Blue Season Bali

I finally get to dive Nusa Penida after almost 2 months!

It was an early start to a freezing day. With the weather looking a tad gloomy, we headed for the beach anyway. On the boat was myself (Cheryl), Big Wayan, Kenta, Jan, Andy from Singapore, Sato-san from Japan, and 3 other guests from Bandung, West Java. The swells were looking potent, but nearing Manta Point the seas were more or less appeased.

SPLASH! Back-rolled into the water and nearly SCREAMED out loud. As icy water rushed into my 6.5mm wetsuit, my teeth started chattering. It was funny to watch the guests come into the water one after another and yelping once the chill hit them.

Descending… Brrrrr…. Following Big Wayan’s lead, we scouted the area for manta rays until we heard that familiar tank-clanking sound. As we finned towards the cleaning station, we saw the first one cruising just above the boulder like a feather in mid-air. The excited guests were racing towards the manta rays with their cameras, and Wayan started clanking his tank to ask them not to go too close. The rest of the dive that I could remember was that 2 other mantas came flying over and one came really close as it glided past me… Nice. But it was still too cold!!! (Hey, I live in the tropics you know…) 22 degrees celsius!

En-route to Crystal Bay, we were all trying to warm up by sunning ourselves at the sides of the boat. Upon turning that corner, the vista was filled with… boats? And at least 10 boats in Crystal Bay. Must have been the recent sightings of sunfish that brought the sudden flurry of divers.

Crystal was really crystal-clear today… Dropping into the sea, shivers went up our spines although it was slightly warmer than Manta Point. Dropping under the surface and deeper, thermoclines were coming at us like the fog. I was thinking to myself in jest, how cruel the thermoclines were. Crossing our fingers (or fins) and hoping to see the majestic sunfish, we sailed past the reef and stared into the blue. Turning around, we went even shallower and Jan was excitedly banging his tank and pointing at something. I finned quickly over, hoping it was a fantastic stylish-looking nudibranch or something exotic, and found a lazy scorpionfish. Haha… There were lots of fish everywhere on this dive… 23 degrees celsius.

The much-awaited lunchboxes were snapped up in no time. Cold water certainly makes your stomach want more… Third and final dive of the day was at Toya Pakeh, one of my favourite dive sites in Penida. This time, the temperature didn’t disappoint; it was so much warmer! We saw several creatures underwater; squat lobster, a beautiful flatworm (Thysanozoon nigropapillosum ‘Gold-speckled flatworm’), Banded sea snake, Nudibranchs ‘Chromodoris magnifa’ and ‘Chromdoris annae’, several scorpionfishes, moray eels, etc. Fantastic dive as always, that lasted 63 minutes…

I really really enjoyed this day diving Bali and I think all of us did too!