July 19/2011 – Pemuteran, N.W Bali
I spent one day diving the USS Liberty Wreck in Tulumben about a 45 min drive away from Amed. This is one of the most famous wrecks in this area of Asia and it didn’t disappoint. It’s a 120 meter Japanese war ship that was transporting some kind of war goodies when it hit ground and washed up and was towed into Tulumben by US ships or something like that. It never got fixed and just kinda sat there slowly getting stripped of everything of value by the locals for years. It was then used for a rather handy place from which to cast your fishing nets. That is until Mt. Agung blew its top in the 70s (or was it late 60s???) and the Liberty broke in two and sank into the sea completely. She now lies at 6 to 30 meters and has been completely reclaimed by the sea and the surrounding reef. It is dripping with life and sits only about 15 meters from the shore. Walk in and you’re pretty much there. We did 2 dives there, one around the outside and the second inside the ship (which isn’t really claustrophobic since it’s huge and because it’s so broken apart you can always see light streaming in from somewhere. Lots of cool fish which I won’t bore non-divers with (but for you reef geeks…bumphead parrot fish!!!…massive ones like 1meter +). Ok I’ll stop now.
My post Liberty evening was full of napping, running and work work working.
The next day was full of the same…nothing really to report apart from dorky diver stuff that I won’t bore the majority of my readers with.
AMED FINAL FULL DAY – 100 dives, 2 encounters with Napoleon, 120 meters of getting wrecked in the dark, 3 beers and 2 proposals…just another day in Bali…
Finally after 18 months of roaming around under the sea I finally reached dive # 100!!! With all my ear infections I thought this day might never come but it did. In diver land you’re supposed to do something silly on your 100th dive. Usually you’re supposed to do it naked but considering it was just me and Poleng my Balinese Divemaster, I figured that might not be the best idea. I also had to move to a full wetsuit because I was freezing my ass off so I can only imagine what my goosebumped naked white butt would look like in a BCD…no one should be submitted to looking at that (and let’s not forget that dive masks magnify everything no matter how big it is to begin with!!) In the end I just let it pass by like any other dive, and to make it even less climactic, dive #99 and 101 were a million times more thrilling than 100. I guess that’s the way it goes.
Dive 99 finally brought me face to face with the fish I have been waiting to see since I started. The elusive Napoleon wrasse!! I have been so desperate to see that stupid fish that I even named my tattoo Napoleon in the hopes of luring one near…OK I did first name him” Herman” but my friend Carrie said it wasn’t a serious enough name so after much though “Herman” became “Napoleon”. It suits him better anyway. But I digress..anyway, the Napoleon wrasse finally came to say hello and he was big and bumpy headed and lovely. I wanted to give him a big hug but instead I got super excited and sucked up all my air.
As I said before dive 100 was nothing exciting..next….
Dive #101 was by far the most amazing dive I have EVER done and have a feeling it may be up there as the best dive of my life for a very long time. Poleng decided to end my dive trip to Amed off with a bang and we dived the USS Liberty at night. There are no words to explain what a shipwreck (let alone one that is at least 2 stories high) looks like as it slowly comes into focus in the pitch darkness. It takes your breath away because it is absolutely amazing on the one hand and incredibly creepy on the other. Of course there was all sorts of dorky dive stuff going on ( free swimming Spanish dancers!!!!) but once again I will not bore you. But the one thing that left me completely spellbound were the bioluminescents. I’ve seen them before on night dives, you can kick your feet and flap your hands about and trails of glowing sparks float in the water momentarily but these were different. They lit up on their own and by the millions and they didn’t go out. I cannot explain it. We turned off our lights, floated completely still and below, above and all around us there was an entire milky way pulsing and shifting and dancing, absolutely alive. Absolutely millions of them. It was like the sea was on fire. Imagine the night sky on the darkest evening where there are so many stars you can’t even distinguish one from another, it was like that except they moved in unison in cyclones of electric blue. It was the aurora underwater but we were right in its center and it was alive! It was absolutely magical. It was one of those totally cliché moments when you are completely overwhelmed by the beauty of nature. I can’t put it into words, it was that breathtaking.
Ok this entry is getting long so I’ll leave the 3 beers and 2 proposals for the next one.
Cheers from the underwater laser show
J
So I have moved on from the black sandy shores of Amed and have washed up in Pemuteran, home to Menjangan Island Marine Park for three days of diving in what I have read is some of the best diving around. But before I get to the thrills and excitement of Pemuteran lets recap the last 2 days in Amed.
