Nusa lembongan with Two fish Divers - trip report and why I didn't like Crystal Bay

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ClairevL

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Location
The Netherlands
# of dives
200 - 499
When we were in Indonesia (September 2015), we also went to Nusa Lembongan. We stayed at Two Fish Divers for 4 days and did 2 dives a day. The main reason I write this report is because there was a huge contrast between Two Fish divers (excellent company) and the other company on Nusa Lembongan we went diving with (probably the worst dive shop I have ever experienced).

At Two Fish everything is so well organized! They have a whiteboard that mentions for each boat to which site it goes, and who will be on board. They divide the divers into small groups based on experience and each group (max 4 persons) has a guide.

In the morning they serve a delicious breakfast. Then the dive briefing starts. They show a code of conduct video so that people know how to behave when mantas or mola molas are around. I think all companies should show this video, in order to preserve the beautiful underwater life.
The dive briefings were clear and the guides were good! The maximum group size is 4 and inexperienced divers were usually in groups of 2 with a guide. Despite the currents, they told me they felt really comfortable with their guide.

The dive boat was good with plenty of space on the dive deck. In between the two dives they offered cookies and fresh fruit and after the dives there was a delicious lunch.

Furthermore, I saw one of the instructors teaching an Open Water course, and she did such a great job. She explained everything very thoroughly, she was very patient and took time to improve all the skills. I had never seen such a high quality Open Water course before.

The rooms were beautiful, clean, and spacious and also offered a nice small terrace with comfi bean bags to sit on. There's a tap for drinking water in the room and in the resort you can get free coffee and tea or buy sodas.

The hotel also had a beautiful garden with a pool and the location was excellent, a 3-minute walk from Jungut Batu beach, where many restaurants are situated.


The dive sites varied in my opinion from horrible (Crystal Bay as I will explain below) to beautiful. The visibility was great (30+ meters), the coral was beautiful, and there was lots of fish life. I think Crystal Bay must have been an amazing place to dive, excellent visibility and a high chance to see mola molas in the right season, since it's a cleaning station for them. However, we were not the only ones who wanted to see the mola molas. The first time we were there, there were about 100 divers. Many of them are very inexperienced and are held by guides in order to dive 'safely' in the current. We saw a few people panicking under water as well. At some point apparently a mola mola appeared, so everybody started to swim in one direction. In stead of seeing a mola mola, we only saw a huge wall of bubbles and divers. Then a few days later, we gave Crystal Bay a second chance, since we really wanted to see mola molas and we thought we just may have been really unlucky the previous time. But again, there were so many divers. There were many boast from dive shops on Nusa Lembongan, but also from Bali. This must have been a great dive site, but now I think it's just spoiled by all the divers. :( We went to Manta Bay and didn't see any mantas, but this is always a matter of luck anyway. Although I have to say that at the different Manta spots in Komodo, we saw so many of them. Some other dive sites, such as Toyapakeh, I really liked. Still beautiful and great visibility, but not too crowded. We also saw 2 mola molas there. However, this is not a cleaning station for molas; so it's less likely to meet them here and when you do, they won't stick around too long.

Overall, I really enjoyed diving around Nusa Penida/Nusa Lembongan and I would really recommend Two Fish Divers! I'd like to go back at some point, but I'm not sure if I will ever go back to Crystal Bay.



 
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Great report and happy to hear that you enjoyed Two Fish Divers.

I had the same experience...twice. My first experience was a little worse then the second but both were crazy none the less. Our most recent trip (thought I would give it one more chance...) took us once again to Manta Bay where our guide said over and over not to chase the mantas and the first thing the other group on the boat did was chase the Mantas. The guide just looked at us and shook his head sadly. There were so many divers there that it was pretty crazy. No one looked like they were capable of handling the surge that was there.

