Trip to Lembongan and Tulamben

Hi all, in one month I am going to a trip to Bali, 2 weeks diving in Lembongan and Tulamben. I know that this is a destination to see big mantas and mola if lucky and a lots of tiny creatures. I pretend to travel with all my rig, 8" and 4" dome, fisheye, flat port, the 60 macro and 100 macro as well. But I am not sure of what to exactly do. I am looking for your tips and experiences. It's my first time in Bali and I will be diving with Dive Concepts diving center. 

Thank you very much in advance

Hey Atus

Sounds a great trip.

In Tulamben you're going to dive, I'm sure, the wreck of the Liberty. Great wide-angle stuff with some really good locations for diver-on-the-wreck-with-soft-coral shots. It's a shore dive with max depth of about 30m. Lots to shoot in the 25m zone. Viz can be a bit patchy though especially if the day is overcast. There used to be a superb gathering of schooling jacks on the way to the Liberty but these weren't there the last time I went.

Nearby are some very good macro areas: Coral Garden, Frogfish Point, Saraya Secret.  Look out for crinoid shrimp, hinge-beak shrimps, bubble coral shrimp, nudis.....

As  @TimG mentions, the liberty wreck is a great dive (actually worth 3-4 dives). You can find macro subjects on the wreck, but it's better shooting wide angle. Shoot wide angle in the morning on the wreck, and then shoot macro in the afternoon on any of the surrounding sites...

Bali's north is some of the best (easy to get to) diving in Indonesia. Other than the Liberty wreck  (if this were me) I would set up for macro for virtually every dive in Tulamben... the macro subjects are that good.

One other caution - some of the beaches in the north are quite rocky (small pebbles, can be hard on the feet when shore diving). For boat diving it's fine, but if you are planning on primarily shore diving in the north (which is what many divers do) then wear booties and open heel fins... only a few of the beaches are actually sand entries.

8 hours ago, oneyellowtang said:

Shoot wide angle in the morning on the wreck, and then shoot macro in the afternoon on any of the surrounding sites...

A really good point! Totally agree.

Thank you very much for the tips, I really appreciate it. We are going to be only one day and a half in Tulamben, just to dive in the Liberty wreck, in fact I was planing to use only the wide angle in the wreck, for sure there will other dives to mount macro in Lembongan, or is it going to be hard to find the same strange creatures out of the Liberty wreck ?

I don't know how are we going to dive in Tulamben, the Liberty wreck from the shore for sure, but the other four dives that we are going to do in Tulamben I don't know if it will be from the shore or with a boat, any ¡way I always wear booties for diving

The rest of the trip is going to be in Lembongan and Penida where we have sheduled 4 days in the manta point even I don't know if it's going to be possible. The rest of the dives are going to be in reefs.

In fact what i use to do in my dive trips is to mount wide angle during the day and the macro in the night dives. Although where I usually dive at home I love to mount wide angle at night.

I'm not sure if it still happens on a regular basis, but if you do a "dawn patrol" dive and get in the water really early right before the sun comes up, there are bumphead parrotfish that congregate at the stern of the Liberty 

I got some photos but it was before I was really getting into photography.

20 hours ago, TmxDiver said:

I'm not sure if it still happens on a regular basis, but if you do a "dawn patrol" dive and get in the water really early right before the sun comes up, there are bumphead parrotfish that congregate at the stern of the Liberty 

Thank you !!! it sounds really good, I'll suggest it to my dive partners and to the dive center

Wasn't a fan of Dive Concepts. Found them to be condescending. I went with World Diving and was very happy. YMMV. Regardless Nusa Penida was my favorite diving in that area. Have fun!

16 hours ago, Btscott said:

Wasn't a fan of Dive Concepts. Found them to be condescending. I went with World Diving and was very happy. YMMV. Regardless Nusa Penida was my favorite diving in that area. Have fun!

Thank you so much, to be honest I still haven't go and I am not very fan of dive concepts, the website site is terrible, it doesn't shows any kind of information further than pictures and list dive sites. I have write them asking about the neoprens they have for the costumers, as I am planning not to bring my own one in order to lighten the baggage, all the answer I had was a laconic... 5 mm wetsuit.

But I can't do anything right now, we have already paid the hotel and the diving, so let's hope everything goes fine.

@atus

In Nusa Penida you will appreciate a 5mm wetsuit. The molas seem to prefer the slightly colder water (provided by the currents).

In Tulamben most people dive with a 3mm or even a shorty, the water is significantly warmer. 

I just came back from a Trip to Indo. I went to Nusa Penida and dived with Octopus Dive. Highly recommended. If you do go looking for the Mola Mola it does get cold. It went from 28 deg to about 19 deg once we hit 40 meters. Sadly, we didn't see them.

Tulamben is awesome, the USAT Liberty wreck is magic! Make sure you do at least 3 dives on it. She is a big wreck and so much to see. As others have said definitely wide angle and macro there

I used Blue Season Bali for that trip, also dive Ahmed as well.  Here is a couple of pics. All shore diving too which is fantastic. