Blue Season Bali

Today is day four of the PADI IDC in Bali with Blue Season Bali.  We started the morning with the knowledge development presentations from the IDC candidates.  There are 9 candidates from many places such as Iran, Algeria, Argentina, Spain, England, Malaysia and Japan.  What a mixture of cultures!

This morning was the first knowledge development presentation for the group.  This afternoon we will go into the swimming pool for the PADI Rescue Diver workshop.  We will learn how to demonstrate and conduct skills from the PADI Rescue Diver course.

Over then next week or so we will be covering many aspects on how to become a PADI Dive Instructor.  Keep coming back for more info on what is happening.

It’s already 4 months now that I stay here in Blue Season Zen Resort with more than 60 dives in Puri Jati on my dive computer.

Puri Jati (PJ) lies close to Zen Resort Bali and a short distance west of Seririt and 13 km west of Lovina. The dive site name changed to Zen Beach as the hotel was used to be called as Puri Jati. It’s a 6 minute picturesque walk from Zen Resort Bali to the actual dive site with beautiful rice terraces and vineyards on the pathway. Once getting there you have all the facilities that you need: Showers, changing room, some bamboo tables where you can put all your equipment, smiling helpers setting up your gear and 3 wash containers. A big one for all equipment and 2 small round ones to rinse your camera.

It is a good place to see small and rare animals so they told me. Without having big expectations about what to see down there, I geared up and went diving for the first time on this site. I still remember it as it was yesterday. I was thinking: “What the hell am I doing here??? This has to be like diving on the moon?!!” I didn’t saw anything at all during that dive. This has to be a joke! Anyway… after the first dive I couldn’t believe that this dive site doesn’t have anything to offer so the day after I went for another one and adjusted my ‘diving tactics’. Much slower pace, frog kick by frog kick, and all in a sudden you start to see some things like threadfin sanddivers, dragonets, razorfish, weird looking crabs and a flying gurnard! I was quite surprised that I saw a barracuda. I taught he probably lost his way.

After some dives here at Puri Jati I started to appreciate it more and more. Now it’s one of my favourite spots to dive without any doubt. You can do 4 exactly the same dive routes on the same day and see every time different creatures such as frogfishes, dragonets, seahorses, flying gunards, lots of octopuses hiding in small bottles or bamboo, cuttlefish, a variety of crabs, eels, various nudibrach, Ambon Scorpion fish, the smallest lionfishes that you ever saw, very small harlequin shrimp, Ornate and Robust Ghost Pipe Fish, porcelain crabs and many other interesting critters but the target of every day diving in Puri Jati is searching for the rare but intelligent Mimic Octopus. He can imitate certain fish such as a sole, a sea snake (don’t miss it on youtube!), jellyfish and sea anemones. It’s a delight to look at it!

To keep it short. You have so many beauties that you should not miss them. Also you should prepare for PADI Digital Underwater Photography if you are interested to develop your underwater camera skills.

It’s also a wide area that can take several dives to cover. Most of the things you see are between 5 and 15 metres so it’s easy to make long dives.

Anyway… you don’t here me saying that it’s just diving on the moon. The only comparison that I can make is that it is also a privilege to be here diving on such a unique place here in Puri Jati. Most of the people will be satisfied diving here like photographers and experienced divers but also beginners that want to learn more about Macro or Muck diving.

P.

We are coming to the end of another long and successful Mola Mola season in Bali.  The season has had some excellent sightings which have kept our Bali divers happy and wanting to come back for more.

Be sure to checkout Bali Sunfish later on for more updates on the 2009 season.  Remember to book your Mola Mola package well in advance as this year we were booked up to four months in advance.

Also take a look at the new Mola Mola code of conduct in order to give all divers an idea on how to interact with Mola Mola and also large pelagics in general.

A rather controversial subject for many but is it right to remove marine life from our reefs in Bali so that others in places like Europe and America can gaze at them in their fish tanks, or use them in the name of research?

The reefs in Bali and Indonesia are under tremedous strain as it is.  There is a huge amount of destructive fishing practices that destroy reefs and aquatic environments in the quest of selling aquarium reef fish to the rest of the world.

As divers and PADI members it is very important that we do everything we can to help sustain coral reefs and indeed all marine environments.  The removal of a boxer crab from a reef in Bali may not seem so important yet the amount of tourism created by these atractions is vital for the local community and businesses.  The USD1.50 earned by the seller is nothing compared to the dollars coming in from tourists to see these unique creatures.

