Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Bali Safari February 2010

When life seems complicated,
when city seems suffocated,
or when it's simply the time to refuel my spirit

I'll go down to the sea
to fly in between my favorite blue
weightless
and to greet my slimy friends
noiseless

the peaceful blue
can you wash all my worries and sadness away?
for a while maybe?


13 - 21 February 2010
Tulamben - Amed - Puri Jati - Manjangan Island - Secret Bay Gilimanuk



Chinese New Year period is the time when families gather together, that’s the norm. However, since our family had been growing in different areas of the world, every opportunity to gather together is not limited to Chinese New Year. In fact, we haven’t been together during I don’t know how many Chinese New Year, CNY is more like meeting up with further distant relatives than our own.

Anyway, keeping family stories, on the ‘sa-cap-meh’, a reunion night, eve of Chinese New Year, we were checking in the airport. We got away with the seven kg excess baggage, but as the result, the staff mixed up our eating arrangement. She put me in row 12 and hubby in row 21, it’s a mistake because then we found out that they issued two boarding pass for his seat. After some commotion, we finally managed to sit together; it was a fully packed flight. Yes, it’s good time for holiday to a lot of people too, with Monday and Tuesday being public holidays. We couldn’t even get earlier flight and had to settled with 10 pm Saturday flight, wasting away the whole Saturday and had a tiring night travel from airport to the hotel. On the other hand, it came in handy as we only started packing on Friday night, since we were both busy and I was not feeling well few days before.

Not feeling well, this time it had taken its toll quite badly. I have never, ever, had any problem in equalizing my ear, in diving, in aeroplane, I didn’t even need to do the nose pinching and normally only need to 'open’ my ear and ‘klek-klek-klek’ I could go down sinking to depth in short time without a flinch.

But this time, having been feverish for a while, with throat infection and sinus, I knew I would have trouble descending in the water, but I didn’t expect it would be that bad. In the aeroplane, upon descending when we were reaching Bali, my premonition was proven true, I couldn’t equalize well and my ear hurt. On the aeroplane! Tomorrow is going to be bad!

Five years ago we did Bali Safari and it was the start of our addiction to macro/muck diving that sustains our passion in diving until now.
I remember Paradise Hotel as dark, dirty bedroom and bathroom and I was electrocuted by the shower head three times (Seriously!!), not to mention the bamboo bed frame that looked like something might have grown inside it and crawled out at night to bite you. Anyway, whatever it is, my Paradise impression was the worst among other hotels.

However, this time, I got a feeling that it would be better and brighter. They should have renovated it somehow down the road, well I was right. We got the exact same bedroom with last time, but it was really cleaner and brighter. Don’t imagine four-five star class here, it’s not even the same class with Bali three star (Bali 3 star are actually quite high standard to my opinion!), but it’s now a nice basic accommodation with bright bathroom and the shower head didn’t electrocute me this time. Although they placed it real, real low that to shower with it, you should do half squat, well, maybe squatting.

Anywayyy…. We reached hotel around half an hour pass midnight, welcomed by the white kampong dog we called Tuti.. and a handsome Siberian Husky, who was the new addition to the hotel. It was abandoned by the owner and since then, stayed in the area.
Normally, we would assembly everything until wee hour in the morning, but this time we decided to do it in the morning and took our rest for the night.







Since there was no real appointment about the time to do the first dive, we just took our sweet time to assembly everything and even missed our breakfast. Yah, I think we were very relaxed this trip, no rush for anything.

We did first dive in Drop Off. Tulamben is a challenging dive site for shore entry. Beside the rocky, very rocky landscape where you have to balance your self after donning the heavy gear plus the damn heavy camera, the surface surf was always aiming to knock us down. I could safely guess that almost everyone who dived there often enough had fallen down at least once. I was lucky this time, but not in previous trip. Sometimes I think it would be so easy to break you toes into various pieces if you just misstep and at the same time the wave is cracking your back while you walking struggling to breath through the claustrophobic wetsuit that strangle your neck with heavy and wet tank on your back (whoa! You understand this messy sentence??)

If equalizing in airplane had been a challenge, I knew underwater would be worse, but I had absolutely no idea that it was going to be THAT painful.
As planned, I made my descend real slow, but still, I couldn’t equalize. Even when I just hit one head below the water, the pain came without warning, excruciating pain, going straight to the brain. I knew I wouldn’t have any luck in simply ‘klik-klak’ method that I always used, so this time I went straight to Valsalva maneuver, which is pinching the nose and blow, the forced equalization that is actually not a recommended method.

