Bali photos & brief trip report

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Geoff_H

Contributor
Messages
1,566
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Location
Tokyo
# of dives
200 - 499
We're just back from a fantastic Bali holiday with AquaMarine Diving Bali who organised the whole trip for us. They were very professional and we were extremely happy with the schedule, hotels and diving/guides they suggested

First stop was Tulamben Bay, home to the USS Liberty wreck which is - incredibly - an easy shore dive. It was hit by a torpedo, deliberately beached by its captain to save his men and then blasted back into the water by a volcanic explosion... what a great story & it is an equally good dive.

Apart from the wreck, there is good muck diving and some nice reefs and a drop off - all easily accessible by shore. On my first dive, I saw two types of ribbon eels, ornate ghost pipefish, cuttlefish, nudi's galore, orangutan crabs, pygmy seahorses, giant mantis shrimps and even a few reef sharks into the bargain... and some big schools of fusiliers.

Fusilier school

fusilierschool.jpg


A blue ribbon eel

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Black tip reef shark

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Ornate ghost pipefish (crap photo, these were really tricky to expose properly and as you can see I failed miserably!)

ornateghostpipefish.jpg


Sweetlips

sweetlips.jpg


Next we moved to Padang Bai, which is a nice quiet spot a bit off the beaten track with good diving and easy easy to Nusa Penida which has some great dive sites.

On Nusa Penida we saw

Hawksbill Turtles

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Beautiful corals & abundant fish (these are both natural light, no flash)

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Mantas
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Scorpionfish aplenty

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Back in Padang Bai, in Blue Lagoon there was still plenty to see, including the incredible cockatoo waspfish, cunningly mimicking a decaying leaf right down to the bacteria patches and the way it sways with the surge:



A quite fat seahorse

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Mantis shrimps scuttling away

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This is so pretty I had to include it

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The ever curious batfish

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Our great guide Angky, fortunately he was much better at finding critters than blowing bubble rings! Well worth asking if you can dive with him if you go through AquaMarine - very professional, laid back and a lot of fun....

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We moved from Padang Bai to Jimbaran Bay, close to Kuta and a very different pace of life... we had a couple of days off diving and here are a few of the topside photo's of some of the fantastic sights Bali has to offer

Rice paddies - this is just a stop on a road up Mt Batur - the whole journey had wonderful views life this

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The volcano lake on Mt Batur - sadly we didn't get to dive this

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Pura Nugung Kawi - we cleansed our bodies (& souls?!) in the pure spring water

puragunungkawi.jpg


A temple door at Gua Lawah

GuaLawah.jpg


Overall - 10/10 for Bali for underwater and above water attractions!
 
I dived the USS Liberty once, but apart from that I always dived in the nearby Gili Islands. Thanks to your lovely images, I now realise the Bali is pretty damn fine for diving as well. Thanks
 
Thank you for the trip report! I loved looking at the photos and dreaming of where I could be instead of freezing my butt off up here in Canada!
 
Thank you very much for sharing your photos. They are great. I also love looking at wonderful photos, both from above and under water.

I think your Sweetlips are "Golden Rabbitfish"! The only reason I know this, is because it took me a while to ID them, when I saw them in Thailand.
 
Tulamben is our favorite site - not the best for Indonesia standard; but its diversity, variation, easy diving; easy to reach, make us fall in love.
been there 4 x, and still not boring.

cheers

I agree it is a great site. The food at Tauch Terminal was pretty good too, although we stayed at a lower budget place down the beach. The women who carry the tanks across the large pebbley beach are awesome too.

Thank you for the trip report! I loved looking at the photos and dreaming of where I could be instead of freezing my butt off up here in Canada!

Glad to help.... I'm freezing back in chilly Tokyo now!

Thank you very much for sharing your photos. They are great. I also love looking at wonderful photos, both from above and under water.

I think your Sweetlips are "Golden Rabbitfish"! The only reason I know this, is because it took me a while to ID them, when I saw them in Thailand.

Thanks for pointing that out.. a quick consult to Debelius makes me agree with you - these are gold-saddle rabbitfish rather than sweetlips as I originally thought.... well done for spotting that!
 
Great report and pics. Thanks.
 

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