Ninpuukamui
Registered
Hi,
I'm back from Padang Bai, and I have to say I had a wonderful holiday! It's a great place to relax, great food, great drinks, and an awesome beach (Bias Tegul Beach). The only complaint I may have is that the locals were VERY insistent when trying to sell you something; but, well, there were no many people around and they have to make a living.
This is more a review of Water Worx than it is of the different dive sites, as that's information you can easily find elsewhere. For those not wanting to read the whole post, this is the digested version: Water Worx gave me the cheapest quote, IÃÎ happy with what I got, and I will probably dive with them again. If you don't mind less-than-top-notch conditions and can take care of yourself, I would also recommend them, but not for newbies.
About the gear, it was mostly in good condition, and the suits seemed brand new. I did get a bootie which zip had been fixed with a plastic loop to replace the pull tab one day, but it was partly my fault because I overslept that day and didn't check the booties until I was on the boat. Said fix did not affect the bootie performance in any way.
Anyway, about the diving, I got to Water Worx at a pre-agreed time and date to start diving immediately. It was a very short distance from my hotel (Padang Bai is a really small village after all), right on the sea-front. However, when I got to the center Wolfgang was not there (he works in Sanur now IIRR) and nobody knew who I was; this was a bit strange, as I had 2 dives booked for that day. The staff approach of "dive now, talk later" suited me fine, so off I went for 2 dives in Blue Lagoon. My DM was Nyoman (I'll apologise now for any misspellings in DMs names), who was the best DM I had on my trip; very cheerful guy, helpful, and he knew Blue Lagoon inside-out. I saw more life than I would be able to remember, and was truly astonished by Blue Lagoon; it's a very easy dive with nearly no currents most of the time, and the bio-diversity was more than I expected, even after reading some reviews which I thought were exaggerating! This dive needs to be done. Spotlights for me were a very beautiful blue spotted ray, a really big turtle, and a (white tip?) shark. The turtle was specially sweet, as she was sleeping with 2 suckers hovering over her shell; we hanged around for a bit looking at her, and just before we left she woke up an looked up at us with sleepy eyes
When I got back to the center, I talked to David, the manager of Water Worx in PB, who did indeed know who I was, and everything was sorted There was a bit of miscommunication from my part, as I told them I would have my own scuba gear, which I didn't; I was expecting to be able to buy it once in PB, but I did not explain myself clearly. David gave me a good price for renting however, and I decided to just go with that and do the buying at a later date (and just enjoy diving!). They were very friendly about it, and there was no problem at all.
The next day my 2 friends joined me to Gili Biaha / Tepekong for 2 dives; the walls here are pretty spectacular, with a very impressive drop. This was however the dive I enjoyed the least for various reasons, foremost that even when this dive is pretty good on its own, it's rather boring compared to the other sites around PB. Secondly, our DM (Rajuj?) seemed a bit distracted and constantly peering into the blue; I thought he was obsessed with sharks, but later I learned he was looking for Mola Mola (sunfish), which had apparently appeared before season a few days earlier. We sadly did no see any, and my dive buddies were not very happy with the lengthily dives, one of them had about 20 bar left after one of the dives. My friends dived with a different DM (Wayan), the youngest and I dare to say most inexperienced of the DMs at Water Worx. They were also not very happy with him. On one of the dives, my friend had to stop the dive immediately (I think he had problems with his mask), and upon surfacing and fixing his problem one of the guys on the boat told him to go somewhere and dive again. My friend had just got his advanced open water and was a bit scared and surprised about this, but he did it anyway; happily, he descended and found Wayan and the other people after a short while, so my guess is that they knew what they were doing, but still seemed a bit reckless. On the second dive, he run out of air very quickly, and instead of finishing the dive, the DM shared his air with him for the rest of the dive; my friend was pretty worried they would drift apart, but he didn't ask to end the dive, so I guess he can't complaint really. I'd like to add that the tupperware lunches are very basic, but I don't really care about that because I get seasick anyway.
That same day I did some night diving in Blue lagoon with Wayan and was once again amazed by it. We had full moon, so there was a strong current along one of the walls and we just drifted with it; obviously it made very difficult to stop and see critters as we passed by, but it was kind of fun. I lost count of how many hermit and decorated crabs I saw that night.