But then, even hard blow Valsalva maneuver didn’t work, at that moment I realized that I was in more serious condition. I tried everything I know, yawning, biting, swallowing, etc, the only method that seemed to help a bit (little bit) was tilting my head left and right. Everytime I went down, even a feet, the sharp pain would be back and it was almost unbearable. So when I felt the pain, I would ascend a bit before trying to descend again, it was negative effort sometimes. It took me forever to even reach 3 meter on first dive, and that was when I saw big school of squid flying below me and above Hubby and Agus, our DM. It’s too painful to enjoy, but I think it helped a lot. Too bad our camera casings were empty for orientation dive. After the squid, I finally able to go down and subsequently felt better although my ears were still feel restricted.

Drop Off landscape had change since the high rainy season last year that rise up the sand level, it had less stuff to see and we couldn’t find many things we saw on our last trip. (Drop Off was our favorite dive site back then, we saw Harlequin Shrimp to Black Tip Shark to newly seen Leander Plumonus and landscapes of nudibranch, this time we couldn’t even find the resident Pygmy Seahorse). We did saw other stuff, but my poor brain can’t recall much now since I don’t have pictures to refer to. Talk about the importance to write the journal down. Brain cells diessss faster everyday. To me.

On second dive I need twenty (twenty!!) minutes to go down, it got more painful than the first one, I got so frustrated that I think I cursed a lot underwater. It was in Liberty Wreck and we were there looking at the big school of Jacks. The school of Jacks is resident around the wreck, but it’s not always seen and we had never seen this size. They were broken into two or few smaller group but this time they got together into a very impressive size, comparable with the school we saw in Sipadan. Too bad, the visibility on the wreck that day was quite murky. I was just able to go down by the time we saw the Jacks, then after trying to take some murky pictures, we just swam with them and let them circled around, they got closer and closer and I thought, something did not seem right, and yes, I was carried up quite a bit and with big argh, I had to make my way down again, luckily it was easier.

To compare my feeling being up-close with the Jacks, I actually kind of almost ignoring my favorite Frog fish nearby. It’s cute, tiny, porcelain white clown Frog fish, but we could only bring one lens and we chose wide angle, Jacks over Frog. It does help that we had big fix of Frogfishes from our latest Menado trip, but put it this way: You can always find macro (If you diligent/have good DM/on good dive sites/and some luck) but for big school of fish, it’s almost pure luck. I’m still in awe over big school of basking tuna or whatever the name (it was a big school of tuna lookalike fish with mouth wide-opened, I thought I found the name as basking tuna but when I google it now nothing right really came up) we saw in Sipadan too, which I never had a chance to see them again so far.













Six dives, for first two days I still have the unbearable pain of equalizing, although subsequently I needed less time to go down, the thought of the danger of passing out or just giving up the dives came into mind once in a while, especially when the pain traveled direct to the brain. But I know my limit and would never push myself more than I know I could take, and in fact, I think going down should make me feel better, faster. Which is kind of right, because beside the sinus, my throat was getting better and there was no sign of fever anymore since I landed in Bali. He he he he he..
On many of the dives, especially first three days, I kept finding blood in my mask though. It’s not uncommon for divers, but it never happened to me. It might be the result of forced equalization. At first, I thought algae had grown in my mask when I saw greenish thing under my left eye. After clearing up the mask, it would come back; it was actually blood that looked green underwater.
So to say, diving is the activity that only advisable to be done when you are fit and really well.
Really well, not even moderately well, which gives the sport a real limitation beside the real threat of disappearing good diving spots in the world. Sigh.

Ah well. Let’s get into the dives finally.

We did quite a comprehensive safari around Bali and cover most of the area we did five years ago, except we skipped Padang Bai and Nusa Penida area which is collllddddddd and less relaxing-friendly spirit, up to it, it was off season again. (When we ever dive Bali on-season?? Ha… I guess we always chose to go when not many people are around).

