Types of Diving in Bali

Bali offers a huge variety of world class dive sites and conditions for all levels of divers. Check out the many different types of diving and the best sites for them below!

Muck diving

For those of you who have never done any muck diving – try it! The sediment bottom offers a very different variety of marine life to that you will see around coral. We have some excellent muck diving sites here in Bali, such as Seraya, Puri Jati and Padang Bai.

Here you might see creatures such as the mimic octopus, pygmy seahorse, nudibranch, shrimp or Indian walkman devil fish. Truly a photographer’s paradise!

Wall Diving

Bali has some wonderful wall dive sites for the more experienced diver. At Mejangan the wall plunges down to 60m so care is required but the little nooks and crannies are filled with interesting marine life and there are some spectacular sea fans! Nusa Penida also offers beautiful wall diving and if you are lucky in the season you may spot the Mola Mola that Bali is famous for.

Drift Diving

Nusa Penida is also a great location to do drift diving. Feeling lazy? Well then, get neutrally buoyant, let the current do the work for you and drift along while observing the beautiful coral gardens and the gorgeous creatures and fish that call it their home. At Candidasa you can drift along at your leisure and hopefully spot a few sharks!

Wreck Diving

Bali is of course world famous for the USAT Liberty wreck which was torpedoed by the Japanese in World War II and slid down into the sea from the beach at Tulamben when Mount Agung erupted in the 1960s. Lying at a depth of between 7-27m this is one of the most accessible genuine wrecks you will find and over the decades it has developed a beautiful growth of soft and hard corals. It is home to a huge number of fish and other marine life, including rays, jack fish, bat fish and even turtles. No diving holiday in Bali is complete without a dive on the Liberty!

At Kubu you can find a brand-new artificial wreck called the Relax Bali, named after the resort that placed it there. There is not much growth on the wreck yet but an impressive amount of fish has moved in already!

Slope Coral Diving

For an easy, relaxed dive along a beautiful sloping coral bottom check out Padang Bai. A large and healthy variety of corals and fish can be found here and for those with good eyes there is macro life aplenty. The depths and generally good conditions make this a wonderful site for both beginners and experienced divers.  

Marine Life

Are you diving in Bali hoping to see any specific sea creatures? While we obviously can never guarantee what we will see on a dive we can increase the probability of you seeing your favourite fish or animal by visiting the right site!

If you would like to experience seeing the haunting grace of the manta ray we can take you to Manta Point or Manta Bay off the coast of Nusa Penida.

For those who have never seen a mimic octopus we would recommend a dive at Puri Jati where you might get lucky and spot one of these elusive camouflage experts.

Are you a keen macro photographer with a passion for colourful little nudibranchs? If so, take your camera with you and dive at Seraya, home to myriad nudibranch species.

If you visit Bali around July – September and you would like to see the famous Mola Mola or ocean sunfish (at an average weight of 1000kg the heaviest bony fish in the world!) come with us to Candidasa or Nusa Penida. Be aware though that these dive sites are not for the inexperienced!

For the shark lovers among you Candidasa is most certainly worth a visit where many white-tip reef sharks hang around. Keep your eyes open to spot these sleek and beautiful predators.

Who doesn’t love turtles? You can get lucky and see one in many dive sites around Bali but to improve the odds you should dive on Tulamben where the wreck houses a large hawksbill turtle or go diving in Candidasa where you may find a green turtle.

Do you know what is going on right now !!! Cites what is it?

This week you might have seen the postings on our facebook page, our website, or the news in general about CITES and proposals to include species in CITES Appendix I, II or III, but do you know what this means?

So what is CITES?

“CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) is an international agreement between governments. Its aim is to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival.” Currently there 177 countries member of CITES.

Every two to three years, there a CITES meeting is held, this year the meeting is held in Bangkok where 67 proposals submitted by 50 countries are discussed. A proposal means import, export, down grade or upgrade a particular species to one of the appendices. 

Appendices you say? Yes, the species covered by CITES are listed in three Appendices, according to the degree of protection they need. 

• Appendix I includes species threatened with extinction. Trade in specimens of these species is permitted only in exceptional circumstances.

• Appendix II includes species not necessarily threatened with extinction, but in which trade must be controlled in order to avoid utilization incompatible with their survival.

• Appendix III This Appendix contains species that are protected in at least one country, which has asked other CITES Parties for assistance in controlling the trade. Changes to Appendix III follow a distinct procedure from changes to Appendices I and II, as each Party’s is entitled to make unilateral amendments to it.

So how does it work, during the CITES meetings the proposals are being discussed, and the members will vote. If 2/3 or more vote in favour of the proposal it means the proposal in accepted. This year there were many successes, the hammerhead, Porbeagle shark, and the oceanic white tip are among the species being recognized to be moved into Appendix II. Many more other successes can be celebrated.

So is CITES the Holy Grail?

Well my personal opinion? It’s the best we have. One of the weak spots of CITES is that any member state can make a reservation against any of the inclusions of the list. The official text says this:

1. The provisions of the present Convention shall not be subject to general reservations. Specific reservations may be entered in accordance with the provisions of this Article and Articles XV and XVI.