I too witnessed DM's holding divers at both Manta Bay and Crystal. One DM had 2 kids... one was floaty and the other sinking. Neither child was finning or participating in the dive in any way other than to hold their GoPro's. They both looked like they were freezing. The father was also being held by another DM and at Crystal Bay the mother was too heavily weighted, struggling with her mask and finning so aggressively that she was making salad of the soft corals and algae on the bottom. I guess they didn't have another dive sherpa to hold her. It was just one example of many. We all looked at each other and said never again. I have enjoyed the couple not so popular dive sites there, but the amount of inexperienced divers that are being allowed to dive in such unpredictable conditions is appalling. We just wanted to get out of there so that we weren't witnesses to a horrible accident.
 
Thanks for sharing. No one will ever see me at Crystal Bay :turd::zap::nuke:
 
Sounds like it's not an isolated incident - I've had similar experiences at Crystal Bay. The first time I went to CB, I was still relatively inexperienced and had only about 50 dives or so logged. The guide I had was great, and while he didn't hold my hand, he did swim out off the reef with me to see the mola mola, keeping close in case of the down current (which was very much in effect that day). There was only me and one other couple with the guide, and of the other couple, one happened to be an instructor anyway, so everything was managed well that day. That was some time ago though, and I've seen tourist numbers increasing there over the years. A colleague of mine at work who happened to go to Bali on holiday a few months ago (and do his OW course) was taken there the day after he finished his OW course to dive with the mola mola. Admittedly that surprised me, but at the same time, it didn't surprise me at all - one only needs to see the number of incident reports that come out of CB every year. I think it's more the lack of experience of the divers being taken there than the actual number that bothers me more than anything. Loads of people do the shark dives in Fiji with pretty much no experience - it's overcrowded, sure, but it's not really dangerous as long as you keep an eye on your no-deco time. In Crystal Bay, those currents can be dangerous, especially if you get caught in the down current and don't know what to do because the DM wasn't literally holding your hand.
 
What truly makes Crystal Bay an even better experience is when the giant double decker party boat shows up packed with drunken Australian brogans. After watching a hundred divers flail about and chase the mola mola, a surface interval of dudes yelling woohoo in Bintang tank-tops while doing cannon balls makes one's day absolutely perfect.
 
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One sinking and one floating....
 
What truly makes Crystal Bay an even better experience is when the giant double decker party boat shows up packed with drunken Australian brogans. After watching a hundred divers flail about and chase the mola mola, a surface interval of dudes yelling woohoo in Bintang tank-tops while doing cannon balls makes one's day absolutely perfect.

I agree that Crystal Bay should be avoided during the high season in Bali. During the off-season, Crystal Bay is not so crazy. In general it's not one of my preferred dive sites. Mola2 can be seen at the north shore current dives at Nusa Penida and Padang Bai.
 
Thanks for sharing. No one will ever see me at Crystal Bay :turd::zap::nuke:
It's a pity because Crystal bay is a great dive site when dived at the correct moment.
better stay on Lembongan, dive with a local operation and beat the crowds early morning before the Sanur-ish Armada comes in.
I've had great dives with 2Fish early morning, once a thresher shark around 35m deep, visibility was always in the 25-30m range.

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..... The guide I had was great, ................, he did swim out off the reef with me to see the mola mola....

I am not too sure this makes sense. Admittedly, I have only done three dives at Crystal Bay but my briefing was to stay within a meter of the reef so that the mola mola would come in to get cleaned and then it would not pay that much attention to calm divers after the cleaning starts. Swimming out off the reefs just chases them away.

BTW, my two dives were in the high season (August) and the only divers in the water when we were at the deepest were the guide, my wife and myself for about 15 minutes with a single mola2 each time. I gave the guide great credit for timing our dive during the other boat's surface interval, getting us to a great spot, doing a great briefing and getting us to head back up at the right time. I took points away because he kept getting between us and the mola2 so he could get better photos!!
 
In that particular case, the mola2 was about 15 meters off the reef wall, and you had to swim out to really see it. It wasn't coming in at all. It may have come in eventually, but we'd already been in the water for ~25 minutes before anyone even spotted it, so we waited for about another 10 minutes on the reef to see what it was doing and then quickly swam out to see it before having to turn back and ascend.

*shrug*

Other times I've been, they've come in to the reef. Just on that particular dive, they didn't.
 
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