So:
13 Feb : Arrive Bali
14 Feb : Drop Off & Liberty Wreck, Tulamben.
15 Feb : Seraya Secret
16 Feb : Amed & Coral Garden.
17 Feb : Liberty Wreck, Tulamben.
18 Feb : Puri Jati
19 Feb : Manjangan & Pemutaran
20 Feb : Secret Bay, Gilimanuk.
21 Feb : Depart Bali



Liberty Wreck

We dived seven times in Tulamben, four for Liberty Wreck, one for Drop Off and two for Coral Garden. Coral Garden was in much better condition than last time, the concentration of fish and critters was much more, we even found a pair of rare Tiger Shrimp (okay, this is not Tiger Prawn or shrimp you can find in wet market. I don’t know the exact name yet as I type..) during the night dive. And who can forget the gigantic one meter Giant Sweetlips who greeted me just below the aeroplane metal frame that encrusted with colorful hard corals and oysters? The limitation of the camera, we couldn’t anyhow switching from macro to wide angle, which was frustrating at times when we have to make choice, and we couldn’t help that the choices were not always right during the dives obviously.

After the night dive, I remember floating on the sea, laying back and looking at the big dark beautiful sky with billions of stars. It was so close and there were sooo many of them. Why we can’t see these stars in Singapore? If someone has a loved one there, he/she can’t really refer to those mushy-dangdut song that says: although two lovers were apart, they can wish on the same bright star every night. No, they can’t in Singapore! We can’t see many stars, ah well, we can’t even see big patch of the sky without going to more rural area. How sad.

For the Wreck, except the beautiful wreck (Liberty Wreck is beautiful, so to say, especially inside the chambers where you can see the beautiful blue background through its chambers, some chambers make me feel like I’m in cathedral), we always went for the Jacks, aside from macro stuff we could only see and other big fish like Giant Barracuda, Giant Grouper, Napoleon Wrasse and numerous school of busy fish around us. We were also slapped by unusual strong current we had to hide inside the wreck chambers now and then. I also liked it when we hid in the deepest point of the wreck for long period of time just to savor the serenity without any other divers around. It was the quiet month; we only saw small groups here and there compared to the whole beach full of divers on last trip.


Coral Garden

Four nights in Paradise, time to move on to the next spot. For the next three nights we stayed at Aneka Bagus Pemutaran, a beautiful hotel overlooking rows of Bali’s mountainous landscape. The good news? We got upgraded to Villa from standard room. The villa was spacious, very beautiful and we couldn’t believe we could have this kind of standard during diving trip. It even has flowers on the bed, TV (TV! But only have two channels depends on the operator liking. Really… it changed channel itself…eng..ing.. eng…) and Fridge (sadly we had nothing to put) Too bad we didn’t have any chance to enjoy its other facilities like swimming pool etc. But similar to most of Bali’s cottage, it has the characteristic that I actually dislike a lot during diving trip, the ‘can-see-can-not-see’ light.
Bali is romantic, the low rise hotels are almost always decorated with beautiful landscape and romantic semi-dark environment. But the minus side was, we almost couldn’t see anything with the dim lights while we needed it bright to clean and work with the cameras. Anyway, we decided to forget doing anything with the cameras that night and just woke up earlier the next morning. However, it’s amazing how fast I could get used to this hotel’s dim lights. The night after, I thought it was bright enough, unlike my long lasting frustration in similar Mimpi hotel during my last trip.
Other setback of Bali trip, we had to pay for dinner ourselves. It might sound simple, but it’s expensive because we didn’t have a lot of choice but to eat in the hotel, and they also add 21% taxes to the price. Ouch. Even the simplest meal cost us at least 150K rupiah, and to put it this way, hotels doesn’t always employ good cook. Sometimes we escaped and looked for meals ourselves, we missed the Indonesian ‘Warung’ or roadside stall or we could really find great food elsewhere with much more affordable prices, if we could find the alternative places.































Seraya

Seraya had always been my favorite diving spot, but this time, I was not too sad to leave it behind. As usual, the entry was far, we needed to walk quite far before entering from the rocky shore, and Seraya always had strong surface surf, at least this time was quite maddening. Beside pain in my ear (second diving day) I got giddy because of the surface surf (we actually had to take sea sick pill ---> sea sick pill for shore dives!) we couldn’t really do much in the shallow area because of the surf. Somehow my conservative computer gave me the penalty of 18 minutes deco time on the third dive. It was my fault for not moving to the shallow fast enough, but sometimes, to cut long story short, it’s not that simple. However, Seraya was still offering satisfying dives with its usual Harlequin Shrimp, even Coleman Shrimp we hardly saw and numerous critters (is it obvious that by the time I type this I can’t remember a lot of details?).