2. Any State may, on depositing its instrument of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession, enter a specific reservation with regard to:

(a) any species included in Appendix I, II or III; or

(b) any parts or derivatives specified in relation to a species included in Appendix III.

3. Until a Party withdraws its reservation entered under the provisions of this Article, it shall be treated as a State not a Party to the present Convention with respect to trade in the particular species or parts or derivatives specified in such reservation.

Here you can see which countries have made reservations for specific species, I don’t think you will be surprised which countries they are, but then again there were some surprises for me.

So Holy Grail? Don’t think so but at least we are talking and moving forward, at least there is a platform. There are so many cultural and economical hurdles to take; it will take years, generations. The only hope we can have is that it will not be too late for many species. And do you have a better idea? If so what is stopping you from executing it? 

CITES has our full support, not only directly but also indirectly, as an example last year we have been collecting signature for shark protection, PADI’s project AWARE among many others has been lobbying for years, and have used these signatures to make a strong point, and looking at the results so far, very, very successful. 

So yeah, maybe there will be 3 or 4 countries making reservations, it’s still 173 countries which will provide better protection in trade of these species. 

The pressure is building and one day.... they will snap

If you would like to read more about CITES, please visit their website http://www.cites.org or facebook page https://www.facebook.com/cites

Snorkel Clean-Up in Sanur Channel

Here at Joe’s Gone Diving in Bali we are passionate about the health of our reefs and our oceans and we do what we can to help keep our seas safe. In the rainy season large quantities of rubbish is often washed down from the mountains into the sea where it accumulates into large floating masses in our local bays and channels where many of our dive sites are located. While it is upsetting that there is so much debris the advantage is that it tends to collect in a few specific locations and so makes it easier to remove and dispose of safely. 

As a result we decided to organise a snorkel clean-up. As most of the debris tends to float on the surface it made more sense to collect it snorkelling than rather than diving. A snorkelling event also allows a wider variety of people to actively participate, including non-divers and younger children, and so raises awareness among a larger group.

Our first event was a trial run consisting mostly of the staff at our dive centre. We had a lot of fun collecting floating rubbish and enjoying the marine life at Sanur Channel, a lovely shallow little dive site with a sandy bottom, small house reef and a disproportionately large amount of fish that call it their home!

We were able to collect a large amount of debris, mostly consisting of plastics such as carrier bags and food wrappers. Our buddy teams had to return to the boat several times to empty their mesh bags!

We collected as much as we could find and on our return to the shore decided to make the most of our time by doing a quick beach clean-up to prevent the beach debris from being blown out or washed down into the sea. We were able to collect and remove large quantities of rubbish from the beach, including clothing, lighters, lots and lots of plastic carrier bags and the occasional flip-flop. We found four flip-flops, two lefts and two rights but unfortunately they were of different sizes so we were unable to make matching pairs!

All in all our event was a success and we will be running it again soon and making a regular occurrence of it. We plan to include divers as well next time as there is a small amount of debris on the bottom of the site as that is often entangled in the delicate corals and so is difficult to safely remove on a single breath. Keep an eye on the Joe's Gone Diving Bali website for more information on our next snorkel clean-up and our other activities.

Many thanks to Project Aware for the many tools and resources it provided to help make this snorkel clean up easy and efficient!

The staff goes diving...

Does it make sense to work in a bakery and never eat bread? Or to work at an car dealership and don't drive a car? Can it be done? Off course it can, but does it make sense?

Not everyone working in a dive shop is a diver, you have people at the reception, people filling tanks, cleaning equipment, security staff and so on. These people are in contact with the customers all the time, but actually never experienced what the customers are doing, or why they do it.

Low season is a great time to change this, we spoke to the staff and asked them if they would like to try diving out (in the swimming pool). Yes the all shouted, so we planned a date and took them out to the swimming pool over here you can find some photographs. It was a great success and everyone wanted to join the trip next day. Whoo not so quick... :-) We will take them one by one to places such as Padang Bay and Tulamben, so they can see why our customers smile when they come back :-) 

Is the Rebreather revolution is here?

Last week I was lucky enough to be among the first people to be trained on the new Poseidon MK VI Rebreather.

For those who have not read or heard about it PADI has designed and released two new courses, Recreational Rebreather Open Water and Advanced. For now The Poseidon is the only approved Rebreather to be used for this PADI course, I will not bore you with the details, but most probably more brands will either adjust their existing Rebreathers or come out with new Rebreathers to get them approved for these new courses. As you might think, well isn't this technical diving for people who want to go deep? Let me list a few benefits of using a Rebreather compared to the traditional Open Circuit.

You don't make bubbles or sound, meaning you can get much closer to the marine life. Years ago Draeger had a advertising campaign for the semi closed Rebreather, with a close up picture of the eye of a hammerhead shark and the text "How close do you want to get?". For me this was the main reason to think about diving with a Rebreather, being a underwater Photographer and Videographer it sounds like a dream coming true.

