Tulamben diving

We took a short break from Ubud because they were still charging "high season" prices at the hotels. We decided to head over to the east coast and stay at Tulamben for two days and then return to Ubud.

The snorkeling / diving in Tulamben is absolutely amazing. We've been to many places snorkeling and I have to say this ranks among the best. The corals were not as bright as it was overcast and thunderstormed while we were in the water, but there were a diverse variety of fish ranging from little blue fluorescent ones, to ribbon fish, a tremendous school of jackfish, tons of angels and bigger tuna like fish deeper.

We explored the two halves of the sunken USAT Liberty wreck, torpedoed by the Japanese during the war. It was shallower enough to see from the surface, but certainly much more interesting close up on a dive. The water visibility could have been better at about 15-20 meters, but a lot of the ship is no deeper than 5-10 meters making it a perfect place to try out my new freediving skills!

We took a break for lunch after Shannon's course. Later in the afternoon, we went out again for snorkeling. I did several dives swimming around the wreck, some scuba divers wondering what the heck I was doing down so deep without a tank. Shannon couldn't believe a I swam through the deck of the ship emerging on the other side and almost gashing my head on a piece of coralled metal.

Aside from the wreck, another highlight were the hundreds of jackfish swimming about creating a tornado of fish right at the surface. You could swim right into the school, the fish always just out of reach.

We didn't even leave the resort today, swimming in the pool for a little while before cleaning up. Then it was dinner at the restaurant and night time already.
 

The next morning, I was glad to wake up feeling great after freediving. Because I got sick with a horrible headache after freediving on Gili Trawangan, I wasn't sure if the water pressure, equalization, or just breathing up made me sick. But I guess it was just a bad bug, maybe even dengue as Dave might have thought.

After a fried rice nasi goreng and toast and eggs for breakfast. We slathered on sunscreen waiting for our food to digest before heading out in the waters again.

This time, I borrowed a diving belt with one weight as yesterday I was using up a lot of energy just to keep myself from surfacing. As well, we took a life jacket for the breathe ups.

The water couldn't be any nicer at about 29C. Usually snorkeling, I get cold pretty quickly, but even relaxing for free dives, this is probably the only place where water temperature didn't keep me from staying in the water.

Once again, we were swimming among schools of tropical fish, easily finding the swarming school of a thousand jackfish once again. I did several more dives in the wreck with my longest video recorded dynamic breath hold at 93 seconds. Shannon tried a couple but had a hard time sinking, the weight making a big difference.

We returned the motorbike not having used it much, got an ice cream and chips on the way back to the hotel and just lounged the rest of the day.

We made some plans for our last week in Bali (already!). Originally, we wanted to spend the last couple of days at Nusa Dua resort hopping, but figured that it wouldn't get better than this here in Tulamben, and at western prices. So we looked into spending some time at Nusa Lembongan. We also booked the Komaneka back in Ubud, now that the prices have dropped $70 from high season.

Tulamben turned out to be one of the highlights of Bali, I must say. These last two days have been amazing just relaxing at the Ocean View hotel and snorkeling. Even the intermittent rain didn't hamper our mood because we were either in the water or just relaxing on our deck.