Best of Bali Dive Safari (13 days / 12 nights - 27 dives)

One of the most beautiful islands in the world, Bali is Indonesia's most popular dive travel destination.

Diving on day 3 & 4
Menjangan Island - Starting your AquaMarine Diving - Bali Dive Safari at Menjangan Island (part of West Bali National Park), located just off Bali’s north west point, enables you to experience the island’s first internationally known dive location. Looking back to the mainland during the half-hour local wooden outrigger boat journey, you can see exactly how mountainous Bali actually is – something not visible from south Bali’s more densely populated areas.
 
Menjangan Island is famous for its coral walls with easy conditions, warm waters and great visibility that can reach 50m+. Due to the white sand and good visibility, there is usually a lot of sunlight to bring out the bright colours of the schooling fishes surrounding you. The walls are covered with a multitude of gorgonian fans, soft corals and sponges. We frequently see batfishes and Big-eyed trevallys, as well as turtles and barracudas. There are only occasional sightings of large pelagic fishes as the island is protected from the cold currents coming in from the open sea.

Diving on day 5
Puri Jati - For those who’ve wondered but have yet to try it, and those who adore it – today you will dive Bali’s current muck-diving hotspot! Visibility is 5-25m, and the water warm. A wide, gentle brown sand slope with patches of sea grass and tufts of lavender soft corals hiding many juvenile batfishes and lion fishes, rare fishes, crustaceans, cephalopods (including Wonderpus, Blue-ring and Mimic octopus), and fascinating sand dwellers including unusual Mantis shrimps, Fingered dragonets, various ghost pipefishes, seahorses, sea moths, demon stingers, Cockatoo flounders, Veiled melibe nudibranchs, soft coral cowries, stargazers, the list goes on…
 
If conditions are unfavorable for Puri Jati, you will dive at Secret Bay, Bali’s first and so best-known muck location. 2km wide, 3-12m deep; the only bay off the narrow Bali Strait (where currents can reach 7 knots), it acts as a large catch-tank for many larval and juvenile fish, and rare marine species. The water is cold; the fish fat and healthy! Unusual nudibranchs, Banggai cardinal fish, gobies, Ambon scorpion fish, file fish, puffers, dragonets, pipe fish, juvenile Batavia batfish, Mimic octopus, Hippocampus kuda and many other organisms. Elsewhere juveniles hide to avoid predators, but here in Gilimanuk there are very few large fish, so juveniles have no need to hide. The bottom is fine sand with patches of algae and sea grass, some branches, coconuts (housing for octopodes!), cans, etc.

Diving on day 6 & 7
Tulamben Bay - The small village of Tulamben (Bali’s most famous diving area) is where you are most likely to meet internationally recognized underwater photographers. Being on Bali’s northeast coast, the bay receives very plankton-rich waters from the major ocean current that moves from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean. This, coupled with the fact that the three main dive sites provide totally different physical environments, means Tulamben contains a stunningly diverse underwater ecosystem.  World-famous for the 120m USAT Liberty shipwreck (possibly the world’s easiest wreck dive); The Drop-off/Wall, an old lava flow from Mount Agung, at the opposite end of the bay from the Wreck (about a 10 minute walk between the two sites), and the Coral Garden which is a shallow reef running along the middle section of Tulamben beach. Tulamben Bay offers incredible shore-diving with very easy conditions - perfect for divers of all levels.  
 
You will see just about everything in any Indo-Pacific Reef Guide book when you dive in Tulamben Bay. The resident marine life includes a huge school of Big-eyed trevallys, Leaf scorpion fishes, Bumphead parrotfishes, Pygmy seahorses, minute angler fishes, neon nudibranches, ghost pipefishes, shrimp/goby sets, through to garden eels and multi-colored clouds of anthias and damsels and schools of sweetlips, batfishes, fusiliers and butterfly fishes. The variety is amazing. Then there are the invertebrates, the hard and soft corals, black corals, sponges with crinoids, sea fans and tunicates.  
 
The beach is fist-sized black volcanic rocks that become sand in the shallows which, along with the plankton in the water, accounts for the relatively low visibility (12-25m). The black sand brings out the colors of the corals, gorgonians, fishes and other marine life – great for uw photography.  As Tulamben Bay provides shore-diving and rarely has currents, we are able to offer more dives per day than at other sites on this safari – in addition to which, you will get to experience for yourself Tulamben’s magical night-diving.

Diving at Amed
The quiet fishing village of Amed (more accurately: Jemeluk Bay) is 30mins drive south of Tulamben Bay. The beaches are sand, the water temperature can be affected by thermoclines, and visibility is usually 14-22M. Amed Reef (12-22m) offers many different kinds of sponges and gorgonians, and marinelife that includes everything from White-tip reef sharks, Napoleon wrasses, occasional big trevallys, butterflyfishes, bannerfishes, snappers, fusiliers and triggerfishes to gobies and shrimp as well as anemones with attendant clownfishes, schools of barracuda and Blue-spotted rays. Many different kinds of parrotfishes, angelfishes, surgeonfishes and moray eels. 3km south-east of Amed, the quiet little bay of Lipah is home to the wreck of a 20M steel freighter. The wreck lies at 6-12m, between a reef and the sand bottom, and is encrusted with sponges, gorgonians and coral bushes. The sloping reef is lovely, particularly in the bottom (15-20M) section, with soft corals, gorgonians and sponges. The shallowest section contains Table and Staghorn corals and is home to damsels and anthias as well as schools of many kinds of fishes.

Diving on day 9 & 19

Mimpang/Tepekong: Mimpang (best known for the Wall) consists of three large rocks that break the surface and several others below, which run in a ridge: to the north towards Bali and to the south (the richer end) dropping into deeper water. Despite its sometimes strong currents, Tepekong (a 300m long rock) offers spectacular diving as it has, on its southwest tip, The Canyon with its stunning, craggy black stone walls. If there is the usual swirling current, you can still see and feel the drama of the site, but your view will be somewhat obstructed by the huge schools of sweetlips, snappers and big-eyed trevallys, Bumphead parrot fishes, unicornfishes, bat fishes, groupers, sharks (usually White-tip reef sharks) and other pelagics - which may include tuna and Mola - Mola (Ocean sunfish) in season. Although Mimpang and Tepekong are only 1km apart, the conditions at the two sites are frequently not the same. So you can be pretty sure that if you cannot dive at Mimpang, you can dive Tepekong instead.

Blue Lagoon is a small bay with a steep white sand beach, located just outside Padangbai. The topography is not spectacular: white sand bottom, which slopes gradually to 22m, has scattered rocks, soft corals and a huge area of Staghorn coral. The fish life however is amazing! A large Napoleon wrasse lives here, as do several kinds of unusual reef sharks, stonefishes, morays and Blue ribbon eels, nudibranches, rays, squid and octopus, stargazers, cuttlefishes, crocodilefishes and Leaf scorpionfishes in every hue. We have also seen Rhinopias (eschmeyeri and frondosa), ghostpipefishes, seamoths, Flamboyant cuttlefishes, Solar - powered nudibranches, Cockatoo waspfishes and more! Also great for snorkelling.