In early Sept we spent 4 days diving with Bali Reef Divers in Amed and staying at their partner resort called Puri Wirata ( PURIWIRATA ).
You can see my Flikr album here: Flikr - Amed
My eldest son Jay, who is 11, is part fish and has been swimming and snorkeling since he was 3. Most of our holidays has been going to dive destinations around SEA and the kids always come along for the ride. SO from young he has been bugging us to let him get his diving cert so that he can dive with mom and dad. Now that he is nearly 12 and has matured ...a tad, we thought it was the right time to get him certified.
We have spent tons of time up the road in Tulamben (search through my previous trip reports) but had never actually dived Amed. We have heard Amed's reputation as having pretty decent coral/ fishy dives in typically easy dive conditions. So we pulled the trigger with BRD in Amed, whom we had spoken to at the Singapore ADEX dive show earlier in the year.
Communication with BRD/PW was prompt and helpful and patient with my many many questions.
Jay very studiously went through all the online learning before the trip (with mom helping to explain everything) and he answered all the tests with very no help from mom. It was really a test for us to see how much he really wanted this. And I was well proud of how diligent he was with the the studying. He knew his stuff at the end!
PW organised the transport form the airport to the resort for us and the driver waited patiently as our flight was delayed.
Jay was the only one doing the open water course and had his very own instructor. I was really worried as to who the instructor would be and how he would cope with our Jay. But Meredith was so so so good with him, she was fun and lively, and oh so patient with him and explained everything so clearly. She would not let him get away with anything and made him do everything himself (as she should). She was great. The shore dives would start out with a few skills then head out for a fun dive. His first dive he say a big octopus, eels, tons of fish and some pretty coral. Jay had one sketchy moment during one of his skills where he took in a mouthful of water, but she managed him so well and got him to calm down and keep going and that dive ended up being 64min long! Other than that one moment he did amazingly well! Super proud of him.
You can see why Amed has become so popular for doing your dive training.
As for the rest of the diving and BRD. Ok so typically the wife and I stay at dedicated dive resorts where people are there to dive. At BRD people basically walk in off the street and say "Hey I wanna go diving!". So ye you are diving with different people all the time and often with pretty different levels of competence. The groups were never bigger than 4 per DM, but I was still paired with some pretty novice divers. The dive guides were therefore more like herding cats underwater rather than spotting interesting critters for you. So ye I was a little underwhelmed by the dive guiding in general. The dive shop is well managed and helpful, so yes I cant fault them.
The diving in Amed really was a whole lot better than I thought it would be. It was really fishy and there is a very heathy coral coverage over the area. Stand out for me was the shallows by Japanese wreck, there is a big forest of stag horn coral with a massive school of fish around it. I honestly could have spent hours just immersed in the beauty.
As for Puri Wirata, we loved our stay here. The resort is right on the waters edge. The snorkeling right out front was great. Rooms were big and clean, beds were comfy. Food at the restaurant was decent, we basically ate there most of the time. The pools (they have two) were beautiful.
The massages at the spa were great...and well priced. So ye...I'd stay there again.
Thanks for reading this far!
You can see my Flikr album here: Flikr - Amed
My eldest son Jay, who is 11, is part fish and has been swimming and snorkeling since he was 3. Most of our holidays has been going to dive destinations around SEA and the kids always come along for the ride. SO from young he has been bugging us to let him get his diving cert so that he can dive with mom and dad. Now that he is nearly 12 and has matured ...a tad, we thought it was the right time to get him certified.
We have spent tons of time up the road in Tulamben (search through my previous trip reports) but had never actually dived Amed. We have heard Amed's reputation as having pretty decent coral/ fishy dives in typically easy dive conditions. So we pulled the trigger with BRD in Amed, whom we had spoken to at the Singapore ADEX dive show earlier in the year.
Communication with BRD/PW was prompt and helpful and patient with my many many questions.
Jay very studiously went through all the online learning before the trip (with mom helping to explain everything) and he answered all the tests with very no help from mom. It was really a test for us to see how much he really wanted this. And I was well proud of how diligent he was with the the studying. He knew his stuff at the end!
PW organised the transport form the airport to the resort for us and the driver waited patiently as our flight was delayed.
Jay was the only one doing the open water course and had his very own instructor. I was really worried as to who the instructor would be and how he would cope with our Jay. But Meredith was so so so good with him, she was fun and lively, and oh so patient with him and explained everything so clearly. She would not let him get away with anything and made him do everything himself (as she should). She was great. The shore dives would start out with a few skills then head out for a fun dive. His first dive he say a big octopus, eels, tons of fish and some pretty coral. Jay had one sketchy moment during one of his skills where he took in a mouthful of water, but she managed him so well and got him to calm down and keep going and that dive ended up being 64min long! Other than that one moment he did amazingly well! Super proud of him.
You can see why Amed has become so popular for doing your dive training.
As for the rest of the diving and BRD. Ok so typically the wife and I stay at dedicated dive resorts where people are there to dive. At BRD people basically walk in off the street and say "Hey I wanna go diving!". So ye you are diving with different people all the time and often with pretty different levels of competence. The groups were never bigger than 4 per DM, but I was still paired with some pretty novice divers. The dive guides were therefore more like herding cats underwater rather than spotting interesting critters for you. So ye I was a little underwhelmed by the dive guiding in general. The dive shop is well managed and helpful, so yes I cant fault them.
The diving in Amed really was a whole lot better than I thought it would be. It was really fishy and there is a very heathy coral coverage over the area. Stand out for me was the shallows by Japanese wreck, there is a big forest of stag horn coral with a massive school of fish around it. I honestly could have spent hours just immersed in the beauty.
As for Puri Wirata, we loved our stay here. The resort is right on the waters edge. The snorkeling right out front was great. Rooms were big and clean, beds were comfy. Food at the restaurant was decent, we basically ate there most of the time. The pools (they have two) were beautiful.
The massages at the spa were great...and well priced. So ye...I'd stay there again.
Thanks for reading this far!
