Trip Report - Bali - Scuba Seraya - Nov 2014

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AlMitch

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Location
Singapore
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Here is my report of our trip to Scuba Seraya earlier this month.

If you get bored quickly here is the quick fire review:
Diving - Great!! Good, private guides & well organised, dive when you like where you like.
Accommodation - Villas very comfortable and great view (worth the extra cash), mansionettes perfectly acceptable.
Food - Breakfast was great. Lunch and dinner was not amazing but not terrible either, so OK in general, service fast and friendly.

Photos can be seen here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/68937960@N08/sets/72157647044151174/
Feel free to leave comments on Flikr. The more the merrier :wink:

OK the slightly longer version.

We have dived many places in Indo before but I always shied away from Bali for some reason, thinking it is too touristy and too crowded. BUT FINALLY we decided to give it a bash! And man am I glad we did. Our week at Scuba Seraya was just great. Super chilled and relaxed. And we will be back soon. We hate crowds and are quite happy to be "stuck" at the resort and just eat, dive, sleep and repeat. Scuba Seraya is out of town and pretty secluded, which is why we loved it, but if you have non-diving friends/ family this may not be the best place.

We booked directly with the resort and everything in terms of communication/ emails/ reservation was handled quickly and professionally. Pick up from the airport was seemless and we had a big 13 seater bus all to ourselves for the drive up to the resort. The drive took us 3 hours but we were comfortable and the views are often spectacular. On the way back they allowed us to stop at the big "tourist" shop in Sanur to do some trinket shopping.

We booked a villa (#3) for the wife and I and then a mansionette (#8 by the pool) for our toddler and our helper.
The villa is very spacious and the bed was one of the most comfortable beds I've slept in at a dive resort. The bathroom is also big and spacious. The villa also has an amazing view (see below) and the day bed is just the most amazing place to chill during the day between dives. The little outdoor tub was filled with pretty flowers and the toddler loved splashing around in it, but honestly if my wife and I were there alone we probably wouldn't have used it much, if at all. The main pool is perfectly functional and we spent much time in it. The grounds are well kept and the place is nice and quiet. There are also sun beds along the front of the resort overlooking the pebble beach, beautiful fishing boats and swaying palm tress.

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Food as stated above was ok. It is not gormet by any stretch and after a week I started getting a bit bored of what was on the menu. And because you are out of town there are not really any other options. For us it was perfectly acceptable but not the absolute best. The service was great though, fast and friendly and they accommodated us with all our crazy toddler related requests.
One small gripe is that the only alcohol on the menu was Bintang, A-OK for me, but the wife was a tad annoyed that she could not have any evening cocktails. :wink:
The free breakfast was excellent. Eggs to your order + bacon or sausages + fruit + croissant + toast + jam + coffee. A great start to the day.

Onto the reason we were here, the diving.
You get your own personal guide for the duration of your stay and he organizes everything for you. We had an older guy called Kamong and he has been diving the area for 15 years, so yes he knew exactly where everything was. And he really does have eagle eyes spotting the tiniest things that not even double stacked macro lenses could properly see. In terms of dive schedule you literally can dive as many times as you want, when you want and where you want. They have two dive boats. One large boat that can take 8-10 divers comfortably and then a smaller one that takes about 4-6. All the sites that we dived were within 10min of the resort so we came back between dives to play with our son, just the way I like it.
As for dive sites, Seraya Secret is the house reef and you walk down from the dive center steps across 3m of pebble/ stone beach and straight into the water. SS has a resident yellow clown froggy and a pair of harlequin shrimp along with a plethora of other tiny critters and nudis. I did 3 night dives out front and they were equally productive.

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We also dived Melasti, which was not very productive for us and Pong-Pong, which had the stunning Doto nudi and a few interesting snake eels, a wonderpus and down at 34m we found our first ever pair of Coleman shrimps sitting on their big fire urchin home.

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We then went searching for our first ever Rinopias which had been see close by and Kamong found him like he said he would. What an amazing creature.

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During our stay we also dived the Liberty wreck twice. Once at 8:30ish which was a really good dive with not too many people in the water. And you could see why there is so much hype about this site. It really is pretty, with sweeetlips and angel fish swimming around pretty coral and the odd black tip shark and even a big turtle popping by for a visit. Then we did the 6am dive to see the bumpheads. And man what a zoo!! There must have been 50+ people in the water swimming every which way. The bumpheads were there and they are just so chilled and zen like, taking very little notice of all the flapping hominids with their flash guns!

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Our only other WA type dive was on Seraya side of coral garden (not sure dive site name). It was a very pleasant dive with lots of fish and coral and a bumphead swam past to say hi.

