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.
Off we went. The beach slopes down gradually for the first 20m then the changes to steeper slope of around 30 degrees. There are groups of coral and artificial reefs scattered around the sandy bottom. We scouted these corals carefully hoping to find something exciting. First, we found Striped Triplefin Helcogramma striata. Not particularly a rare subject but its colour and the colour of the sponge is very striking.
Variegated Lizardfish (Synodus variegatus)
Lionfish (Pterois volitans)
Then we came across a sea whip. Our eagle eyed dive guide, Angky, spotted a Xeno crab Xenocarcinus tuberculatus. They are one of the most alien like creatures.
On the same sea whip further up, there is another find Sea Whip Goby (Bryaninops yongei)
Male Blue Ribbon Eel (Rhinomuraena quaesita).
The eels are hermaphrodite and will change their gender and colour later in their life time. Juvenile ribbon eels are all black to camouflage itself against predators. Once grown, the males develop bright blue colouration along their bodies. The blue will fade out and transform completely to yellow when the eels develop their female sex organ. This is the last stage of their lives. it’s quite rare to see the female as the life span during this period tend to be very short.
Ornate Ghostpipefish Solenostomus paradoxus
There was a small cleaning station at the south end of the drop off. In one of the coral rubbles we saw numerous Rock Shrimp hovering in mid water. There are a few cleaner shrimps around the area too. This is a good indication of a cleaning spot for fishes where they come and have these shrimps remove parasite and dead skin from their bodies.
This White banded Cleaner Shrimp (Lysmata amboinensis) who was so eager to climb on my port to clean it. He actually jumped on to my hand, scuffle around a bit but decided no meal can be had so he wiggled back to the station. May be he has a better luck on his next customer.
And we didn’t have to wait long. A grouper decided to stop for a services. Another specie of rock shrimp immediately hop on to the fish and began grazing his face .
Ouch! good thing he didn’t do that to my eyes!
Durban Hinge Beak Shrimp Rhynchocinetes durbanensis. Pretty common shrimp. Usually found in large number among crevices.
Phidiana indica Nudibranch
I’m not really sure whether this is a juvenile Robust Ghostpipefish or a completely different specie of Ghost pipefish. I would appreciate if you leave me a comment if you know what it is.
Hypselodoris kanga Nudibranch. Belongs to Suborder Doridina, this specie reminded me of blue version of Mr. blobby.
White banded Cleaner Shrimp (Lysmata amboinensis)
Male Peacock Flounder (Bothus mancus)
Sapsucking Slugs (Elysia ornata)
On the Road
After the 4th dive, it was time to move on to the bumpy ride again. We packed up and headed to Candidasa . The next morning we would be diving at Nusa Penida.
Mount Agung at sunset
Road to Candidasa
Another head balancing skill. The helper ladies at Tulamben beach also carried the tanks or twinset on their head like this. They have my full respect.
I have already paid half of the trip in advance. Another half is to be paid to our guide. For some strange reasons, the credit card machine refused to work.So I asked the driver to stop by a local bank so I can withdraw some cash out. Unfortunately, the maximum amount is 1million Rupiah. I need way more than that so I had to take out the max amount a few times. Needless to say, I emptied the ATM.
..and became a millionaire. It felt good smelling that wad of cash.
The room at the Nirwana resort. Really beautiful but I prefer the less posh version at Zen resort.
The room was absolutely lovely but a little to posh. I just want some open air bath. Yes that’s not posh.
Heading over to spa for a massage
Into the Blue
We took an hour speedboat ride to Mantapoint on the south far side of Nusa Pedina. As the name suggested, there is a Manta ray cleaning station here where 23 Manta rays had been seen circling around the site on a single dive. We hadn’t been particularly lucky when it comes to an encounter. There were countless occasions where other people from the same group saw something like a hammerhead shark but we didn’t.
On that day, the sea was rough and the vis was down to 10m – not good for photography but perfect for Manta encounter. There wasn’t really anything interesting to see on this site except the Mantas. So when we jumped in and the sea was empty, my heart sank.
I braced myself for another disappointing dive as 30 minutes had passed and we still hadn’t seen anything.
Then there were frantic bangs on the tank….
A 3m Manta ray appeared out of the blue (literally)
Mantaray (Manta birostris)
It’s such a elegant creature. It glided effortlessly in the water while we were struggling to keep up.
Then a second Manta showed up following by another. Typical. You wait for ages and three show up at once.
In an attempt to save batteries, I left my strobe power to ‘off’ while we waited for the rays. So when they did show up, I forgot to switch them back on. I was too busy shooting without looking out of the view finder to notice it. Luckily, we were in shallow water so natural light was quite adequate.
Another bad example. There were some micro bubbles on the surface of my dome port caused during our entry jump. When shooting horizontally, you can’t see them. Unfortunately, when tilting the camera up towards the sun, my 10.5mm lens was able to focus on them, throwing everything out of focus.
We were a little early for the Mola Mola season. Our dives at Crystal bay confirmed it. There were no sighting.
Nasi Campur – It’s the best food after diving.
After the exhaust morning dives, we have a little bit of time for ourselves before the night dive on Nusadua beach. So we headed back to the hotel.
Just chilling out at our pool
Creature from the Blue Lagoon
Our night dive at the Blue Lagoon was fun as it was half drift and half wall dive. There were so many creatures out and about. I’ve never seen so many feather stars in my life – there must be around a thousand on that wall.
Box Crab (Calappa hepatica)
Rock Crab (Percnon guinotae)
Heavy weight Spanish Lobster (Scyllarides aequinoctialis ) This guy must be at least a foot long.
A special find – a Decorator crab (Camposia retusa) with the superb ability to dress itself with sponges to camouflage itself against the background. He was extremely hard to spot. Once he stops moving then it is impossible to see.
Papuan Cuttlefish (Sepia papuensis)
Drift dive in Ped
The current at Nusa Penida Channel was very strong that morning. Angky suggested that it would be safer to change to Ped, so we did. Unless you are on a liveaboard, you can’t really change your lens on a smaller boat without the risks of flooding your camera or drop it overboard. Whatever the set up you have, you’re stuck with it the whole day until you’re back in your room.
Overall, it was a good dive but there wasn’t a lot too photograph with a wide angle lens except some large sponges and soft coral formations. Angky pointed at an orangutan crab and looked at me hoping I would jump into the usual mad-dash action. I just shrugged and swam off. It is an irony most UW photographers are familiar with – when you have a macro lens on, there will be a pod of dolphins, swimming, waving and mating right in front of your eyes.
Giant Barrel Sponges
Let me do a selfie
In and around Ubud
That was it for diving in Bali. The next 24 hours is offgasing period allowing our bodies to release the trapped nitrogen inside the tissue or bloodstream out to prevent decompression sickness which may occur due to low atmospheric pressure inside the cabin. Since we can’t dive, we decided to spend the last day sightseeing in Ubud.
Arriving at the Kamandalu Resort.
The lobby
We booked into one of the villas. Each villa has its own gate and outdoor courtyard spaces. Walking to your room feels like walking through a village. Here’s the front gate
which led into our room…
Bag and dive gears stay here.
There are even mini rice terraces inside the hotel. 
Not an outdoor Jacuzzi?
Yes there is shower at least.
The back door opened out straight to the rice field.
What a view…
A local Balinese walking along the edge of rice paddies
Sunset after rain
Ubud palace was full of tourist.
We tried some of the local street foods. This one was selling Mataba.
It was delicious. I recommend anyone who goes travelling to always try buy some foods from stalls like this. You’ll never be disappointed.
Good night
An aerial view of river delta.
See you again. Denpasar
