North of Bali
This is a part of island, where we regularly organize trips (mini safaris), minimum for 2 days.
North coast was the place where Bali diving started and Island of Menjangan was the first choice for the divers.
But it never became as popular as the south of the island.
Nowadays it is still noticeably less developed and not that frequently visited. National park of Menjangan host one of the best kept reefs in this part of the world. Although most of the dives around Menjangan island are wall dives, these are the best wall dives in Bali. With the great number of huge gorgonias , sponges and corals it forms a great site.
The usual visibility of around 40 meters gives us the opportunity to admire these walls even more. Fish life is not that
abundant as in the east Bali but still we have a chance to observe good numbers of them.
During our stay in the north we pick only the best dive sites.
In our opinion the must do are: Eels Garden, Cape Point, The Kapal Wreck, Secret Bay.
Cape Point
Wall dive with great variety of huge gorgonias and corals. Usually a gentle current will keep us lazy allowing us to admire this great dive site. In the blue we can spot some schooling fishes as well as occasional reef shark.
Eel's Garden
This is usually a drift dive in the middle of the channel starting of the wall and then continuing over the mostly flat sandy bottom. This bottom is covered with groups of corals mixed with gorgonias and sponges creating a site that brings to mind a term -coral garden-. It continuous through the entire dive at the end to become a huge area made only of colorful corals. Fish life is good with many smaller reef fishes, schooling fusiliers, rainbow runners, bat fishes, garden eels covering bottom in some areas, mantis shrimps, scorpion fishes, stone fishes and occasional turtles. In our opinion this is the best dive of Menjangan.
Kapal Wreck
The furthest away dive site but worth the trip. Accordingly to a legend it was a slave ship bringing slaves to work in Bali. Entirely made of wood, nowadays doesn’t offer much in terms of a wreck.
In the shallows we can find big anchor fully covered with life. From that anchor a chain leads us to the place where the remains of the ship rest. We can still see some parts of the boat and cargo it was carrying. Mainly copper sheets and as some say wine. But time that we can spend looking for some is limited as the wreck lies in the depths of around 40 meters. There are great corals on the way and fish life like in all Menjangan island is good.
Secret Bay
One of the best sites for macro photography. It is a typical muck dive widely known throughout the world. It is near the town of Gilimanuk and is a small bay just off the channel between Bali and Java.
Strong currents that flow through Bali Strait make this dive site interesting. The bay becomes a kind of refugium, a catch tank for all the larval fish and other plankton sweeping along the strait.
It is a place to find some rare jewels for the macro photography including odd gobies and dragonets, frog fish , ghost pipe fish , sea moths , weedy scorpion fish , leaf scorpion fish , razor fish , cat fish , cardinal fish and juvenile examples of bat fish , lion fish and many more.
For sure this place is not only for photographers.