diving with the mantas

Photos: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/chepyka08piuvqj/Vg3_A2TeeB

The end of work was accompanied with a mad rush for the airport where Icarelessly forgot so many miscellaneous items that I was slightly appalled forthe trouble I caused to my family and amazed that I made it to the airport withtime to spare.

Dressed for the first time in work clothes while boarding a flight, I wasthankful that at least I was in my favourite climb/work pants and a comfyuniqlo dress-shirt. The flight was pretty uneventful although it did give methe breather I needed to reflect upon my last day at work as well as recoverfrom the mad rush of the weekend which involved baking, the nightsfestival, belaying @ asia, visitingalden, picking up alice, etc. It was quite an odd feeling to know that I’llnever have to go back to my dept, or see another review point from my 2^ndboss or to even be at my desk that was mine for 11 months of my life. Anyhow,it is a relief that it’s over although I definitely will miss the people andthe travelling and the learning opportunities that I had there.

Back to my bali trip…

The flight was uneventful although the guy I was sitting next to was kinda chatty. An old uncle who had family in Holland and Bali and was rather well travelled and very willing to share about his experience and what he knew about Bali. Getting off the plane and finding myself a cab was intuitive enough and I reached the hotel (Sukun Cottage Sanur) barely an hour after my plane touched Balinese soil. First night was filled with restless sleep, partially from the adrenaline from the day’s happenings, and partially from the anticipation of diving the next day. But I eventually did manage some shut-eye before the sun rose and it was time for us to head out after my breakfast of Banana Pancakes!.

Day 1. First stop was the dive centre where we got geared up, settled payment andmet out dive master Fab for the week. Then it was a long ride to Tulamben where we chatted with Fab and snoozed a bit. We had three dives that day. 2 at the USS wreck and 1 at the garden reef. both were amazing. fishes were so tame and they get so close to you. Only painful part was that it was a shore dive on a very pebbled and rocky beach with did not do too well on the ankles. I think I was super unstable getting in and out and wouldn't have made it if not for the supporting hands of my dive master. haha. Night dive was a bit tamer in terms of sights and sounds. Only excitment came in the form of Zhe dropping his weight belt and shooting to the surface and nearly dragging me along with him as i tried to help unsuccessfully.

Also, I had my first try taking underwater photos. I must say that the fishes were really cooperative and very willing to pose. It helped that Fab showed me a couple of tricks, helped me do up the settings for the camera and that I had the book on underwater photography that Alice gave me the day she arrived. Pretty please with myself nonetheless since i did churn out some decent looking photos.

Tip 1: Try and go closer and further down to the fishes instead of taking "head shots" (this is so counter-intuitive to someone who takes mostly climbing photos where butt shots are a no-no)

Day 2 saw us heading to Amed to do our dives. It was a boat dive this time! hooray! although it was off a small traditional Junkong and we had to gear up in the water, it definitely beats walking down the pebbled shore. Have I mentioned that the dive site in Amed was amazing? our first dive saw us landing on top of an eel garden. An eel garden was honestly such a curious thing. On first sight, you think that you were looking at a bed of seaweed or some plant growing out from the seabed and swaying along in the water. However, as you try to approach them, you start realising that you can never get close and that the tall skinny little things were disappearing right in front of you. When you start staring at it closer, you realise that they were eels with eyes and mouths! There were literally eels as far as your eye can see, and yet there was no way you can get close enough to anyone of them. Further along the dives was the usual huge schools of fishes, and we had one sea turtle to play with too. More playing around with the camera with Fab helping to guide me into the position for some of them. I was still not too good with awareness once I start chasing a fish for photo and had a couple of near misses with the corals and as well as sure hits with Zhe (in my defence i did warn him)

Tip 2: Take photos with the deep blue behind the fish

Day 3 was the highlight of the trip. We went out to Nusa Penida - Manta Point to trek down the Mola Mola (a.k.a. sunfish) and the Mantas. It was amazing how many Mantas we saw that day. When we first descended, i nearly dropped on top one of them. They were such huge and slow creatures and honestly glide along like how I've imagined big starships would do so while in space. Near the middle of our trip, we finally got to see our first and only sunfish. it was so unreal. This huge ass fish then made a turn and it nearly disappeared from view as it was awfully skinny. It was awesome just watching it slowly swim by and trying not to suck up too much air from the excitement. Totally worth braving the awfully cold water of 21 degrees too.

After that, we had a rather uneventful trip. we headed back to the dive centre, got our dive logs signed. Eat, sleep. And them woke up the eject day to do he same thing before finally heading to the airport. We were lucky to catch another guy who was also eased to the airport who allowed us to share his cab for free :)

So that was it.. One week gone in a flash... And up next, two more weeks of travelling through Thailand and Vietnam.