In summary we had a great time at Scuba Seraya. Our son loved it he spent half the day either in the sea, playing in the boats or the pool or our tub and the other half he spent running on the lawn or just being a boy and getting up to mischief. We had a lot of really good diving and equally a good amount of rest and relaxation.
We will definitely be back.
 
Thanks Winsu. It was a very productive trip indeed. It was also the first time I tried snooting. Man is it frustrating getting the lighted pointed exactly where you want. Tiny movements and its completely BLACK!!! But I managed to luck into a few decent shots.

Thanks about the Lotte mart tip. Will try remember for next time.
 


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Great report and great photos!!! We also loved Scuba Seraya and will be back one day!!! Your flickr photos are stunning!!!!



 
Thanks Jake. Any idea when would be the "Best" time to go?
We got pretty lucky with the weather in early Nov, and the viz was generally around the 20m mark, so it seems like a fairly good time of year to go... any other thoughts people?
 
mid Sept to late Nov is a great time, weather is usually good, the crowds from august and early Sept are gone, and the sea is mostly calm. You chose well! Sounds like it was an excellent experience, glad you enjoyed it!
 
Alex, we've stayed on Bali in early and late December, late March/early April and most recently 1-15 November. Yay for November. 15 days of sun (well, except when it snuck off to sleep for the night), nice breezes and really only one afternoon (on an exit at Kuta) where the onshore waves picked up a bit much.

Certainly seemed like nudi season, in and around Seryaya. Kept coming across clusters of them and with an exceptional amount of egg laying going on for all types. Sure would have no problem sticking with November returns and with all the good shots you got it would be hard to argue against that time of year yourself! // ww
 
Very nice collection of pictures Alex!

I envy you! I was at Mimpi Tulamben resort last October with the same (Sony RX 100) camera but the picture you shot were gorgeous. Wish I had shoot pictures like yours. Like they said "it's the man behind the gun" that matter. :)

Mind I ask about the equipment's you have beside the RX100? What strobe? Housing? Wet lenses? Did you use filter of some sort? Did you post pro?

Thanks in advance for sharing! Cheers.
 
So glad you posted this! I'm hoping to be on Bali in January, more likely mid-february. Is this a bad time to go?

I'll be on my own and wondering if I should be booking a dive safari on just go with something like Scuba Seraya? Whilst my inner youngster likes the idea of the safari, my outer near senior energy levels may not support that kind of moving sleeping place every few days.

Look forward to all advice forthcoming. :)
 
Very nice collection of pictures Alex!

I envy you! I was at Mimpi Tulamben resort last October with the same (Sony RX 100) camera but the picture you shot were gorgeous. Wish I had shoot pictures like yours. Like they said "it's the man behind the gun" that matter. :)

Mind I ask about the equipment's you have beside the RX100? What strobe? Housing? Wet lenses? Did you use filter of some sort? Did you post pro?

Thanks in advance for sharing! Cheers.

Thanks bonad. The RX100 is not an easy camera to use. It takes a lot of patience and practice.
I have a Nauticam housing, Inon D2000 strobe and a Blusnoot on some of the shots, a +10 diopter macro lens (and one are two shots I stole my wife's Inon 165 to get even closer), for wide angle I have the Inon 100 with dome. No filters. Post production through Light room 4 but I only spend a few minutes per photo and usually dont change too much. Post pro helps you make a decent pic shine. BUT unfortunately as a good mate once told me you cant shine a turd! So half the work is just tossing away the turds. ha ha

---------- Post added November 26th, 2014 at 07:54 AM ----------

Alex, we've stayed on Bali in early and late December, late March/early April and most recently 1-15 November. Yay for November. 15 days of sun (well, except when it snuck off to sleep for the night), nice breezes and really only one afternoon (on an exit at Kuta) where the onshore waves picked up a bit much.

Certainly seemed like nudi season, in and around Seryaya. Kept coming across clusters of them and with an exceptional amount of egg laying going on for all types. Sure would have no problem sticking with November returns and with all the good shots you got it would be hard to argue against that time of year yourself! // ww

I shall stick to November then!! :) Dont fix it if it aint broke!

---------- Post added November 26th, 2014 at 08:55 AM ----------

So glad you posted this! I'm hoping to be on Bali in January, more likely mid-february. Is this a bad time to go?

I'll be on my own and wondering if I should be booking a dive safari on just go with something like Scuba Seraya? Whilst my inner youngster likes the idea of the safari, my outer near senior energy levels may not support that kind of moving sleeping place every few days.

Look forward to all advice forthcoming. :)
I tend closer to your "Senior" energy levels when it comes to dive trips. I just want to chill and relax and dive. So for me I would prefer a place like Scuba Seraya and just dive the place flat. There is a lot of variation around Tulamben, and they will even take you down to dive around Amed if you want to get out of town.
 
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