PART 3
After a great time diving the wreck and enjoying sleepy Tulamben, we headed back to Candidasa. Coming back to the Pondok Bambu kinda felt like coming home...LOL. I just can't describe how well we were treated there, it was simply amazing. I should also mention their new dive shop, which had just opened up a month prior. I had already booked our Candidasa/Padang Bai diving through Bali Bubbles because the Pondok shop didn't exist at the time of booking. I actually felt a bit guilty hauling our dive gear right by their shop to dive with another Op. That being said, Harold, the gentleman running the Op, was just fantastic. I had a few minor gear and camera issues and he went above and beyond to help me fix the issues. Even though he knew I was diving elsewhere he was so helpful and genuinely friendly.
Our first dive day in Candidasa was the much awaited trip to Nusa Penida and Manta Point!! I've tried on a couple other occasions (Thailand) to see Mantas and it was seeming like I was cursed to never get to see one. So, diving with Bali Bubbles, they were just great. I had done a lot of research (mostly on here) about dive ops in the Candi/Padang area and decided on them. We were very happy with there service and our Dive guide, Edgar. On the first day they picked us up in a nice AC'd van for the trip to Padang Bai. I'll take this opportunity to mention the one other, besides traffic, issue we had with Bali and our trip. Arriving at Padang bai we were shocked at how dirty it was. Now, yes...there was a 3 day ceremony going on, so we figure it isn't always like that (or hope). Still...we had to literally crawl over piles of trash on the beach to get to our boat, it was seriously bad. Edgar told us that this was not the normal launch site, the normal site was unaccesible because of the ceremony. Also, because of the ferry, the port/beach area was just packed with peeps. After being there for 5 mins I was SO happy with our Candidasa decision. Again though... It might be completely different during non-ceremony times.
Off to Manta Point we go! There were 4 divers total , which was just perfect. Edgar was giving us the 99.9% Manta sighting guarantee...LOL. Which was perfect for me, I was so stoked! It was a beautiful ride over to Nusa Penida, and took us less than an hour to get to Manta Point. There were a few other boats already there. The divers on the surface gave us the Manta Thumbs up when I asked them... SWEET!!! We geared up and hit the water and within a minute of our decent we saw our first one in the distance on the surface. Vis was about 30-100 feet, the first couple we saw were kinda off in the shadows/murk. We spread out a bit to maximize our sighting area, when I heard Loree give her shaker a lil shake. I turned around and was greeted by a gorgeous Manta coming right at me about 30 feet away.....I was about a foot off the bottom, it came right at me about 8 feet above. At the last second when it was about 10 feet away it dipped down right at me, I'm assuming to get some bubble love...(I heard they love divers bubbles). Needles to say, It worked very well for me and my video cam
Later in the dive I saw one swimming parallel with me in the distance, I slowly closed the gap staying by his side, about 8 feet away. We swam together for what seemed like an eternity when I thought to stop (I didn't want to chase him down or bother him) As I sat there....he turned around and headed straight back towards me....might heart was racing! When he was about 15 feet away another manta cam up behind him and spooked him! Luckily...I got it on Video
What a great experience!!! All in all we saw 7 different Mantas on the dive. It instantly went to the top 5 of my all time best dives (out of 300 or so). Loree instantly made it her #1 dive of all time!! Here's a small video I put together with the highlights
https://vimeo.com/66809713
We would have been great with doing our second dive there at Manta Point, but Edgar actually mentioned a reason why we didn't do that (I just can't remember what that reason was...LOL) So our second dive was a drift dive on the northwest side of the island. It was a very nice drift dive with nice coral and lots of reef fish. Honestly though... after the Manta dive, anything else really paled in comparison that day. We spent the next 2 days diving with Bali Bubbles in the Padang Bai area. Over all the dives were very nice. We had one dive where we had a very strong current, and got pushed into the ferry lanes of the bay and had to cut the dive short, but otherwise the dives were nice. One particularly, which was around the oil terminal, was quite an adventure. While on our safety stop we saw the local "Submarine" load up with tourists and head on down. We hit the water about 30 mins later and were enjoying our dive when we were ...ummmmm...reminded of the subs presence in the area....LOL
https://vimeo.com/65291429
It just goes to show... you never know WHAT you'll see on a dive!!! Unfortunatly, the pics from these dives are among the ones I lost. Hopefully... we'll find them soon. In the next installment, we begin our Wakatobi adventure, where there are PLENTY of pics
