pondok Baruna beach bungalows on a budget.

Both operations are safety conscious, I have seen both canceling dives on specific spots because of too much current or swell or mantas that were not visible. They really try to offer the best to their customers, something I would not say with other operations diving Nusa Penida .

 

[MotuDiver]

Thank you all for your recommendations! Nothing better than personal experience to help guide our decision.

It seems like there are some really good choices, so I'm confident we'll have a great time. We've decided to dive with World Diving for four days and we'll report back with our experiences.

FWIW: We are staying at Batu Karang Resort and World Diving will pick us up at/near the hotel.

Many thanks again!!

 

[gekodivebali]

Try not to miss out on other areas around the Lombok Strait. Selang, Biaha, Tepekong, Mimpang and muck sites around Padang Bai offer diving that is at least as exciting as anything around Penida.

 

[WhiteSands]

IMO, the must see sites in Tulamben are Kubu wreck, Coral garden, Liberty wreck, Drop off & Seraya's secret.

 

[high/baric]

Most of the business for Lembongan based dive ops seems to come from the manta dives, so you'll likely have access to those daily. What may be more tricky is getting enough people for a trip to some other site than their choice of manta diving spot. However, since you are two people already that shouldn't be much of an issue. Don't miss the drift dives along the north coast of Nusa Penida, especially Mangrove. Four days is plenty of time to see the main dive spots around Lembongan.

For Tulamben I second whitesands; Liberty wreck is certainly worth more than just one dive (do a UV night dive there if you haven't tried it before). Boga wreck is a deep (30m/100f) light penetration dive, one of the best I did in Tulamben. Drop off is your basic reef wall, pretty nice but crowded in the OW depths (not a problem for you two). Coral Garden and Seraya East & West are really nice muck spots. When I was there a couple of weeks ago there was a small but busy cleaning station in Coral Garden at around 24 meters, definitely worth seeing especially if you happen to catch a moray or another big fish being cleaned like we did. Lastly, if you're into U/W photography and looking for some extra training, there's couple in Tulamben with a business called Reef, Wreck and Critter. Their prices were really competitive and the photographer / instructor Jeff was a cool guy with a wealth of knowledge.

Edit: There's also a site where they regularly spot white tip reef sharks a boat ride from Tulamben, but unfortunately I didn't get a chance to check it out. Fortunately enough a saw one white tip on my Boga Wreck dive though

Enjoy your trip to Bali!

 

[WhiteSands]

I've heard great things about Jeff too. I saw some of his student's shots, and they were beautiful.

Btw, there are 5-6 white tips that hang around 18m at Coral Garden. They were not shy (will come close to you), and each time we saw them around 3-4pm.

 

[MotuDiver]

Great stuff! Thanks again all for your insights. Matur suksma!

I will look into Jeff at Wreck, Reef and Critter.

Perhaps needless to say, we are pretty psyched for Bali!!
:banana::cool3: