Day 1
Smooth drive to the airport, which I guess is expected at 415 in the morning... Arrived just before Coralie and Alan got in and we begun the check-in process. I had checked in online so just had to print bag tags and do the drop. Simple, right?
Off to a great start with the baggage conveyor belt having an issue and everyone being confused why it looked like their bags were almost on their way... Thankfully the staff were pretty on it and reset the system fairly quickly and they were off to, hopefully, Denpasar. Quick bite for breakfast and at least a few people I recognised from the baggage drop grabbed a beer. Always 5pm somewhere I guess. Though currently 530am here... and 330am at our destination. That's a Bali flight for you.
Flight boarded pretty quickly and we were on our way. I had a window seas and the man in the middle seat was travelling with family who were in the two seats in front. Several times through the flight he lent over to pass phone cables, water, snacks or talk through the gap. Encroaching into my space but he (and his kid in front) were quiet and polite so there are worse plane buddies out there.
Entertainment on jetstar flights is apparently an extra $9, so lucky I have plenty of games on my phone. Sounds like someone was happy to pay for the entertainment but not buy a pair of headphones. It lasted shy of 5min before an attendant asked her to put her show on mute...
We finally landed and where off to Immigration which hasn't always been fun here. I had pre-done my Visa and Travel Declaration online so I could use the quick gates and we were through in just a few minutes, huge improvement on last trip 3 years ago. Couldn't believe the sheer amount of people that hadn't pre-filled the travel deceleration online and needed to wait for the very few terminals with pretty long lines building behind them.
Though that victory was short lived as they came the wait for bags... Eventually we all got ours, were waived through customs and eventually met Nelly (had arrived on an earlier flight) outside. Then it was time to search for our transfer driver. Lots of signs, none for us, but eventually we made contact via whatsapp and had to walk well past the usual "Taxi Sir?" and a gauntlet of signs for probably a hundred other hotels and travellers to meet them. Eventually we were off. After a 6.5 hour flight we now got to enjoy 4.5 hours in Indonesian traffic. At least this time it's a different route. over the mountains through the guts of the island, rather than skirting along the coast.
Heading to the far north-west corner of the island, so up and over the side of some stopping near the top for a great meal and strawberry smoothie after one of the longer climbs. Also nabbed a 50 cent 1.5lt bottle of water. Much better than the $9 they wanted for a litre at the Brisbane airport... Back down the other side of the mountains, towards the coast, it was another 1.5ish hours to our accom.
Nice little spot tucked a few hundred meters behind the main drag. Looked like a few nice options for a dinner out. We were shown to our rooms, beds a little close for just friends sharing a room... but at least a gap between them and mosquito netting making you feel like you had your own space. The others changed and hopped in the pool to try soak out the stiffness from being cramped in a seat the whole day, I soaked up a beer to try achieve the same. With little energy to go walking we just ate at the small in house restaurant before turning in for bed.
Day 2
Nice little set of hill behind us caught the morning sun and looked pretty nice. Included breakfast was ok. Egg station, pancakes, fruit, juice, toast etc. Downstairs for paperwork and gear setup before a short drive to the beach, which took slightly longer as the guide ducked into a store to buy a pack of cigarettes, and then into the boat for dives in Pemuteran bay.
Dropped in on Napoleon Reef for our checkout dive. Pretty standard SE Asia reef. Colourful, gentle slope, hardly any current. Just as we dropped in I realised that when putting my camera case together last night... I forgot to put my camera in... Whoops. It's kinda handy to have that if you want to take pictures...
Fairly quickly into the dive our guide, Kadek, found an octopus. Sadly it retreated (or more correctly, he chased it) into a deep hope before we could get a good look. As is often the case when I forget my camera, someone finds something really cool. Coralie spotted a tiny flat worm I've never seen before. Beige, with an orange trim and a black outline. Coralie has kindly provided a picture.
My "didn't have my camera" luck kept rolling in with a few more nudies, though mostly fairly common ones, throughout the dive. I found a second one of the same Flat Worm Coralie spotted (wouldn't have seen it if Coralie hadn't found the first and I knew what I was looking for.)
Up on the boat for the surface interval and almost immediately the skipper, Katut and Kadek sparked up a smoke. Unfortunate direction for the light breeze meant we had to deal with the smell too....
Second dive in on Deep Middle Reef. More of the same but also a few of the cyan/blue flat worms I've gotten pretty good at finding over the years. A few pretty small ones this time. More Nudies, some crayfish. Less overall than dive 1 and slightly worse vis too. Being 15m ish compared to at least 25 on the first dive.
Short trip back to Arjuna (accommodation) to rinse off the salt and have some lunch. Good food in the restaurant, especially getting a Chicken Schnitty and chips for about $6 Australian. No beer for lunch as we're in for a night dive tonight.
