Friday dive one consisted of a coral reef, a large barracuda
and clear visibility. This was my first
shore dive excluding certification.
Dive two was the USAT Liberty shipwreck dive. Over 400 species of fish live on or near the
wreckage. It was very cool to swim
through some of the holes in the hull.
The water was warm and this was another first, my first wreck dive.
Spent Friday night walking around town, ate dinner at an
Italian restaurant on the beach.
Saturday dives
Dive one was a float dive they called the movie screen. Imagine one large coral reef wall and a
current that carries you down the coastline.
I had to do very little swimming, inflate my BC for buoyancy and float
my dive away.
Dive two was the best dive I’ve done so far at a place
called Manta Point. The name lived up to
its billing. I saw 12 manta rays, The
largest manta had a wingspan of about 13 feet and swam right at me, going
directly over my head, 4 feet above me.
These beautiful creatures are elegant and graceful. I almost forgot to breathe and kept thinking
about Steve Irwin but I believe it was a different type of ray that killed
him. The water was colder and a parasite in the
water attaches themselves to the mantas as the mantas come into to get a good
old fashion cleaning from the parasites.
Spent Saturday night walking around, looking at art. I bought a sarong and fully intend to wear it
but don’t know where yet. I ate at some
famous place for Indonesian food that Mick Jagger ate at. The servers where happy to point this out to
me after they found out where I was from and this is what made this restaurant
famous with the tourists.
Sunday Dives
Dive one was at a place called Crystal Bay. I would be lying if I didn’t say I was a little
nervous about this dive. I would
consider myself in reasonable shape and somewhat confident in my skills to
adapt, somewhat fearless in my actions but after the dive briefing, I questioned in my mind for a few seconds whether or not I was capable of completing this dive. I learned
that two people died here in the last three days. One person who perished was a Japanese lady
who I heard dove in a group of 12 with one dive master for all of them. This is careless but it is the cheap way to
go. The second diver that died was
diving alone, without a buddy, also careless.
Off the back of the boat I went
in the form of a backwards somersault into the cold water. What makes this dive so treacherous is the
current, specifically the down current.
We had to stay close to a reef wall as we worked our way around the
corner of the reef in the search of Mola molas, a very large, prehistoric
looking sunfish. Once we came around the
corner to a large rock wall, boom you are being sucked down with the
current. The bubbles weren’t going up to
the surface, they were being pulled down with me, I reached out and grabbed the
rock wall and then it became hand over hand, rock climbing underwater. I worked so hard to get to the top of the
rock wall and out of the current that my air consumption went from 100 bar to
about 40 bar in what felt like 10 minutes, which is a lot. I didn’t see any Mola molas but was happy
with the outcome that I didn’t die while challenging my diving skills. Win/Win.
Dive Two on Saturday was an easy float dive, very relaxing,
very colorful.
Uneventful Sunday night
Flew back to Kuala Lumpur and from KL, I am sitting in an
airport in South Korea with an eleven hour layover, waiting to head to San
Francisco.
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| A mountain on fire |
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| Dive site |
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| Getting ready on the boat |
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| The Bali people put flower petals down for me to walk on |
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| The grounds of the hotel |
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| More of the grounds |
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| My Beach for a few days |
On a health and fitness note, I haven’t run or worked out in
over a month and half. I was glad for the
break. Mentally as well as physically I
was worn out. Not very pleased with any
of my last couple running results so I decided to not bring running shoes on
this trip and take a break from it all for a minute and start with a clean
slate. I almost bought a new pair of
asics during my trip but couldn’t see spending $200 on the same shoes I could
get in the states for $110(KL was expensive).
I am very much looking forward to running for the love it again and
getting back to the mountains.
I forgot to write a million things but you get the idea.