Amed

We had been canceling trip to Amed everytime we were here. Reason being, it sounds like a neither here nor there type of dive spots. It has beautiful corals, and also have macro.. Lho!? Then? What lens are we suppose to carry then? Point being, they are good but not a fantastic designated specific site for certain critters or lens choice. What a mouthful.
Anyway, it is nice to dive by boat again after crawling over Tulamben rocky area with sore toes and heavy camera. We went by the skinny jukung, the traditional boat with two legs on the sides The dive sites are just a short distance away. Then we jumped and geared up in the water. I’m never a fan of gearing up in the water, but this time it’s quite nice under the hot weather. It’s also tedious but quite fun to climb back to the boat. Kick with your fin to help lifting yourself up to the boat, Agus taught us the best way. Unfortunately I already took off my fins when I remembered, so I had to drag myself without the help of kicking, ah well, seems like I’m still quite fit. I maybe be fitter because now I have to lift a lot more body mass. Huhaha..
I enjoyed Amed as it was the third day dive and I had much less pain in going down. However, Amed current was quite strong, although not near the worse we had encounter. But strong current with numerous direction means taking up photograph was not the best idea, it’s difficult and quite impossible. So we just drifted and sometimes fought the current a bit. Amed does have beautiful corals, although, maybe current wise, we didn’t really find fantastic macro critters. But what it is to be complained when I could float and fly among the colorful fish and beautiful coral? This is my Pandora…!





























Puri Jati (PJ)

Puri Jati., our original destination was Karang Anyar. But few divers who just went there told Agus that Puri Jati seemed like better choice. It’s a dive site located at the sea side, next to a paddy field. It’s a bit different now, it actually had divers area, with few long bench for stuff, few concrete water tubs for cameras and toilet or changing room. Five years ago, we only have a patch of soil with a sheet of canvas on the ground and plastic bucket for cameras.
The diving landscape was still the same, this is probably the only place where I could see the high concentration of sand dollars, scattered all over the place. The type of diving is muck diving, where you have to work and find the critters among the black sands, rubble and dirts. The water temperature was warm, range from 28 to 30 degree underwater. It was even hot when we were dipping in the water getting ready to go on the shore.

The underwater life, PJ was not as good as five years ago. Some operator have left this dive sites and switched to Karang Anyar, but lately Karang Anyar also deteriorated.
Actually, PJ was still quite good if we stop comparing it with it oldself of course. We still found Mimic Octopus, or Wonderpus, although only one. We found coconut Octopus, snake eel, Flounders, well, doesn’t really sound impressive, but guess what, after searching it all over Lembeh Strait we found it here, Hairy Frogfish. Tell me PJ is not good I won’t buy it because I was longing to see this creature (adult) forever. We found it next to the seapen and it stood there wiggling its modified dorsal fin as a lure to attract its prey.

I glanced with disbelief when Agus pointed it to us, I never expected to see this in PJ. Lembeh was our best shot but still we only managed to see the half hairy babies. So I was happy happy happy.. we also saw other special stuffs like Pegasus, Ambon Scorpionfish with its long eyelashes, various seahorses, and Zebra Crab, something we haven’t gotten a chance to see again after our trip in Komodo.





When Agus found the Hairy Frogfish, I was busy with my old friend, the Titan Triggerfish. But in PJ, it's kind of nursery so the Titan that I found is baby size, about 4-5cm the most. We had had so many bad experience being chased by this super aggresive creature, the latest one being my DM's head in Derawan was bitten by the fish out of nowhere. He was alright *Skull is our strongest part of the body* so the fish turned to me. So far I was lucky that they aimed my fins, my sides or my back (therefore hit my tank) so eventhough I spent a lot of time finning and running away from them, luckily I was never injured.
So to say, like in Menado, when I saw the baby of the Titan, I gave it a fun chase. It was then hiding in a piece of hollow coral and wedged itself there with its trigger, their main characteristic. We looked at each other eye to eye, it was so funny, I have to admit the small size Titan is very cute. Kakaka...
in other dive site, Secret Bay, we saw a lot of teenager size of Titan, perhap around 20-25cm. I took few shots quite close, I am biggeeeer... but then, come to think of it, if a clown fish had ever tore my finger, this Titan must be quite impactful eventhough it was jut a teenager, so back offfff.... Hahaha...







