Tulamben and Candidasa diving--

[bshort4]

I was in the Philippines visiting friends for a month so we (me) decided to fly to Bali for a week of diving (just me) and some touring and relaxation. Rented a nice small villa in Candidasa for seven nights but decided to stay the first night at Liberty Dive resort before going to the villa so I could do some dives on the Liberty ship wreck. Our flight left Manila at 3:45 am and arrived in Bali at 7:50 am and we went straight to Tulamben (three and a half hours). I had a night dive on the Liberty scheduled that night. We opted for two of the regular hotel rooms instead of the stand alone rooms and they were fine--in fact better than fine. Nice rooms, good a/c, comfortable beds and a mini bar and nice balcony. Went to the dive shop after checking in and they came to my room and took all my kit to the shop. We would meet at 6 pm for the night dive and would be diving nitrox which was free if you had the cert which I did. Let me say I'm not a big fan of shore diving in the best of conditions--being a old fart I find giant strides and back role entries to be my thing. Doing the entry to the Liberty was a bit brutal for me---I just knew that any second I was going to take a header into the shallow water and split my head or break my ankle. So on exit my guide Mega had me remove my gear and he took it to the shore which made it a bit easier--this was repeated for entries and exits on my remaining dives--thank you Mega!
Once we were in the water and swimming toward the wreck I turned on my SeaLife Dragon 2500 camera light to test it then turned it off. I used my smaller light to get to the wreck and then turned my camera light back on and nothing---wouldn't work. so ended up using my back-up light for the remainder of the dive. The vis was good at about 50 feet and the water temp was about 79 degrees--I was in a 3mm shorty which was fine. Tried taking some pics with my back-up light with mixed results. Nice dive besides the problems and a few bumper heads joined us in our dive--nice.

 

[bshort4]

The next morning we started our dive on the wreck at 6 am. I had fiddled with my camera light and it was working again for now. Once we enter the water my camera light refused to work again--big grrr. But there was enough light to get my pics but anything small was out of the question. A few more divers on the wreck in the morning but not crowded at all--good vis at about 60 feet and warm water. Enjoyed the dive very much and having my own guide was nice too--surprised to hear someone else had to pay for that privilege. After the dive we took the short drive back to the resort for breakfast--which was free and very good--your choice of Indonesian or American. Then ack to the shore for the second dive of the morning. Our second dive would be the Drop Off and I should have listened to another member on this board who said the dive was meh at best--it was--not much to see and vis was maybe 30 feet at best--pretty meh at best. At noon we had arranged a transfer to Candidasa and would be doing a few more days of diving there with Bambu Divers in Candidasa. More on that later. We are still in Candidasa as I'm writing this report and will be heading back to the Philippines tomorrow (11-26-2019).

 

[Tippytoes12]

Great report thanks. I dived with Mega too in February and he is wonderful. With a camera, a travel BCD that is useless out of the water, I took one look at the waves crashing over the rocks in front of the wreck and asked Mega to get my gear into the water.He did this on every dive, so graciously and kindly, as well as taking excellent care of everything else. I included extra in his tip for this of course.

 

[choiahoy]

I dived with Mega in 2016. He's the best guide I've ever had.

 

[Luko]

You can pick almost any guide at LDR and he will be the best you've ever had : Wayan Jhon, Nyoman Cois, Uji, Gede Ardha too they're all fantastic...

Recently I browsed LDR's facebook page looking at older photos, 2015 was their guiding dream team. 2/3 of the guides who were present in LDR at the time are now either successful free lancers for photographers or managing their own dive operations (Ketut Tisnu, Made Pasek, Komang Agus, etc.).

...That until you meet Ajiex and you reach another level of underwater supercalifragilisticguidociousness or whatever you call that.

 

[Luko]

Enjoyed the dive very much and having my own guide was nice too--surprised to hear someone else had to pay for that privilege.

Weird, isn't it?