On the third day I went to Tulamben, what a beautiful wreck! It's only a few meters from the beach, so you enter from the shore. We were 5 people, and our guide was Wayan. We first entered from the right, then from the left. On the first dive, within 10-15 minutes, we turned left instead of right to check out a very cute pigmy seahorse, and one of the divers (the most inexperienced one) got stranded. I didn't noticed myself until I got out with my buddy and found him already on the shore; Wayan came out a bit later and simply asked "where were you?", and that was it. I thought it was pretty reckless from the DM to leave it at that, specially when diving a wreck, but luckily nothing happened. Highlights of this dive were the pigmy seahorse and a bright yellow frog fish, as well as the barracuda and huge school all reviews talk about.
Lunch was not included that day, and Wayan was kind enough to lend some money to my buddy Flo, and to me too!
On the way back, our minibus broke down! We got a lift with a passing-by Diving Academy minibus, and I can say that the difference in quality was abysmal. DA's minibus had individual air conditioning, and much comfier seats; as I don't mind rough seats, and actually prefer to have open windows, this was a bit of a downgrade for me, but I'm sure everybody else would be much happier riding with Diving Academy.
Back in Blue Lagoon for another Night Dive, this time with Rajuj, whom did a very good job DMing two people. The current was next to non-existent, and we saw among other things a couple of scorpion fishes, a large cuttlefish, and I was very surprised by a sea serpent, a nudibranch, and a lionfish all together in the same "picture"!
For the last day I went to Nusa Penida with my two friends; David was kind enough to let us book the trip even when there were only 3 of us (usually it's a minimum of 4 people). The DM was Rajuj, and we were very happy with him. In Manta Point, the highlight were two cute little cuttlefish drifting around... just kidding. It was mind-blowing, we saw about 4-5 mantas, all of them just a few meters from us! Especially impressive was when one of the mantas opened its mouth as it passed by, inflating its gills... kind of scary, but very cool! I recommend this dive to anyone going to Bali. Next stop was Crystal Bay, life was average, but the corals were breathtaking. No Mola Mola this time either!
My final dive was another Blue Lagoon night dive, to be honest I never got tired of these. Not two dives were alike, and the last one was the best of all! I dived with Nyoman again and he went head-over-heels looking for cool stuff for us to see and photograph (I was diving with Flo again, who brought his camera along). Two frogfishes, white and red, and various very big crabs and two slipper lobsters made for a very interesting final dive!
I put my conclusion at the top of the review, and now you are free to draw your own. I've got to say, again, that I will probably dive with Water Worx again if the prices stay low, and I think they are worth every penny I paid. I hope you found this information useful!
Cheers!
I'm back from Padang Bai, and I have to say I had a wonderful holiday! It's a great place to relax, great food, great drinks, and an awesome beach (Bias Tegul Beach). The only complaint I may have is that the locals were VERY insistent when trying to sell you something; but, well, there were no many people around and they have to make a living.
This is more a review of Water Worx than it is of the different dive sites, as that's information you can easily find elsewhere. For those not wanting to read the whole post, this is the digested version: Water Worx gave me the cheapest quote, IÃÎ happy with what I got, and I will probably dive with them again. If you don't mind less-than-top-notch conditions and can take care of yourself, I would also recommend them, but not for newbies.
About the gear, it was mostly in good condition, and the suits seemed brand new. I did get a bootie which zip had been fixed with a plastic loop to replace the pull tab one day, but it was partly my fault because I overslept that day and didn't check the booties until I was on the boat. Said fix did not affect the bootie performance in any way.
