Recommendations for Great Shore Diving in Bali (Besides Tulamben Liberty Wreck)

[iamafish]

Hello!

Subject title pretty much sums it up. My friend is into shore diving and is not into muck diving. She loves the USS Liberty Shipwreck in Tulamben, but now would like to try some other great shore diving in Bali or Indo. We have dove the Japanese Shipwreck (and nice coral garden) in the Amed area,; and she would like some shore diving on par with the USS Liberty, which is a great shore dive (as we all know!).

Recommendations?

 

[divewench1]

Tulamben drop off, Tulamben coral garden, Kubu, Garden eel point at Amed, Cafe Garam at Amed, Noisy reef, Melasti Point, etc etc

Shame she doesn't like muck diving as Seraya secrets is wonderful for strange critters.

 

[iamafish]

Yes, have been to most of those.

Perhaps I should have been more specific because we did not find the "other than Liberty" shore dives in Tulamben/Amed nearly as great as Liberty, so much so that I personally dove Liberty 16 times and was still not bored.

Looking for shore dives on par with Liberty, versus local sites that are "OK for a change". For example, when speaking to the long established Balinese Divemasters in the area, 100% of them said they preferred to dive Liberty than any other dive site (Wall, Garden, Drop offs, etc) and would happily dive Liberty every dive if they could; but customers often prefer to dive different sites.

Not us... we prefer to dive amazing sites repeatedly in different conditions, do that is what we did with Liberty, and would like to find a similar (coral, not muck) shore site in Indo/Bali.

... anyway, I tend to prefer wreck diving, and I doubt there is another shore diving site like Liberty/Tulamben in Indo or Bali.... Liberty is truly a world class site, IMO.

 

[Bali-Freak]

The North Coast has some shore diving sites, but most are muck (which you don't want, right?) such as Secret Bay or PJ.

However Pemuteran on the North Coast is non-macro shore diving - it's a nice site but of course isn't nearly as good as Tulamben.

Hope this helps.

Simon

 

[kathydee]

Asking for a duplicate of Tulamben is quite a request. Don't know of anything better on Bali. Lots of sites for Muck diving on the north shore.

 

[iamafish]

Thanks for the great replies!

We decided to leave Bali for some diving outside of Indo (visa had expired) and then return to Tulamben/Liberty again later this year; since she loves the shore diving and easy access to a world class wreck dive!

I could easily dive the Liberty again and again. Great site; hard to match anywhere in the world!

 

[Bali-Freak]

We decided to <snip> return to Tulamben/Liberty again later this year

Yes, that's the problem with Tulamben - anywhere else will almost surely be a disappointment.

 

[Balireefdivers]

Yes, that's the problem with Tulamben - anywhere else will almost surely be a disappointment.

The USS Liberty is probably one of the best wreck dives in the world with so much fish life on it. But you should really try the Amed area but further south from Jemeluk Bay. There are about 6-7 more dive sites and most of them don't even have a name. The coral in this area is A LOT better than the coral in Tulamben. Japanese shipwreck has an amazing coral garden and there are tons of creatures to be found. More further south every rocky point has a dive site full of live and coral with the best of the best situated around Gili Selang, the most eastern point of Bali. I dare you to find a place in Bali where the coral reef is more abundant than there . You will probably be the only one diving those sites because they are only able to be reached by boat. So concerning this topic (shore diving) this is not relevant but I just wanted to mention the excistence of these dive sites. Just come and check it out.

 

[BLUESEASONBALI]

You could try Padang Bai, although Blue Lagoon is really the only dive feasible from the shore and even that is from the Bloo lagoon hotel. Must it be a shore dive because there are many dive sites around the whole of Bali that just require a 5 minute Jukung (small fishing boat) trip to the locations.