Didn’t know what to expect as far as diving in Menjangan. One of the ladies on the Neptune liveaboard dove here many years ago and told us she remembered diving walls. Our first day of diving we indeed dove walls. The walls are cover in coral and there was a goodly amount of fish activity. Unfortunately, the tides had delivered so much garbage, mostly plastic, it made for unpleasant diving.
The remaining days we dove the west side of the island and it was extremely good diving. Sometimes current, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, sometimes not. The walls are covered in coral, top to bottom and the entire length of the wall. Great fields of the same type of coral covered large sections of the reef. The wildlife is abundant. Many schools of fish hover in the blue just off the reef or swim buy in long ribbons that seem unending. Some of the outstanding thing we saw are; a green turtle the size of a small human, of course there is a pygmy sea horse or two, orangutan crabs, we did see a transitioning harlequin sweet lips and a few unusual nudi’s. Today we saw a cuddle fish nestled in some soft coral that was so well camouflaged the dive guide had to almost touch it before we realized what he was pointing at.
We dove with the same company that we used a couple of years ago when diving in Lemongan, Blue Corner Diving. We were the only 3 guests all week. Our boat captain, Putu and dive guide, Putu are both excellent. They took care of our gear, helped us don our BCD’s and generally entertained us the entire week.
There are not great hoards of divers here. We only crossed paths with other groups once or twice. There are a lot of boats in the area but 80% of them carry snorkelers. If you find yourself on Bali and looking for somewhere to dive, Menjangan is a good choice and I recommend Blue Corner Diving.
Debbie here. I am also impressed by the great patches of pristine coral. Compared to the Caribbean, this area is Eden. I love huge schools of fish, and we see many on each dive. The unusual critters have to be hunted for, but it’s wonderful when we find one. Overall, diving here is excellent and if you come, stay for a few days to get the full view of the reefs.