We did three dives in PJ and we went back to Pemutaran. This time we didn’t visit the natural water spring just few steps in front of us near the Bali Temple because the diving base now had water showers. The things I love about Bali, we could always shower or rinse ourselves if we did shore dives. That was why my allergic never came back. In fact, I think I have lost it and I am really grateful. Since the nasty rashes I got all over my chin and neck in Tioman 2007, which took me weeks and jabs to recover, I hardly ever got the allergic attack again, beside the sting from obvious jellyfish occasionally. Previously when I always ended my trip with polkadots and red spots, I even felt the stinging pain on the face or neck before I exited the water. Beside covering myself well and always tries to rinse after dives, I think somehow the nastiest attack brought positive impact to my body response? Whatever it is, you might have no idea how thankful I am.

















Manjangan Island

Second last diving day, we went to Manjangan Island. Manjangan was the first dive site in Bali that we tried. I remember the colorful corals, the nice landscape, the beautiful garden eel, and sometimes strong current. It’s also the place where I clocked my deepest dive when we visited the Anchor Wreck. It’s supposed to be at 40 meter, but unbeknownst to me I clocked 45 meter. Well, it was my second dive wearing dive computer, I didn’t even know we went that deep that time, but I found it in my log and Anchor Wreck was the only site that is ever possible for that depth. Other than deep dives in Sipadan, that was before I owed the computer, after that I hardly even touched 30 meter. 20 meters and above is my favorite depth, I like it best in around 10 -18 meters, unless it’s wall or wreck dive or designated dive where I have to go deeper for some special reasons.

So this time, we declined Anchor wreck, beside the depth, I don’t remember any fantastic impression, the wreck had already broken down into unrecognizable parts. Furthermore, both of us were not in good tip-top health, and there are many other nice dive sites in Manjangan.
We took sampan (quite big), it was only four of us in the boat. I also have to highlight what I love the best diving in Bali, it’s the exclusivity. Even with only two of us, we got the whole big van, boat and dive master just for two of us. It’s private and nice, just like when we were in Phillippine, we were free to decide where to go, when to go, and don’t need to worry about other people waiting for us while we took pictures or dive forever underwater.

It was about twenty-five minutes to half an hour boat ride to Manjangan Island. The trip there reminded us about our boat ride to Sangalaki Island, only this time our boat captain was not the cool Icuk who drove the boat without putting his hands on the steering wheel.

We drove by Post II, where we could see row of boats in the jetty. It looked like busy day in Manjangan, something I didn’t recall last time. We went past Post II and turned left after the island, passed by numerous crevices in the cliff with thousands and thousands of bats hanging on its wall. We went further a bit to Temple Point, right on the edge of the cliff we could see Balinese Temple standing on top.

Manjangan has warm water. When we went down, we were greeted by the characteristic that makes Manjangan a memorable place to dives, beautiful corals and gigantic seafans all over the place. Few white and black tip sharks cruised pass us randomly. I remembered Manjangan was an impressive macro site also, but on the first dive we didn’t find many significant things to shoot, but we enjoyed the landscape so much we changed the lens during surface interval.

Second dive we went to the Cave Point, which the highlight of underwater cave. We entered the cave at around 14 meter depth, it has longish but narrow opening and bigger chamber inside the cave overlooking a staggered coral to the skylight above. It was beautiful and didn’t give me any discomfort in the ears at all.

We had surface interval back in the POS II, together with the rows of boat and a lot of snorkelers in the shore. In fact, there were many more snorkelers than divers. The water around looked beautiful with the light blue sea bed , mountainous horizon and cloudy sky. It looked like gigantic gloomy friendly swimming pool that invited me to go down and swim together with the rest. But then, looking around at the school of ‘bules’ or angmoh kicking their friends and flipping around with tummies everywhere…, Well, I probably stayed in the boat, or lurking around on the concrete pier and enjoyed the scenery.

The cloudy horizon indicated that it was raining somewhere out there, some glimmer of light shone from the sky with I called ‘heavenly’ huhaha…

We decided to do our third dive in Garden Eel. I love Garden Eel in Manjangan the most and would like to go back there although it was a bit further, near POS I. We also made a request to Agus to add additional sunset dive for Mandarin hunting. Except one night, we only did one night dive before this one. Because of safari, and because we were not feeling well.

