Singapore Trip Report

Again in the morning I had to wake up early, which was difficult. It was also difficult because I had to say goodbye to Martin. While we all went diving he would have to spend the day in the hotel that day, with nothing to do. After promising that the next time I went diving he would already be able to dive with me, I headed off to Sanur beach with the others.

Dive 1. Crystal Bay
After a nice breakfast of rice and an assortment of pork dishes from a small warung we set out to the sea to the direction of Nusa Penida
island in the south-east of Bali, across the Badung Strait. In my group there were Tom, Jerry, Cesil, Julia, Winda, Acuan, Mi Khie, Mul and me,
with Erwin as our leader. Everyone was excited because this was the Mola mola hunt, the highlight of the trip. All of us wanted to see mola-mola and we could not stop talking about it. I tried to calm my heart and caution it, to prepare it if we didn’t see any.

We thought we had agreed to meet the other boat at SD dive site, in the north coast of Nusa Penida. Since our boat was quicker we arrived at the site a lot earlier than the other group. But then we waited and waited and did not see any sign of the boat. It turned out that they had headed to Crystal Bay in search of the Mola mola. So we turned the boat and headed to Crystal Bay (which sometimes is also called Penida Bay), which is located west of Nusa Penida, facing the Ceningan island.

To our dismay we saw 5 diving boats there. There must be schools of divers already underwater. But we went in anyway. I immediately fell in love with the site. As soon as I went in and saw the beautiful coral covered bottom, with swarms or anthias and myriads of colourful fish I told myself that even if I didn’t see any Mola mola, this would still be a great dive for me.

So with a happy heart I looked left and right energetically at all the marine creatures there. The visibility was 30 meters, and the water crystal clear. I saw some nudibranch, schools of fusiliers and my favourites – anemonefish and dascyllus. The temperature was 24 degrees but I was excited enough that I wasn’t shivering.

There were a lot of divers there. Some were heading back already, sadly shaking their heads when we asked whether they have seen Mola mola. Still with a happy heart trying to chase a yellow boxfish (Ostracion cubicus), I swam on. Then I turned my head into the deep blue sea in my left, and my heart leapt. There was a faint black shadow coming up towards us. I didn’t even dare to hope. But there it was, the shadow coming closer and closer to finally form the strange looking Mola mola.

I almost forgot to breath as the unique fish swam gracefully towards us. I tried not to move at all and I must’ve forgotten even to control my buoyancy as suddenly I was already at 35.9m, when before I carefully tried not to exceed 30m depth. I didn’t even notice the pressure in my ear or maybe I equalised automatically without realising it.

This lone Mola mola was still heading towards the reef, which was full of divers hovering neatly in a huge semi circle along the slope, all eyes watching the Mola-Mola, like a set of spectators watching the arrival of a celebrity. It was a beautiful moment.

Unfortunately the moment was broken seconds later as a diver hovering above started to move forward, followed by several others. The bizarre looking fish balked when it was about 6 meters away from us, and suddenly turned around, swimming away to its home in the deep blue sea.

Everyone seemed to be still hoping for the Mola mola to come back or its friends to arrive, but we couldn’t hang around too long there. Erwin signaled us to turn back so we did. At the surface we were all talking about it excitedly and we felt sorry for those in the other group, they did not see any Mola mola....

Dive 2. Batu Nunggul
Back to the northern coast of Nusa Penida in a site called Batu Nunggul, we joked and laughed and talked about Mola mola in the boat while waiting for enough surface time before going back in.

All along the pristine white beaches of the northern coast of Nusa Penida there were a lot of seaweed farms, marked by bamboo and wooden poles sticking out of the water all along the coast. In the area surrounded by the poles sprigs of algae were tied in lines and let grown. Men stood in the wavy water chest high harvesting the seaweed. They put them in baskets and village ladies wearing the traditional clothes of colourful kain and kebaya carried the baskets on their heads to the village. They made striking image against the background of the brown houses and the white sand. I wished my Canon Rebel had longer tele lens.

The dive site was not very special. It was a long stretch of gently dipping slope, with quite good cover of hard and soft corals. As usual schools of anthias and dascylus swam above the corals providing yet more colours to the already colourful underwater scene. We saw several nudibranch, but from which species I can’t remember now. I’m so used to taking the pictures of the marine life and identify it afterwards on land.

