Nusa Penida, Bali, Indonesia « Dive Sites

One the favorite among Kapal Selam Diving Club member is Nusa Penida, which is situated in the southern of Bali Island. This area in fact consist of three big island, those are Nusa Penida itself, Nusa Lembongan, the smaller one, and Nusa Ceningan the smallest among these three main islands. Nusa Ceningan lies between Nusa Penida and Nusa Lembongan.

This island is the big sister of Bali, it is located southern of Bali. With the big machine speedboat, you can reach this island 30 to 40 minutes from Sanur. This island also accessible by traditional boat, called jukung (read it as joo koong), from Padang Bai, Candi Dasa and Kusamba. However, since we live in South Bali, we always take the boat from Sanur. Another reason is because we have a friend who has a good speedboat and good boatmen operating in Sanur. To dive there you must make sure that the boatmen is highly skilled and have good eye especially during the strong current that it's possible you will be drifted and the boatmen have to follow your bubbles.

Almost every dive we made there is a good dive, with the good visibility, that can reaches 30 meter at its best. Some friends of ours encounter mola mola (family Molidae) here. The coral reef here is also beautiful and diverse. If you like to play with the current then this is the place. The species we often encountered here are titan triggerfish (Balistoides viridescens) which will give you a painful bite if you entered their territory and the tame and smiley face halfmoon triggerfish (Rhinecanthus lunula), moorish idol (Zanclus cornutus) and volitans lionfish (Pterois volitans). Chances you will see a group of giant trevalley (Caranx ignobilis) under abandoned Quicksilver ponton.

Mostly all dive sites we dove are in the north and west area, like SD, Toyapakeh, Batu Nunggul and Crystal Bay. If no current you can try to penetrate a cave in Crystal Bay which you can surface at the end, but do not take off your mask since it is very stinking because a lot of bats live there. The average temperature here is 26° Celsius, but sometimes it can reach as cold as 15 °, especially in June and July when the winter begin in Australia. This cold water is not a bad thing if you want to encounter mola mola, since they often appeared during the cold season.

Written by: Erwin Kodiat