Danish dive fatality - Bali

[zivva]

Even if your wifes are not so experienced, they still can dive CB.

Staying inside the bay and just getting to the coral plateau before the drop-off can be a super nice dive with vivid colors and incredible fish life ... + you can get lucky : a week ago teaching a DSD my student & I saw a Mola there ... the dozen of divers @ the drop-off didn't. The tricky part being the mix of current & swell that sometimes prevent you to get to the plateau unless kicking a lot facing the current + swell. But still, if conditions prevent not-so-experienced divers to get to the plateau, there is still plenty of nice stuff to check out inside the bay or in its south-west side oposite to the small island.

You just need to find an op that agree to make separate groups and don't bring no-so-experienced divers to the drop-off. Should be quite easy if you ask before & insist before signing-up ...

 

[Quero]

I've been in contact with some people in the Bali/Lembongan dive industry whom I respect very highly. I have complete confidence in the information that was shared with me.
• First of all, the Japanese diver was a visitor, but she was also a DM, as reported earlier in this thread. Somehow the newspaper got it wrong (no real surprise there, I guess).
• Next, the Danish diver was diving independently (not through one of the Lembongan or Bali dive centres) along with some other people and was doing a normal ascent when something went wrong. It's possible that there was a medical issue. He was, it seems, a resident expat who owned a villa operation on Lembongan.
• Crystal Bay has been declared off limits for an indefinite time--it may be for as little as four days, but that's uncertain. Today at CB it was business as usual with the bay chock full of boats, but tomorrow it's expected that the closure will be enforced. My worry is that operators may take divers with no business doing these dives to even more dangerous sites, such as Blue Corner, to see the molas.
• Finally, my contact has expressed the opinion that Crystal Bay may be among the most dangerous dive sites in the region, or even in the world, if judged on the basis of the incidents, fatalities, unsafe boating practices, etc. that occur there annually.

To get an idea of what a typical dive day is like at Crystal Bay during mola-mola season, take a look at this video: Trouble in Paradise - 1st Place Issues - Chris Paporakis on Vimeo
The man being interviewed in the video is a recognized expert on mola-molas with decades of experience diving at Penida and working with researchers and visitors doing mola dives.

It's easy to see that conditions are overcrowded and that some of these divers have no business at a dive site prone to dangerous currents given their obviously novice level of skill development.

 

[DandyDon]

Now it seems that he was an Instructor who often lead trips there...

ScandAsia.Com - Danish Diving Instructor Surfaces and Dies

44-year-old Henrik Kent Jensen died on the morning of 28 August while diving with two friends. He was a trained diving instructor who owned a hotel, Celagi Pisang Villa, on Lembongan Island, together with his wife Dorthe who is also a diving instructor. They offered diving trips to the nearby popular diving spot Crystal Bay as part of the hotel packages.
Henrik Kent Jensen went diving at around 07:30 together with two friends, Susanne and Thillo, who were experience divers as well. The diving fun went as planed, according to another friend, Sys Vestergaard. All three divers had returned to the surface after an hour but that was when something went wrong. Henrik Kent Jensen passed out, and when his friends got him back in the boat, he was already not breathing.

Henrik Kent Jensen's death was the second fatality in two days. On Monday, 27 August, a Japanese woman, also an experience diver, disappeared while diving with 13 Malaysian tourists and three dive instructors. She was found dead Tuesday as well. On Thursday, 30 August, the police had put out a ban to all diving activities at Crystal Bay and closed the Beach. Crystal Bay is a popular diving spot because of the presents of the mola mola (oceanic sunfish) which is the worlds heaviest bony fish with an average weight of 1,000 kg. It is also one of the most dangerous places to dive because of a strong downward current.

 

[samuelwhy]

i just got back from bali, our group of 5 dived in cb on 23 & 24 sept. we had 4 dives in cb. 3 dives could see from 1 to 5 molas. we followed dm instruction and made the trip smoothly.
we all appreicated dm's hospitally and arrangement. as dm told, many divers would lose their control to chase and follow the mola. the sudden change of current would incur unexpected accident, even you have 100 or more dives experience.
please pray for victims.

 

[ianr33]

To get an idea of what a typical dive day is like at Crystal Bay during mola-mola season, take a look at this video: Trouble in Paradise - 1st Place Issues - Chris Paporakis on Vimeo

That's depressing. No desire to ever be a part of that zoo!

 

[Yankee Mike]

So crystal bay is back open for diving ... I think that diving business has put some pressure ?

 

[scubarobbie]

I'm curious: when did it open up again? We wanted to dive thee past week, but were told the site was closed. And at the same time someone else said the site was open again. Now I am curious when the police opened CB again... Anyone?

 

[Peter69_56]

Our experience with Crystal bay was2 years ago. We dived with Joe's Gone Diving and the owner took us out. His words were; The currents are very bad, keep close to me. We lose one or two every year here due to being caught in the currents. Don't go over the wall and watch me at all times. We followed him faithfully and saw some Mola Mola and then he began to bang his tank and headed back in. The current was that strong we had to reef crawl to get back in and it took us about 10 minutes to do a 2 minute swim.

the next day we went again and this time had a Dutch family with us. The same warnings were repeated. When we got to the wall the Dutch father went straight over the wall to photograph a Mola Mola down the side of the wall. No amount of banging or signals stopped him. His saving grace was that there was no current. had there have been he would have been another statistic. Stupidity knows no bounds. There was also the risk that his wife or 2 sons might have tried to go after him and been lost as well. I always listen to local knowledge. A beautiful but dangerous place.

 

[divewench1]

I'm curious: when did it open up again? We wanted to dive thee past week, but were told the site was closed. And at the same time someone else said the site was open again. Now I am curious when the police opened CB again... Anyone?

Scubarobbie; CB never actually closed as there are no dive police. We heard that dive centres were there the day after it was reported to be closed, whether uninformed, immortal or just stubborn, who knows.