Dive Training in Progress

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After all of the diving that Scott had been doing in the Philippines, we decided that I had to get some dives under my belt before attempting the famously current-filled diving at Komodo. After a day of running errands in Kuta and catching up with friends from a prior trip over a cool sunset Bintang, we headed north on Bali to Lovina. Our Perama bus climbed over the beautiful green mountain scenery and stopped for a short break in a mountain village which was a lovely 10 degrees cooler than the coast. I even had to put a sweatshirt on for a few minutes! On the way back down the mountains, our bus suddenly stopped unexpectedly. The driver pulled out and inspected all of the fuses and then opened the engine and hammered around a bit. We thought he was just putting on a show of trying to fix it before calling for back-up. We were amazed when, 20 minutes after the hammering started, he tried the engine and it started!

Once in Lovina we settled into a $10 room with the typical gorgeous Balinese gardens, full of flowers and statues. The beach here is black volcanic sand and not exactly appealing, but we were mainly here to dive. We did a one day trip to Pulau Menjornan and I got my first two dives under my belt. Then, we decided we wanted to book flights to Flores rather than take the 3 day boat (plus the flights were reportedly 1/4 the price!) so we had a burning desire to rush back to Kuta to book them. Off over the mountains we went again, stopping a night in Kuta to get our tickets (bargain at $60, compared to $200 for the boat), and then the next morning we headed off to Nusa Lembongan, a small island just a two hour boat ride from mainland Bali.

We were last in Nusa Lembongan five years ago during the time we got married. Since then, a few more hotels have sprung up, and many have upscaled, building pools. Still, we managed to find a $10 room easily and went off to enquire in the dive shops. We found out about a site called Manta Point where you could see, what else, but mantas. These animals have been eluding us for ages. We were supposed to see them in Surin/Similan in Thailand but they didn't show up, and they were virtually guaranteed in Tofu, Mozambique but the full moon caused them to leave town (actually, go too deep). They were supposedly seeing them consistently, so we decided to try our luck!

The next morning we set off on a 7:30am boat. We arrived at the site 30 minutes later, jumped in, and within about 30 seconds our first manta loomed into view. The area is a cleaning station, meaning that the mantas hang around the rock while a specific type of fish comes and eats the stuff growing on it. For the majority of the dive we were surrounded by four mantas, two big 4 meter ones, and two smaller babies, circling in and out of view behind the rock. To be honest, if the dive master hadn't said that there were four, I would have guessed that there were about 8 to 10 as they kept disappearing and reappearing! The next day, we decided to do it again as we'd been trying to see them for so long! This time we saw nothing for the first 20 minutes or so, and we were starting to get worried that they'd disappeared when we heard a tap tap tap of the dive master's tank, indicating to look at something. The mantas were back and stayed with us for the rest of the dive!

The rest of our time in Nusa Lembongan was fun too. We walked to Mushroom Bay again, stopping at beaches along the way, and rented bicycles to explore the other side of the island, including the gorgeous Dream Beach, which we never made it to the last time. We got exceptionally lucky when checking out the suspenson bridge over to the next island as we ran into a traditional wedding procession.

Our last stop on Bali was Sanur. We wanted to go back to where we got married and visit the Hyatt and Griya Santrian, where we did the reception. We couldn't remember where we'd stayed so we got a taxi to a place n the current lonely planet. On the way, we recognized Yulia I so had the driver stop. It was just the same except that had upgraded all rooms to hot water (yay!) and upped the price, but only by $5. You can't fight inflation I guess. We spent the afternoon walking the grounds of the Hyatt, and had a sunset cocktail at Griya Santrian where we did the reception, before eating dinner while watching a traditional Legong dance.

The next morning we got a 7am flight to Flores to start the next leg of our trip!

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Comments

[Patricia Somewhere]

wow again and again
You guys keep on find the most amazing destinations. Incredible!!!! Keep on living the life.