Anyway, about the diving, I got to Water Worx at a pre-agreed time and date to start diving immediately. It was a very short distance from my hotel (Padang Bai is a really small village after all), right on the sea-front. However, when I got to the center Wolfgang was not there (he works in Sanur now IIRR) and nobody knew who I was; this was a bit strange, as I had 2 dives booked for that day. The staff approach of "dive now, talk later" suited me fine, so off I went for 2 dives in Blue Lagoon. My DM was Nyoman (I'll apologise now for any misspellings in DMs names), who was the best DM I had on my trip; very cheerful guy, helpful, and he knew Blue Lagoon inside-out. I saw more life than I would be able to remember, and was truly astonished by Blue Lagoon; it's a very easy dive with nearly no currents most of the time, and the bio-diversity was more than I expected, even after reading some reviews which I thought were exaggerating! This dive needs to be done. Spotlights for me were a very beautiful blue spotted ray, a really big turtle, and a (white tip?) shark. The turtle was specially sweet, as she was sleeping with 2 suckers hovering over her shell; we hanged around for a bit looking at her, and just before we left she woke up an looked up at us with sleepy eyes
When I got back to the center, I talked to David, the manager of Water Worx in PB, who did indeed know who I was, and everything was sorted
There was a bit of miscommunication from my part, as I told them I would have my own scuba gear, which I didn't; I was expecting to be able to buy it once in PB, but I did not explain myself clearly. David gave me a good price for renting however, and I decided to just go with that and do the buying at a later date (and just enjoy diving!). They were very friendly about it, and there was no problem at all.The next day my 2 friends joined me to Gili Biaha / Tepekong for 2 dives; the walls here are pretty spectacular, with a very impressive drop. This was however the dive I enjoyed the least for various reasons, foremost that even when this dive is pretty good on its own, it's rather boring compared to the other sites around PB. Secondly, our DM (Rajuj?) seemed a bit distracted and constantly peering into the blue; I thought he was obsessed with sharks, but later I learned he was looking for Mola Mola (sunfish), which had apparently appeared before season a few days earlier. We sadly did no see any, and my dive buddies were not very happy with the lengthily dives, one of them had about 20 bar left after one of the dives. My friends dived with a different DM (Wayan), the youngest and I dare to say most inexperienced of the DMs at Water Worx. They were also not very happy with him. On one of the dives, my friend had to stop the dive immediately (I think he had problems with his mask), and upon surfacing and fixing his problem one of the guys on the boat told him to go somewhere and dive again. My friend had just got his advanced open water and was a bit scared and surprised about this, but he did it anyway; happily, he descended and found Wayan and the other people after a short while, so my guess is that they knew what they were doing, but still seemed a bit reckless. On the second dive, he run out of air very quickly, and instead of finishing the dive, the DM shared his air with him for the rest of the dive; my friend was pretty worried they would drift apart, but he didn't ask to end the dive, so I guess he can't complaint really. I'd like to add that the tupperware lunches are very basic, but I don't really care about that because I get seasick anyway.
That same day I did some night diving in Blue lagoon with Wayan and was once again amazed by it. We had full moon, so there was a strong current along one of the walls and we just drifted with it; obviously it made very difficult to stop and see critters as we passed by, but it was kind of fun. I lost count of how many hermit and decorated crabs I saw that night.
On the third day I went to Tulamben, what a beautiful wreck! It's only a few meters from the beach, so you enter from the shore. We were 5 people, and our guide was Wayan. We first entered from the right, then from the left. On the first dive, within 10-15 minutes, we turned left instead of right to check out a very cute pigmy seahorse, and one of the divers (the most inexperienced one) got stranded. I didn't noticed myself until I got out with my buddy and found him already on the shore; Wayan came out a bit later and simply asked "where were you?", and that was it. I thought it was pretty reckless from the DM to leave it at that, specially when diving a wreck, but luckily nothing happened. Highlights of this dive were the pigmy seahorse and a bright yellow frog fish, as well as the barracuda and huge school all reviews talk about.
Lunch was not included that day, and Wayan was kind enough to lend some money to my buddy Flo, and to me too!
On the way back, our minibus broke down! We got a lift with a passing-by Diving Academy minibus, and I can say that the difference in quality was abysmal. DA's minibus had individual air conditioning, and much comfier seats; as I don't mind rough seats, and actually prefer to have open windows, this was a bit of a downgrade for me, but I'm sure everybody else would be much happier riding with Diving Academy.
Back in Blue Lagoon for another Night Dive, this time with Rajuj, whom did a very good job DMing two people. The current was next to non-existent, and we saw among other things a couple of scorpion fishes, a large cuttlefish, and I was very surprised by a sea serpent, a nudibranch, and a lionfish all together in the same "picture"!
For the last day I went to Nusa Penida with my two friends; David was kind enough to let us book the trip even when there were only 3 of us (usually it's a minimum of 4 people). The DM was Rajuj, and we were very happy with him. In Manta Point, the highlight were two cute little cuttlefish drifting around... just kidding. It was mind-blowing, we saw about 4-5 mantas, all of them just a few meters from us! Especially impressive was when one of the mantas opened its mouth as it passed by, inflating its gills... kind of scary, but very cool! I recommend this dive to anyone going to Bali. Next stop was Crystal Bay, life was average, but the corals were breathtaking. No Mola Mola this time either!
My final dive was another Blue Lagoon night dive, to be honest I never got tired of these. Not two dives were alike, and the last one was the best of all! I dived with Nyoman again and he went head-over-heels looking for cool stuff for us to see and photograph (I was diving with Flo again, who brought his camera along). Two frogfishes, white and red, and various very big crabs and two slipper lobsters made for a very interesting final dive!
I put my conclusion at the top of the review, and now you are free to draw your own. I've got to say, again, that I will probably dive with Water Worx again if the prices stay low, and I think they are worth every penny I paid. I hope you found this information useful!
Cheers!