Lazy afternoon planned. Nelly and Coralie ducked over to the next village for some meds and returned pretty quickly. We got in a few rounds of cards before getting on our wet gear. We went back to the same spot we caught the boat from this morning, less than 5min drive, for the night dive at "Macro Jetty." Not much of a jetty to speak of, but plenty of night macro life living on the black volcanic sand. Including the weirdest looking decorator crab I have ever seen, looked like a jelly fish on it's head, and thousands of sea lice if you held your torch still, like when you are trying to take a picture of something small.... First time testing out the new macro lens... bit of a learning curve... First trick I learnt is that I need way less light (and a higher shutter speed) than I'm use too.
Day 3
Quite a bit busier at breakfast this morning with 12 arriving off a flight yesterday afternoon. One lady from the bunch didn't seem to understand what a line was... Still plenty of food to go round, so no loss.
Off to Menjangan Island today. National Park and protected and the reef looks super colourful and healthy. Despite the great reef at the 'Post 2' site and huge fan corals we weren't spotting much small life. Plenty of fish ect, and for a fresh diver would be super impressive. However I was looking for the small colourful, Flat Worms, Nudibranch etc etc and we couldn't find much at all. Our guide also struggling to find anything too (though it's a bit hard to spot anything floating 2m off the reef... And without, you know, actually looking for stuff)
Second dive was more of the same at the 'Anchor Wreck' site. Apparently a wreck, not much left, just past the 45m mark which we didn't see. Bit deep for a recreational tourist dive.... Great coral on a great wall again descending off past 50m. Nice slight current to slowly push you along, with little effort on our part. Really pleasant diving. Again though, not much in the way of small/exciting stuff I'm looking for.
Lunch on Menjangan island, at least 2 dozen boats all tied off to each other at the jetty. We had to cross over 4 boats before we could step up onto the jetty itself. Bento boxes for lunch had a pretty good chicken curry. Plenty busy with people but the majority here looked like snorkelling/day tourers.
Back in for the third dive on 'Eel Gardens' though we didn't see any eels... Kadek did impress this dive with spotting a tiny Pygmy Seahorse though. Beige of colour, on a beige fan coral. He made a bee-line for this one particular coral when he spotted it. Something makes me think he already knew where to look. When I looked away to change camera settings it was very hard to re-find... and not like it had moved... so I still have to give him credit for spotting it. Even knowing where to look it was hard. Sadly it wasn't in the best position for photos... I did manage to get a clear shot of its tail though... Towards the end of the dive we came across a Pacific octopus, pretty large, hanging out on a rock.
Back to shore, most day tour boats already long since back and tied off to the dock and the area now looked like a ghost town. Guess the day trippers had a long drive to get back to... anywhere... Quick shower before time for a beer before hitting the 'town' for dinner.
Lakawi restaurant looked good on Google reviews and had some nice items on the menu. The local large rack of pork ribs for about $11 looked fantastic... But they were out of pork ribs... So I pivoted to the Pork Satay that Nelly and Coralie had ordered... But they only had 2 left. So I pivoted once again to a burger named after a local dive site. It was a fantastic burger, that came with yummy sweet potato fries.
Day 4
We had to switch up plans today as where we thought we were going (Bio Reef, an artificial reef project) was commandeered for the CMAS World Diving Photography competition... A new guide as well, also Kadek (traditionally given to the second-born child in a family in Bali.) So back to Macro Jetty (where we were for a night dive.) I have to hope the competition photographers had more enthusiastic guides.
Off to the site we hit a delay for a funeral procession. Apparently they have 5 cremations today as its a special day in the Hindu calendar. Big Kadek (a distinction he himself used) told us that's why younger Kadek had the day off.
Dusty fine silty/sand entry (not quite the course volcanic sand I'm use to over here) easier to see in the daylight. Big Kadek seemed to be more active in his searching and was spotting a few more things for us to see. A cool frog fish right near the start was happy to pose for pictures, Coralie then spotted a very camouflaged Spider Crab in some discarded fishing net.
Vis wasn't fantastic, but enough to see the bus in its entirety. There was a Moray tucked inside that retreated back into the wheel arch when I approached. Couldn't find the sea horse from the night dive but quite a few normal pipe fish and loads of robust pipe fish swimming around. It was also nice to see a dense school of catfish mowing through the sand.
Another procession on its way out when we were on our way back to the dive shop but not long later and we had stripped our dive gear and placed it out in the sun to try get it a little drier. After lunch it was time to pack and jump in the van for the ~3.5 ish hour drive to Tulamben and meet the other half of our crew for part 2