AMED WRAP UP
I spent one day diving the USS Liberty Wreck in Tulumben about a 45 min drive away from Amed. This is one of the most famous wrecks in this area of Asia and it didn’t disappoint. It’s a 120 meter Japanese war ship that was transporting some kind of war goodies when it hit ground and washed up and was towed into Tulumben by US ships or something like that. It never got fixed and just kinda sat there slowly getting stripped of everything of value by the locals for years. It was then used for a rather handy place from which to cast your fishing nets. That is until Mt. Agung blew its top in the 70s (or was it late 60s???) and the Liberty broke in two and sank into the sea completely. She now lies at 6 to 30 meters and has been completely reclaimed by the sea and the surrounding reef. It is dripping with life and sits only about 15 meters from the shore. Walk in and you’re pretty much there. We did 2 dives there, one around the outside and the second inside the ship (which isn’t really claustrophobic since it’s huge and because it’s so broken apart you can always see light streaming in from somewhere. Lots of cool fish which I won’t bore non-divers with (but for you reef geeks…bumphead parrot fish!!!…massive ones like 1meter +). Ok I’ll stop now.
My post Liberty evening was full of napping, running and work work working.
The next day was full of the same…nothing really to report apart from dorky diver stuff that I won’t bore the majority of my readers with.
AMED FINAL FULL DAY – 100 dives, 2 encounters with Napoleon, 120 meters of getting wrecked in the dark, 3 beers and 2 proposals…just another day in Bali…
Finally after 18 months of roaming around under the sea I finally reached dive # 100!!! With all my ear infections I thought this day might never come but it did. In diver land you’re supposed to do something silly on your 100th dive. Usually you’re supposed to do it naked but considering it was just me and Poleng my Balinese Divemaster, I figured that might not be the best idea. I also had to move to a full wetsuit because I was freezing my ass off so I can only imagine what my goosebumped naked white butt would look like in a BCD…no one should be submitted to looking at that (and let’s not forget that dive masks magnify everything no matter how big it is to begin with!!) In the end I just let it pass by like any other dive, and to make it even less climactic, dive #99 and 101 were a million times more thrilling than 100. I guess that’s the way it goes.
Dive 99 finally brought me face to face with the fish I have been waiting to see since I started. The elusive Napoleon wrasse!! I have been so desperate to see that stupid fish that I even named my tattoo Napoleon in the hopes of luring one near…OK I did first name him” Herman” but my friend Carrie said it wasn’t a serious enough name so after much though “Herman” became “Napoleon”. It suits him better anyway. But I digress..anyway, the Napoleon wrasse finally came to say hello and he was big and bumpy headed and lovely. I wanted to give him a big hug but instead I got super excited and sucked up all my air.
As I said before dive 100 was nothing exciting..next….
Dive #101 was by far the most amazing dive I have EVER done and have a feeling it may be up there as the best dive of my life for a very long time. Poleng decided to end my dive trip to Amed off with a bang and we dived the USS Liberty at night. There are no words to explain what a shipwreck (let alone one that is at least 2 stories high) looks like as it slowly comes into focus in the pitch darkness. It takes your breath away because it is absolutely amazing on the one hand and incredibly creepy on the other. Of course there was all sorts of dorky dive stuff going on ( free swimming Spanish dancers!!!!) but once again I will not bore you. But the one thing that left me completely spellbound were the bioluminescents. I’ve seen them before on night dives, you can kick your feet and flap your hands about and trails of glowing sparks float in the water momentarily but these were different. They lit up on their own and by the millions and they didn’t go out. I cannot explain it. We turned off our lights, floated completely still and below, above and all around us there was an entire milky way pulsing and shifting and dancing, absolutely alive. Absolutely millions of them. It was like the sea was on fire. Imagine the night sky on the darkest evening where there are so many stars you can’t even distinguish one from another, it was like that except they moved in unison in cyclones of electric blue. It was the aurora underwater but we were right in its center and it was alive! It was absolutely magical. It was one of those totally cliché moments when you are completely overwhelmed by the beauty of nature. I can’t put it into words, it was that breathtaking.
Ok this entry is getting long so I’ll leave the 3 beers and 2 proposals for the next one.
Cheers from the underwater laser show
J
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