Need Bali dive advice

I am planning a trip to Bali in Aug/Sep and have 5 days set aside for diving.
I have already decided on Nusa Lembongan/Penida and Tulamben areas.

Now, I can spend 3 days/6 dives at Nusa Penida and 2 days/4 dives at Tulamben or the other way around.

Where should I spend more time, in Nusa Penida or Tulamben? I am interested in seeing the Molas but also like the easy diving at Tulamben.

Opinions please?

I would say this depends on you, your experience level and comfort in the water, and whether you want relaxed diving or extreme!

The Tulamben area is 'almost' always good conditions, sometimes the swell can be larger making the shore entries interesting, but you can usually get in the water somewhere along the shore and the diving is easy. I've only once in 4 years had a current which made a macro dive change to a drift dive! The USAT Liberty wreck in one of Bali's 'must do' dive sites.

Nusa Penida/Lembongan is a completely different story; there are some more sheltered spots (Manta Point for example) where there is swell but not crazy currents, but mostly this area is renown for it's strong currents, which is why the Mola Mola frequent this place, as the strong current bring colder water to the surface which is ideal for them to come to the cleaning stations.

However, having said that, if fighting currents and being dumped into down currents is your thing, then it's a great place. There are brilliant extreme diving sites here, some of the best. :diver: But every year we see divers (who potentially fit the criteria for diving such an area) get swept away (or worse) in Nusa Penida.

On a good day Nusa Penida diving is just brilliant, spectacular and untouched, but on a bad day.............that's another story!:scared: lol

So, my advice is to book dives to suit your experience level and comfort, and don't be afraid to 'call' a dive if you don't feel completely confident about the conditions.

I think that Divewench1 has given some pretty good advice. The currents around Penida can be CRAZY - when I dived there I had over a couple of thousand dives and at times I would it hard work. Looking at your number of dives I would do it the other way around...I loved diving around Tulamben and you can also 'pop' to Seraya Secrets - an AMAZING muck dive!

If it was off season for molas I'd say spend more time in Tulamben, but to me it depends on how much you want to see mola molas. I'd say dive NP first and try to leave accommodation options open for that third night. Then see if you see molas right away, and by then you would have been able to take in the mantas at Manta Point where you'd likely to see them the first time, move onto Tulamben where the diving is superior. If not, make the choice on how badly you still want to see them. The sights at Tulamben won't change, but the one variable on your trip is whether or not you get molas. As this is the best place in the world to reliably see them, and you're coming at a perfect time, it'd be a shame to miss them.

We recently dove with divewench1's outfit, d-scuba club and hit both Nusa Penida and Tulamben. We drove to Tulamben in the morning, did 3 dives, spent the night, and did 3 more dives the following day before driving back to Sanur. The third day, we did 3 boat dives off of Nusa Penida and 2 more dives on the fourth and final day.

Our tips and observations:

1. Do 3 dives/day in Tulamben. It's not rushed at all thanks to the hotel that d-scuba club set us up with. It's right on the water. It's like doing a boat dive with one huge boat but without the traveling. We were concerned that 3/day might be too much, but due to the hotel's location for these shore dives, we had plenty of time to relax - we could have easily fit in another dive or two per day if we felt like going all out.
2. Our dives at Tulamben (notably the wreck) had poor visibility. With good visibility, it would have been an amazing site, but for us, it was only "good". I would highly recommend doing a morning dive on the wreck. Of our 3 dives on the wreck, the sunrise dive was the best. Better vis, less divers, and bumpheads!
3. Coral Garden at Tulamben was a disappointment. Really not much to see. Better sites for us were Batu Kelembit and the Drop-Off. You need to hire a small boat to take you out to Kelembit (maybe 5-10min) but it's well worth it. The wall is great too, but I would recommend paying a boat again to take you to the wall rather than shore-diving it. The swim to and from the wall took up half our dive and really didn't leave us enough time on the wall. And that swim is just slightly more interesting than swimming in a pool.
4. We saw mantas on both our dives. If you haven't dove with them, you should give this a try, though it seems like there may be better manta encounters in other parts of the world. For us first-timers, it was great, but could have been better if the vis was better.
5. Nusa Penida dives can get very chilly. It was 24C in April, and I think it gets colder during mola season.
6. We didn't see molas on our Crystal Bay dives, but it was worth it. This was one of the best dives we've done in Bali. The water was so clear that I felt like I was swimming in an aquarium. An abundance of colorful fish and coral added to that effect. It can be dangerous, but the captain and DM seemed very mindful of the tides to make sure conditions were safe enough for us.
7. Amanda booked our entire 4-day trip for us: airport transfers, hotels, equipment, etc. I chose d-scuba club because they had the best prices for the entire package. I could have gotten a bit cheaper by putting together my own itinerary and using different dive ops for Penida and Tulamben, but the hassle of coordinating transport, changing gear, etc wasn't worth the difference in price. I feel comfortable recommending dsc not just because of their pricing but also for their flexibility in designing a custom itinerary - it was also nice that these were mostly private dives (though that might not be the case for you during mola season). The free swag was also nice too! (t-shirts, mesh bags, and sarong/towels).

Thank you all for some great advice.
I think we will spend 2 days in Nusa Penida and 3 days in Tulamben and keep my fingers crossed for the Molas.

I would recommend paying a boat again to take you to the wall rather than shore-diving it. The swim to and from the wall took up half our dive and really didn't leave us enough time on the wall. And that swim is just slightly more interesting than swimming in a pool.

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You didn't quite get the right diveguide then, I remember lots of nudis, juvenile or more mature frogfish, supermacro stuff like skeleton shrimps. Lots of good stuff for UW photo... nowhere like a swimming pool but maybe you're not familiar with muck diving.

I have a followup question.

If I am going to spend only 2 days diving at Nusa Penida, is it better to stay on Mainland Bali (e.g. Sanur) and take day trip to islands, or stay on Nusa Lembongan?

What are the pros/cons of each option?

It does look like you will be there during mola mola season! We went in September and were able to see a total of 5 mola molas. One of them we watched being cleaned for about 10 minutes and when we let go to continue the drift it came with us! Fantastic! Yes.. it was chilly there. I think we all had on 5mls with 3/5 hooded vests! Cold.. strong currents but totally worth it to see the mola molas! Have fun! We will be in Tulumben during that time frame as well!

vimaldude:

I am planning a trip to Bali in Aug/Sep and have 5 days set aside for diving.
I have already decided on Nusa Lembongan/Penida and Tulamben areas.

Now, I can spend 3 days/6 dives at Nusa Penida and 2 days/4 dives at Tulamben or the other way around.

Where should I spend more time, in Nusa Penida or Tulamben? I am interested in seeing the Molas but also like the easy diving at Tulamben.

Opinions please?

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I'm planning a trip Nov 30-Dec 21, one week in Candidasa and one week in Sanur. I'm taking my SSI Advanced water dive course w Bali Bubbles and hope that will prepare me when staying in Sanur to dive Nusa Penida w Manta and Mola. I haven't finally tune which dive operator i be using in Sanur, Bali Diving(Air Academy) or Dscuba Club. I believe both operator are SSI but I haven't found out how long they been operating. Since, Im a new diver 20 dives before my AWD course i want to use the best operator and guide and my buddy is not coming w me. Any suggestions?