The sea looked choppy and it was dark near the Garden Eel, we saw school of dolphin from very far away. The water was darker blue and it looked deep. We geared up and went down, soon we drifted by the current so we quickly descended to 25 meter depth.
(although I took more time because I didn’t want to rush my ear.. by third day, Valsalva maneuver had worked although I had to try harder that I would like to).

We saw a bunch of garden eel along the way, it was like ordinary garden eel elsewhere, with black patches seabed. That was not what I remember! Turned out, it was another one. Agus led us to the familiar and magical feeling the first time I saw it. The nice big white sandy patch with blue background filled with thousands of small fish flying around, and beneath the white sand we could see thousands and thousands of garden eels dancing in rhythm.

Ahhhhhhh… how nice! The strong current was slapping against our direction, but nevertheless we spent about ten minutes there just to enjoy the view. The visibility was not at its best and the sea was not at its calmest. In fact, when we decided to leave, we were carried away by strong current and had to do Superman drift dive, swaying together with the fish and the ocean.
Up in the surface, to the main land, we started to get caught in heavy rain. Again, we saw a group of big dolphins quite near to the boat and flying fishes. The rain got heavier and all of us were soaking wet (as if we were not before the rain), but it was freezing cold and we couldn’t hide anywhere. I just hugged my dry to wet towel and curled up as small as I could while the pouring rain was slapping us. Brrrrrr…!

Reaching the jetty, we got out from the rain circle and were welcomed by the warm sun. We went up to the jetty to change back to macro lens and sat around the Warung to get warm ginger tea. The Warung would open especially for us that night, it’s a relieved that we could eat there instead of hotel.

Around 5.30 pm, we were already gather around Mandarin Point near Manjangan Resort jetty. The depth was around 10 meter, which is quite deep for Mandarin. When we descended the whole landscape packed of healthy corals, more of Acroporas sp and what I recognized as Dead Man’s Finger Corals. It’s quite an unusual landscape for Mandarin fish, at least to our experience.

We spent around ten minutes searching before hubby found the first one. When you find one, you would find many many mandarin fish. Just stay around the area and wait for them to show up. Again, it’s frustating to take their picture though. Playing hide and seek, shy of light, and worse, auto focus doesn’t seem to work well and fast enough. I switched to manual focus but it’s hard to determine whether I got it sharp under the semi darkness, looking for fish as big as your pinky finger who hid under coral crevices, while some other fish determined to confuse you by pretending to be ones. Well, it’s hard!

I thought we would continue with night dive after usual 15-20 minutes mandarin seassion, but when my watch showed 80 minutes on the same spot I knew we would not going anywhere, this was really mandarin dusk sunset dive special!

I was surprised that the sky didn’t get totally dark when we showed up around seven. Although it was quite dark below, we didn’t need torch light also.
We happily went back to the jetty and rinsed ourselves before presented with our dinner. I ordered ‘Ikan Goreng Tok’.. fried fish without any sauce or seasoning. It was not my first time, but I never knowingly ate Barracuda before. This time, the choice is only Barracuda, and surprisingly it was very tasty, or maybe it’s the way they cooked. They showered my fried fish and rice with very very very generous fragrant fried garlic, it’s literally a bowl of fried garlic altogether. I gave hubby more than half and I still had a lot in my plate. It’s very tasty dinner.
We went back to the hotel and after shower and camera workshop, I drifted into dreamland real fast!


Secret Bay

Five years ago, we only did one dive in Secret Bay, we didn’t do the planned night dive to catch the Bobbit Worm, and as the result, it’s no longer exists. What a waste! To think that wildlife can disappear at this rate and even faster make me wonder, would we have time to see all the precious lives in the world? Answer is simply impossible.

What I recall from Secret Bay base point is still the same though. Long benches, water tub, simply Warung that serves nice warm Ginger Tea (our favorite menu this trips and it should be for all diving trips in the future) and we just found out about the delicious Ayam Betutu.
About half an hour drive from Pemutaran, basically the furthest point of our Safari, Secret Bay, although no longer a secret, is not so much of popular diving destination for ‘popular’ divers. Unless macro or muck diving lovers, most divers come to Bali to see Mola-Mola, Bali most sought after marine creature, and probably Manta Point in Nusa Penida and Padang Bai area, or the famous Liberty Wreck or corals of Amed.

