Archive for 'Diving'
It’s been about 5 years since we last dived in Bali. Since then many things has happened. We moved to Shanghai then back and forth to Bangkok. Doesn’t matter how stable it is, when you live as an expat there is always a feeling uncertainty about your future. The call to pack up and move out is always in the back of your mind. That call came last year for us after living in Shanghai for 3 years.
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Aside from Puri Jati, another good muck dive site in Bali is at Secret Bay on the north West of the island. The journey is around 4 hours long from Padangbai on a bumpy road. The water there is much colder than the rest of the island. Yet there are a lot of interesting stuff to see and if you are a micro lover then it shouldn’t stop you coming here.
Day3
One of the things I enjoy the most about diving and underwater photography is that you never know what you might encounter on that day. Sometimes, you are lucky to be the only one in the group who saw a rare creature. Other times, you’re the only one who missed it.
It’s been just over a year since we visited Bali for diving the last time. It was a great fun and very productive trip (photo-wise) that we feel obliged to return. This trip however, we were a bit tight on time but didn’t want to compromise on the number of dives and location. So it became a 5-days, 11-dives and a 200-miles trip around the island – with the first 2 dives straight after we landed.
Leaving wet cold London and heading for a Tropical diving trip.
This trip was put together soon after a phone call with Pao. We wanted to go somewhere that is easily accessible (purely because limited time and lugging diving gears around isn’t fun) but hasn’t yet been exploited by the main stream tourism. Lembeh was the first choice but when Malapascua Island was tabled, we agreed almost instantly.
We both love the ocean. I feel calm and peaceful when I am in that blue world. Some of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen were over the Atlantic and the Pacific. I’ve been on the scariest storm ride in Andaman sea. I was looking up at the milky way from the pitch black surface of the Red sea. There are a lot of superlative verbs to be used to describe my experience of the ocean. Diving in Bali is great because all the dive sites are really close to the resort. It’s actually because there are resorts absolutely everywhere. The third dive of the day was at the Drop off site in front of the Mimpi Tulamben. The site is renowned for the Nudibranches , GhostPipefishes and other macro stuffs. This site is much easier to access because you don’t have to walk along the boulder beach. It is literally 10m from Mimpi’s swimming pool.
I have heard some good stories about Bali. However, like many other places, there are tales about bad encounter or how commercialised Bali has become. These stories tend to embed themselves in to my mind far deeper than the how beautiful the Hindu temples are, especially anything related to being ripped off by hustler. It’s a natural protocol of the traveller. You don’t want to be conned or ripped off so you lister more attentively to these elaborate tricks and hopefully you won’t end up like them.