Hopping across to Bali from Sydney may not be your typical long weekend break, however for this birthday boy it seemed like a great antidote to the depths of a Sydney winter.
Sunshine and diving anyone . . . . yes please!!
So we packed up our diving gear and headed off to Bali, hoping that our luck would hold out and we’d get to tick off two big items from our diving bucket list, manta rays and sunfish.
July is the start of a sunfish season in Bali that runs through until October and our dive safari to Nusa Penida, just off the south eastern tip of Bali, promised us the best chance possible to see these majestic creatures.
The area around Nusa Penida and Nusa Lembongan is reputed to have some of the best diving in Bali. However, that promise is balanced against challenging and unpredictable conditions with often choppy seas and big currents, making this a trip for advanced divers only.
As we headed across the Badung Strait it also became apparent that this was a trip for those with advanced sea legs too, with a swell to churn up even the hardiest of stomachs.
Having safely arrived at our destination we were rewarded with the sight of a school of manta rays swimming close to the rocky point named after them. We didn’t need any encouragement to get geared up and jump straight in, where to our surprise we found a queue of other divers already in the water soaking up the view of mantas cruising the breakwater near the cliffs edge . . . . . . five minutes into our first dive and we’d seen one of the bucket list, a good start.
Could our next dive site, Crystal Bay, deliver up the second . . . . . that was certainly our hope as we headed up the west coast of Nusa Penida towards the dive site. It didn’t look good when, after about twenty minutes in the water when we came across a large group of divers heading in the opposite direction who indicated they hadn’t seen the elusive fish.
Feeling like it wasn’t to be our day we continued on along a lovely coral wall that dropped off into the abyss, reflecting that it was a nice dive either way, and then out of the blue, a large shape materialised, and a juvenile sunfish came right at us.
He must have been as surprised to see us as we were to see him because upon being faced with a small group of excited humans taking pics and videos he swished his majestic fins and headed back out into the abyss, just magic!! We finished our day with a lovely, if slightly challenging, drift dive at Lembongan Island, and went back to Bali very happy indeed.
The following day we enjoyed some great diving at Padangbai, before heading up to the Ahmed area in north eastern Bali to enjoy some time by the pool, as well as some fantastic muck diving, and to also visit one of our all time favourite dive sites, the USAT Liberty wreck.
Some RnR at Batu Belah.
I could wax lyrical for pages and pages about the Liberty, suffice to say its one of those dive sites that just gets better and better, showing you something new every time you visit. Located around 40 metres from the beach, this huge American cargo ship was beached in 1942 having been torpedoed by a Japanese submarine, before being claimed fully by the ocean in 1963 during a volcanic eruption. On this trip we did night, dawn and mid morning dives, seeing the grand old lady in a range of moods, leaving us in wonder at how great this site is.
Between all these diving adventures we did manage to relax for a few hours by the pool at Batu Belah, our lovely little hideaway in north east Bali, as well as celebrate my birthday in the style I’d like to become accustomed to, overlooking the ocean in a stunning location.
Not a bad spot for a birthday sundowner.
I wonder where we’ll be for next years birthday celebrations?
Fast Facts
Getting here: Our return flights from Sydney to Bali were with Jetstar. We arrived quite late in the evening so opted to take the reasonably priced transfer offered by Taksu Sanur Hotel. Batu Belah were also happy to arrange a driver to pick us up from Sanur and take us to Tulamben, again very reasonably priced considering it’s a two hour journey.
Sleep: Our ‘go-to’ place in Bali is the lovely Batu Belah bungalows in the north east of Bali in the Ahmed area. Convenient for many local dive sites, including the USAT Liberty wreck. On this trip we also stayed down south at the Taksu Sanur hotel, which was a great find. See my most recent review for Batu Belah here, and my first, more detailed one here. My review of Taksu Sanur can be found here.
Do: Explore the diving in the Ahmed area, especially the USAT Liberty wreck just off the coast at Tulamben, one of the best dives we have ever done. And if you want to see manta rays and sunfish, consider taking a trip to Nusa Penida.
We used Bali Diving in Sanur as our southern base, run by the very friendly and knowledgeable Robin Sharp. Our Ahmed dive base was with Adventure Divers Bali, where Liselotte and David always treat us like old friends and really look after us (see a previous review here)
See our Bali photo gallery for a small selection of pics from this awesome dive location.