Zen Beach Diving ( Puri Jati )
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.
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