Diving in Secret Bay this time was slightly different with what I remembered. The deepest depth was still only around 8-9 meter. I remember murky and dirty water with very limited visibility and the only big thing we saw underwater was one huge tree bark occupied by many many varieties of fish; Batfsh, Pufferfish, Filefish, various shrimps and crabs, the most memorable was triple display of Harlequin Ghost Pipe fish. I didn’t remember feeling cold, although I remember my dive mates shivering after the dives.

Anyway, although I was fascinated by Secret Bay back then, this time, I found it much much more interesting. I was skeptical that we dedicated full day to dive here, but I think its one of the wisest thing we did.

Despite the same base, the water in Secret Bay was much more clearer and clean, much more than PJ. It even had excellent visibility for muck diving, at many times we could easily see each other in 10-15 meter distance.

We enter the water from exactly the same point, although we did lean to left, right or straight, strangely we would find the underground landscape completely different. At one time we would see flat sandy bottom with few tree trunks here and there, another we saw man made metal frames for the artificial coral reef, another landcape full of sea urchins, landcape full of sea worm (or is it sea cucumbers?), landscape full of sea star and other times we ended up in concentrations of hard corals in patches. I kept thinking and amazed, how come everything were not the same? On the third dive, we even saw a wreck, jut a few minutes into the dive. Hey, it’s a wreck! Even though it a sampan wreck, it’ kind of big sampan wreck, and it lies few meter deep only. How on earth it was there while we didn’t see it two dives ago although we entered from the same point?

In fact, it’s very easy to lose orientation underwater in Secret Bay.
Welcomed by cold water, in Secret Bay I clocked an impressive 24 degree water temperature, which is a wonder because les than half an hour away we had Manjangan with its warm 28-29 water temperature. The landcape that greeted us at first was the sea of green algae. Well, I’m not sure if it’s clarified as algae, because they look more like a plastic bag to me. Yellow green shiny platic bag. When I touched it, it even feel like plastic bag, and it’s sure a big piece algae, if it’ an algae species. What talking me?!?

After the algae in the shallow, we would continue diving in the dark colored sandy bottom. Unlike last time, we found quite a lot of landmarks as I mentioned before. Even when it’s only sandy bottom, there are holes in the sand, some sea pens, some sacks and rubbishes that we could explore.

There was a single metal frame where some coral growth where I found my crew-cut blenny, poking its head out and smiled at me. There is also a clam resembled a fist with a thumb. Inside the structure, we found many fish hiding, and around them there are big crabs, oyster, concentration of playful fish, and big number of short fin scorpionfish. There are many similar structures or coral growth like this, with many other variation of fishes like Bangai Cardinalfish. Bangai Cardinalfish should be endemic to Bangai, Sulawesi area. But introduction to aquarium decorative tropical fish had resulted them being released back into the sea they don’t belong, and ended up in invasion of their species. They can be found hidden in sea urchin for protection of the younger fish. I also recognize the Pajama Cardinalfish, and many other species of cardinal and damselfish in big numbers.

After the metal-coral structure, further to the right side there were some holes in the sand. And in one of the holes, Agus and hubby were looking at something. I saw them communicating. Agus pointed to the sand, Hubby shook his head and pointed to his camera and made a throat cutting sign. Nooo.. not flooding as I was worried about that too.. Yah, his fiber optic was not properly secured on the first dive; he couldn’t really take picture without the strobes. When I approached, Agus signaled me to get closer, pointed to the sand and put his hand on his side like ballerina.

It can be challenging to read hand signal underwater, you can tell a lot of story but it depends whether the person you communicated with understand what you mean. I remember when I dived with my friend and her DM showed us a hand signal like this:
1. he banged his right fist to his left palm.
2. he stretch his hands palm to palm wide apart.
3. he then put his right fist on his fore head.

Question: What he was trying to say?