Longer bottom times, to keep it simple a Rebreather is optimising the amount of Oxygen you are breathing on different depths, for you who have been taking a Nitrox course it will make sense whwn I say a Rebreather will have your PO2 on 1.4 no matter what depth you are going (well not completely true but good enough for this example) meaning you will adsorb less Nitrogen resulting in longer bottom times. You can make dives up to 3 hours.


Less Heat Loss, because of the chemical reaction that takes place inside the machine to get ride of the CO2. You are actually breathing warm air. Even in warm water like here in Bali, this is a blessing, during my course I did a 2 hour dive and when I came out of the water I was not cold at all, with normal scuba gear after one hour I will start freezing.

As long as I have been diving I have been intrigued by Rebreathers, but never took the time to take a course, mainly because I thought to technical, too much hassle, too expensive.
When I heard about the PADI course which is focusing on recreational diving not technical diving, and when I got the invitation to join the course I knew this was my time to try it myself, see what it is and check out if it is something that we should be doing.

The course was great fun, first all theory and the DVD had be done before we started the course. As I said I was among the first people in Indonesia to take this course, this course was meant as a kick-off for the new courses and machines. The people invited where all dive shop owners, instructors and Course Directors, interested to see what's new.

The Pool sessions gave me a first feel and glimpse of how it is to dive these machines. Setting up and testing the equipment is a way bigger deal than with open scuba. It will take more time before you are in the water, but once in the water....
You are immediately punished for bad habits that you might have picked up as a open circuit diver, for example breathing through your nose. Your buoyancy works different, there is no effect when you breath in or out. You will feel clumsy, awkward like learning it all over again...
You need to get used to the fact you don't make bubbles and no sound. it's like breathing above the water, you need to start trusting the machine.

For the Open Water sessions we took of to Tulamben, one of the great dive sites in Bali, where we stayed for two days.
These Open Water dives really gave me an inside in diving with these machines. We dove Seraya and the USAT Liberty wreck. It was fantastic, completely different than diving Open Circuit, no noise, the fish where close up, I even had a few Lionfish that did turn there back to me as the normally do but turned around to look at me.

So after the course it was time to make up the balance, is the new way of diving? It, as Poseidon says, the Rebreather revolution here? Honestly I don't know, I know one thing Rebreather diving is not for everyone, there much more preparation and much more work after the diving. You have to be precise and patient. But if you are and you don't mind the extra preparation time, the diving is great.
I believe that Rebreather diving will earn a higher status in the recreational diving world, and much more more people will take it on, I just don't believe it's for everyone.
I think it's a big step forward for the diving industry to have these recreational Rebreather units, which makes it much more accessible for a bigger group, but I also know that this is just the beginning units will get easier, cheaper it's just a matter of time.
So what does this mean for Joe's Gone Diving well we are thinking about it, keep following us and I will let you know :-)

Putu and Ryadi

When most people talk about a dive shop or dive experience the normally talk about the people with whom they had a direct contact. I wanted to use this post to tell you a little bit more about the people behind the scenes who make it possible for you to go diving in Bali every day and or take a PADI course. In and around the equipment room we have Putu and Ryadi these two guys make sure that your equipment is clean, safe and ready to use. Next to this they fill and check all the tanks on a daily basis, both compressed air and Nitrox. Ryadi has been with us from day 1 and I really mean day 1, he was one of the original builders who helped out with the renovation of our building. He is a hardworker and has mastered all the skills to look after the equiment and tanks. Putu has joined us about a month ago, he is a fast learner and eager to know what, why, when.  Without them, tanks would be empty, equipment dirty the cycle would stop very quickly.
So next time you are over look to the right and you will see  two friendly faces, being part of the circle to make it all happen for you.

Looking back on Year 1

December is always a good month to look back at the year, see what you hoped to achieve and see what you really have accomplished. Well it has been an interesting year, finishing the renovation of the building, completing the paperwork and open our dive shop. Little did we know that the new lifestyle we have chosen would be a such a busy one..The first year has been much more busy than we expected and looking at the feedback we received from our customers who have been diving on Bali with us on places like Tripadvisor, Goole Places and many other places including our own website it seems we have done a good job.
Not that we are ready and there is nothing to improve anymore.
One of the things we wanted to accomplish is that Joe's Gone Diving would be a PADI 5 star dive center within a year. I very happy to let you know we did it, thanks to our customers who believed in us and our staff who have been very supportive. For us this has been a recognition that we are on the right track. A few other things we have accomplished this year, we have and constantly are improving our dive centre, we have added a specifically designed equipment drying area to our building, changed the layout of our equipment room to allow more equipment to be stored and facilitate customer specific equipment storing areas. Installed a nitrox facility made the reception area bigger upgraded our store to facilitate the sale of equipment, implemented software to able to help our customers more efficient and 1005 other jobs.... We still have a lot of plans for the coming years and hopefully when I look back next December I will get the same great feeling of accomplishment.