Blue Season Bali encourages everyone to get more information about how they can help the aquatic world by visiting the PADI Project AWARE website.  We are also happy to hear any thoughts on this subject.

PADI IDC Bali - A huge congratulations for Jan, Kenta, Neil, Marina, Daisuke and Matoko who all passed their PADI IDC and PADI IE in Bali over the weekend.

The PADI IE was conducted by George Wegmann from PADI Asia Pacific who did a fantastic job for all the IDC candidates in Bali.  Thanks George!

Over the three days, all our Bali IDC candidates proved the fantastic training put in by our Course Director, SF Chong, and our Staff Instructor, Taka, was not wasted.  Superb performances from all meant that Blue Season Bali keeps their unique 100% success rate in all PADI IE’s in Bali.

The success of the latest bunch of PADI Instructors come as no surprise given the huge amount of effort put in by the PADI IDC Bali team of Course Directors and PADI IDC Staff Instructors.  For anyone out there who wants more information about the PADI IDC in Bali email us.

The PADI IE success was celebrated by all in grand style.  Just don’t remind Jan about it!  It is still too painful for him to remember.

A few days ago I finished my first PADI RESCUE DIVER course with an English gentleman, named Desmond. This course is always good fun! First of all, you get to learn some great new skills that are extremely helpful for diving and secondly, something terribly funny always seems to happen. We were in the pool on the second day of the course learning the skills. Scenario practice with Louise as the victim; she was tired at the surface and Desmond attempted to throw the tow line for her to grab. Instead of getting it behind her, he hit her on the head! It was perfect because I wanted Louise to end up an unconscious diver anyways, but we all had a good laugh after she groaned and collapsed in the water!

So, on the third day of the course, I took Desmond to Sumawan Beach, right here in Sanur. Thankfully, one of our Japanese instructors was conducting an OPEN WATER COURSE at the same time as my rescue course; so we were able to take out the Bali Ocean 2, our company’s boat and home away from home! After less than a five minute ride, we reach the dive site location. We couldn’t have asked for better conditions for the day. Visibility was incredible and there was absolutely no current to be seen. I gave a thorough briefing about what the day may have in store; hinting at the fact that he needed to be prepared for any and every scenario we were going to throw at him (and of course it was going to be every scenario!) Then I let the fun begin! We started off with an easy pleasure dive; exploring the site and being rewarded with some great finds. We found two stonefish, a baby blue spotted stingray, a banded snake eel, a moray eel, plenty of puffer fish, and as always lionfish galore. It was a very nice and relaxing dive, when all of the sudden Louise started breathing hard and panicking. Desmond reacted immediately and went over to check on her. She pulled up the sleeve of her wetsuit to show a black slash line with stitch marks on her arm and the word “cut” written below it. He knew exactly what to do; calming her down, he assisted her at the surface and applied first aid once we got her into the boat.

After a short surface interval and some miraculous healing by Louise, I discreetly sent her and Mangku into the water to place our “missing diver”, who always seems to have a blue weight belt on! When they came up, incredibly enough, Louise was tired and Mangku was panicking. You would hope that they could handle themselves better in the water! But luckily for them, Desmond was there to save the day again! He entered the water and towed them back to the boat. Minutes later we all descended together in search of the “missing diver”. Success, we found the diver with the blue weight belt!! Then Mangku became our unconscious diver and was carefully brought up to the surface, where Desmond proceeded to give rescue breaths, undo both his own and Mangku’s equipment, AND tow the victim back to the boat. I’m glad he can walk and chew gum at the same time or else that task might have been a little difficult! All in all, it was a great day and as always, a great course! It is still my favorite course to be part of and I can’t wait to do another one!

I was guiding today. We were going to dive one of my favourite dive sites in Bali, Padang Bai. Having just been out there in less than a week ago, I was hoping today would be better conditions.

And indeed, the sun rays peeked out of the cloudy sky and by 0900hrs the sky cleared into a calm blue. After setting up our dive gear, my guest Yousef (Kuwait) and I set off on a small dive expedition on a jukung. The sea was literally quite flat, and it was Tanjung Bungsil we were headed for.

At Tanjung Bungsil, surface conditions were perfect. Looking over the jukung, crystal clear visibility was staring at us in the face. We were revved up to descend, and down we went… bloop bloop bloop…

Schools of wrasses and a giant puffer fish was hovering in a nice bommy with a tiny swim-through… As sunlight hit the sea floor my vision expanded and I spotted two really pretty Chromodoris magnifica nudibranchs. Love nudibranchs! And then almost all the creatures I mentioned in my dive briefing were spotted: Giant cuttlefish, blue-spotted stingray, more nudibranchs, spotted boxfish, etc… BEAUTIFUL CORALS, BEAUTIFUL REEF LIFE!