I recognized the 2nd and 3rd hand signal because I saw what he saw, a very big Humphead Parrotfish. But all together he was saying “F***ing big Humphead Parrotfish”… Huhahahahhahahaha…

So this time I thought I understand what Agus was trying to say, anyway, I just need to get near and look at the sand, and here it was…another Frogfish.. another Hairy Frogfish!!!
Hairy…hairy.. hairy…. We went all the way to look for you and here you are waiting for us unexpected. I nodded with empathy to hubby, making a mental note that I didn’t mind that we come back again second dive after he fixed his fiber optic. (We met the hairy again on third dive though).

2nd dive, I think we did try, but ended up in completely different area in second dive. We almost dived to the other side of the bay already and had to fin back for quite a distance, the reward.. Ayam Betutu/Betutu Chicken ala Bali!

Ayam Betutu could be the special dish of Gilimanuk, I’m not sure. Agus and Aris our driver pre-ordered it, also as a celebration for Aris’s birthday. It was spicy, but very nice. The chicken is soft, tasty and the chili was fantastic. I’m not good in describing food though, my appreciation for great food is describe in almost only one word ‘tasty’, but I recommend Betutuuuuuuuuu!!!
Third dive we found the wreck. I scratched my head underwater wondering how come there was a wreck. Agus said there IS a wreck, but it used to be more on the right, that’s why we didn’t find it in second dive. But okay, from entry point, entry from the right in Secret Bay simply meant we moved about few meters to the right, or it's probably the direction we swam. But still… nevermind..

The quite big sampan wreck was full with fishes. Cardinal fish, black grey color in impressive number, all facing one direction. When we approached them, they didn’t seem disturbed. Big number of Bangai Cardinalfish also hung around inside the wreck, while Banded Pipefish, cleaner shrimp, puffer, scorpion fish chose the lower part of the boat. I saw school of Batfish grouping a bit further away. This was also the moment where I regret not being able to switch to wide angle underwater. I think it would make nice scenery. The school of fish didn’t even bulge when I was floating next to them, only a few moved aside as if they were giving me space, together with them to day dream with them.
Another good shot for wide angle was under the pier on the left side of entry point. We saw it on our way back from third dive, it helped us in orientation too. We could see a concentrated pack of fish inside the pier's structure, which reminded me of Derawan Pier although it's not as massive and colorful as Derawan's.


Beside that, I also remember we saw a big bunch of coral out of nowhere. Hubby pointed to big catfish floating alone together with other fish. I pointed to the coral when there were few of catfish poking their head through the crevices. We were not in competition here; it’s just that gradually we noticed more thing. But he was the winner, he pointed at the crevices in the middle of the coral structure and we saw hundreds of big catfish jammed themselves inside, poking their heads out. Catfish like to do this kind of funny thing, but this is the first time we saw the big number of them in that size. They are at least one foot each. I must say they look funny, yet quite disgusting to see them wiggling at the same time. Anyway, I couldn’t fit them in my lens, but still tried to get some shots. The two men ‘geli-geli’ and moved away.
We managed to go back to the Hairy Frogfish area and that poor fish had to be celebrity once again.






The 24 degree underwater was coooolddddd. We have gone colder in thinner suit but somehow this time we felt very cold. My fingers were numb and at times I couldn’t feel my camera trigger anymore. However I still prefer diving cold then having termocline. We had few termoclines in Tulamben. We could actually see them coming. The water would be blurry, something like you see blurry road when it’s over hot. By the time I saw the blurry termocline, I had to embrace myself for the incoming cold water that can last forever. Sometimes after that we got the warm termoclines. It would make us feel shiooook, but too much warm-cold-warm-cold was like..ugh.. like.. feverish..!
Panaaaas dingiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin!

While in Secret Bay, at least I know what was waiting for me. I really like diving there this time, and amazed with the rich landscape. Yes, we lost Bobbit Worm, but Hairy Frogfish, abundant dragonet, bent stick pipefish, flounders etc etc and unusual landscapes were still captivating.

Last day we stayed in Sanur area, had a relaxing day and tried out Indonesian food that we missed.

Till next time.

















































The loneliness you get by the sea is personal and alive. It doesn't subdue you and make you feel abject. It's stimulating loneliness.
- Anne Morrow Lindbergh

A man is never lost at sea.
- The Old Man and the Sea

I would not creep along the coast but steer out in mid-sea, by guidance of the stars.
- George Eliot

Why do we love the sea? It is because it has some potent power to make us think things we like to think.
- Robert Henri

May your joys be as deep as the ocean, your sorrows as light as its foam.
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