We're just back from a fantastic Bali holiday with AquaMarine Diving Bali who organised the whole trip for us. They were very professional and we were extremely happy with the schedule, hotels and diving/guides they suggested
First stop was Tulamben Bay, home to the USS Liberty wreck which is - incredibly - an easy shore dive. It was hit by a torpedo, deliberately beached by its captain to save his men and then blasted back into the water by a volcanic explosion... what a great story & it is an equally good dive.
Apart from the wreck, there is good muck diving and some nice reefs and a drop off - all easily accessible by shore. On my first dive, I saw two types of ribbon eels, ornate ghost pipefish, cuttlefish, nudi's galore, orangutan crabs, pygmy seahorses, giant mantis shrimps and even a few reef sharks into the bargain... and some big schools of fusiliers.
Fusilier school
A blue ribbon eel
Black tip reef shark
Ornate ghost pipefish (crap photo, these were really tricky to expose properly and as you can see I failed miserably!)
Sweetlips
Next we moved to Padang Bai, which is a nice quiet spot a bit off the beaten track with good diving and easy easy to Nusa Penida which has some great dive sites.
On Nusa Penida we saw
Hawksbill Turtles
Beautiful corals & abundant fish (these are both natural light, no flash)
Mantas
Scorpionfish aplenty
First stop was Tulamben Bay, home to the USS Liberty wreck which is - incredibly - an easy shore dive. It was hit by a torpedo, deliberately beached by its captain to save his men and then blasted back into the water by a volcanic explosion... what a great story & it is an equally good dive.
Apart from the wreck, there is good muck diving and some nice reefs and a drop off - all easily accessible by shore. On my first dive, I saw two types of ribbon eels, ornate ghost pipefish, cuttlefish, nudi's galore, orangutan crabs, pygmy seahorses, giant mantis shrimps and even a few reef sharks into the bargain... and some big schools of fusiliers.
Fusilier school
A blue ribbon eel
Black tip reef shark
Ornate ghost pipefish (crap photo, these were really tricky to expose properly and as you can see I failed miserably!)
Sweetlips
Next we moved to Padang Bai, which is a nice quiet spot a bit off the beaten track with good diving and easy easy to Nusa Penida which has some great dive sites.
On Nusa Penida we saw
Hawksbill Turtles
Beautiful corals & abundant fish (these are both natural light, no flash)
Mantas
Scorpionfish aplenty