The best part of the dive came almost at the end of the dive in the shallow water. The bottom was covered almost wholly in soft corals, with anemones living here and there. There were many different anemonefish and they energetically attacked the cameras that the divers point at them. I wish I had mine.....

Dive 3. Toyapakeh
We agreed to have the last dive in Toyapakeh, near one of the huge purpose built reef pontoon where people do water sport activity. The surface current seemed to be of medium strength. I went in right after Cesil and was trying to hold on to the rope when the boat turned around in the current. A swell came and both Cesil and I were almost swept under the boat. In panic I tried to get out from under the boat while at the same time reaching at Cesil whose tank was entangled in the rope. Apparently nobody saw our predicament because as soon as we got free Tom said, “Cesil, what are you doing, are you okay?” Duh!

Underwater the current wasn’t very strong. It was only 2:30 pm but it was a bit dark because the sky was cloudy. The visibility was quite good though, we could see far up to 20m. The bottom was another long stretch of gently to medium dipping slope, covered by hard and soft corals.

Then the current got stronger and as we were diving along the reef suddenly I saw from afar Tom and Acuan stopped diving and was doing something. Were they in trouble? Then I saw Cesil trying hard to swim back to the reef because she was swept away. Then Erwin signalled us to abort the dive and surface. It seemed that we did have problem.

I slowly went up along with Winda and Julia, while trying to prepare my sausage. In my concentration to the sausage I didn’t noticed that there were a slight down current. I only realised it when suddenly I found myself back at 17m, well below Winda, while before I was at 12m, above her. So I forgot my sausage and tried to ascend. At 6 meter I inflated my sausage and tried to do a safety stop. The current was strong and it seems to be going around and around. Just as I looked behind me, there was this twister-like column of water swirling and swirling behind me. No wonder I was continually pulled downward. This reminded me of the warning that the Diving Bali book gave: respect Nusa Penida, the current is often treacherous. Thank heavens for my sausage. I also could see Erwin and the others around so I wasn’t worried.

Back to the boat we found out what the problem was – Tom was out of air because he mistakenly took a used tank, which he said was sealed. We all teased him about not doing a standard procedure of checking the pressure before the dive. Tom couldn’t say a thing.

BBQ
That night the Submariners show their true selves at the barbeque party at Thea and Hengky’s house. Bottles and bottles of alcoholic drinks were gulped down continuously, while plates after plates of grilled fish, shrimp and sausages seemed to disappear very
quickly, like magic. It reminded me of the scene from Harry Potter with food appearing
and disappearing magically, except that the food in our table disappeared into our
bulging stomachs, not into the air.

Thea and Erwin officially announced that the diving trip had ended and that they wouldn’t be responsible again for us after this. Thea also announced that Erika and I were the newest members of Kapal Selam. Yup, after my trip with them to Sanghyang island and this Bali trip I could already get a membership.

The Brit Steve was sitting contentedly at the end of the table. I suspected he had downed quite a lot of alcohol as this normally quiet guy was grinning from ear to ear to no one in particular, with a bit of glazed eyes. I commented that the scene probably wasn’t too different from the party scenes at his home country. He agreed, he said that this wasn’t the Indonesia that he had heard of before coming here. I laughed and told him that we did not represent the majority of the population. Not long after that I looked again at his seat and he had disappeared. Then I saw him sitting on the grass looking very sick. Later on I heard that he puked all over the place. Poor Steve.

Then suddenly Erwin and Acuan were already in the pool, while the rest of us were laughing at them. Cameras flashed here and there capturing people at their embarrassing moment. I thought that everyone would definitely want to hide the pictures when they saw it later
at their sober moment.

But I wasn’t an angel either that night. My total count for that night were 2 bottles of beer, one glass (2/3 full) of raspberry vodka (no dilution) and 2 glasses (1/2 full) of vanilla vodka, the last of which was later mixed with tequila by a definitely drunk Tom and I still had to drink it. I could tell you vodka and tequila didn’t go together very well! The last count was a quarter of a glass of straight whisky for the road before I staggered home, walking half unconsciously, half carried by Martin. Thank heaven for his diet vow – someone sober carried me back to the hotel safely!

Looking back, I think the trip was great – it’s a good combination of nice dives, great fun and great people. Altogether an enjoyable trip.

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