Diving in Bali,
Let me start with the price $78…and what do you get for it? Transport to the “harbour”, a boat trip to the National Park, two dives with all the equipment, short stop on the island and lunch.
Great value if you ask me but like everything and anything in Bali you have to take it with a pinch of salt and don’t expect luxury.
Tam decided to sit this one out for a couple of reasons but the main one was…this trip is not really small child friendly as involves a two long drives, a bouncy and wet ride in a small dinghy , hot tropical day on a beach with nothing on it.
I love being on the water and in the water and for me the more basic things are the more real it feels so I loved every moment of it.
I booked a company called Sunrise Dive simply because I walked passed the office.
They picked me up at our villa at 8.30, got taken to the dive office 5 minutes away where I got fitted with the gear. I have done this dive years ago so kind of knew what to expect but I was still a bit surprised how run down their equipment is. In Bali they don’t service or do maintenance on anything…just use it till it gives up the ghost and I think the same applies to all the dive equipment. After and hour and a half drive on a windy beach side road we picked up more people for diving and snorkelling and headed straight down to the little harbour. I had the pleasure of sharing our 17ft open boat/dinghy with a family of 6 from Germany. The other boat had snorkellers and intro divers including a lovely couple on their honeymoon from the UK/Italy.
Once we left the muddy beach the confusion started between the two boats as within a minute of leaving they realised that the equipment and gear was all mixed up so headed back and we thought it was all sorted. After a 25 minutes ride we arrived to the sheltered side of the island soaking wet as bounced our way on slightly choppy waters to the stunning site. Turquoise, clear water all around us……Ready to dive in…not quite …as it turned out they brought out the wrong dive equipment for my three dive buddies. Dad, being over 2 meters tall and the boys close to it... the small and medium BCDs just didn’t really fit….. as I said…this is Bali and they are not the most organised of all. After some heated exchanges and swapping equipment with the other boat they all managed to fit in to rather small and overused gear. Off we went for the first dive. Visibility was around 25 m and the water was 31 degrees warm. We spent 48 minutes under swimming around the coral and diving to 22m on the wall. The dive itself is not spectacular as the reef is pretty dead to be honest and for that reason the fish population is not there either but I don’t really care as I love being under water and love the experience as a whole. Back on the boat and a short run to the islands beach. They brought us lunch which was just a nice little energy booster. Nothing fancy but you don’t expect much.. Nasi Goreng with some prawn crackers and fresh fruit. Perfect for me. We went to a different site about 1 minute from the beach for the second dive called the Coral Garden. This site has more coral and sea life to enjoy but still not the abundance you would hope for in these tropical waters. Didn’t go deeper than 12m this time but didn’t need to as there was more to see closer to the surface ..we surfaced after 50 minutes.
The journey back was the same….so there is not much to write about.
How would I rate the day…???
Well, I could understand if someone else would give this experience 2 stars as it is a reef in very average condition without much to see, the company is very disorganised and the dive equipment is way past “use by date” BUT I really enjoyed it and kind of knew what to expect for $78. I had a great day and I am used to the hiccup’s here so from that angle 5 stars *****
Comments