Second dive after our surface interval was at Blue Lagoon. This dive we were going to dive the wall. As the mild current pushed us towards Kepala Penyu and Jepun, it was ultra cold with the thermoclines rushing into our faces. AARGH! Nevertheless, great great dive! Another giant cuttlefish, a snake eel, cleaner shrimp (huge ones), a school of juvenile barracudas, more nudibranchs, another blue-spotted stingray, etc… BEAUTIFUL dive again…

What could be better to end the diving day than a fantastic lunch at Puri Rai restaurant? The fish sate there is excellent, so I recommended it to Yousef. I myself had the tasty chicken curry… It was heavenly YUMMY!

Great day, great Bali diving, great guest…

It was overcast on the boat trip over to Nusa Penida, and myself and the boat crew had high hopes that we were going to see the majestic mola mola on our first dive at Crystal bay. As we arrived, the conditions looked good from the surface and only a handful of dive companies were there. As I geared up with Wayan we went through how we were going to guide the site and with that, back rolled off the boat into the crystal clear water.

I was pleasantly surprised with the water temperature - a warm 25 degrees celsius - which was nice especially for a hardened nothern hemisphere lad who is used to diving in 10 degrees celsius. As we made our descent with a group of four, 2 lads from Singapore, 1 from Malaysia and 1 from western Australia, everything looked good. Visibility was around 15-20M and marine life was the usual; what you come to expect from a world class dive site in Bali. As we hit 25m ‘Big’ Wayan signalled to me to look in front; he has become so experienced in dealing with these gentle giants he now knows the clanging of tanks to draw attention can scare this very timid species. Now, can I just say in all of my 5 years of diving I have never encountered a better looking fish than this one; the sheer beauty of it overwhelmed me. It was probably about 2m from top to bottom and as the currents picked up he got closer and closer and didn’t seem fazed by all the divers; if anything he just seemed to love the attention we were giving him.

I was so pleased to get at least 5 minutes play time with him before the currents picked up even more and we had to make our ascent. As we all managed to get back safely, which can only be explained as a challenging dive, but to get the opportunity for the first time in 5 years to spend some quality time with such an amazing creature is something i will never forget. This fills me with excitement for the mola mola season ahead.

Bali Diving reports from major Bali Dive Resorts all point to one thing - The Bali Sunfish are well and truly here and in big numbers again!

Over the last week we have had numerous sighting of Bali Mola Mola with the largest group of Sunfish so far being nine sighted at Crystal Bay in Nusa Penida. The water temperature has drastically dropped but the big fish action has just begun!

During the next few months Blue Season Bali will be sending out divers every day to meet with these amazing Sunfish. Our daily dive trips depart from Sanur and give you three superb dives with the Sunfish. It is important to remember that not everyone gets to see the Mola Mola. It is really important to have a good operator who knows where and when to put you in the water and then has professional dive guides who will give you the best opportunity to spend time with the Bali Mola Mola.

Our day trips to Nusa Penida cost USD145 per day inclusive of all hotel transfers, dive equipment, lunch, drinks, towels, insurance and Bali’s most professional dive guides! Call us on 0361 270852 or email us at info@baliocean.com for more information.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of watching a great PADI instructor in the water. Chong a PADI Course Director was working with Gabriel on his Confined Open Water skills in preparation for Gabriel to do the IE in a couple of weeks. Chong makes all of the demonstrations and explanations so clear and with a minimum of effort and it is very easy to see that anyone that is trained by him is going to be a great open water instructor, if they take what he is teaching and use it the way he presents it. I am really looking forward to participating in the Next Blue Season Bali IDC in a couple of weeks towards the end of July.

I am also waiting to get out and see the Mola Molas there have been a few sightings recently as we head into the sunfish season here in Bali. I was scheduled to do a reef clean at Nusa Penida which had to be postponed as we were very busy, getting to be that time of the season where you want to book early to make sure you get your preferred days.

The weather here in Bali I have to say has been perfect I just cannot get over how much like Hawaii this place is from the friendliest of the locals to the great weather. One area where it is different is the prices Bali has to be the cheapest paradise around, I have traveled all over Asia and this is so far the best place I have seen for hanging out.

Video of a Bali Dive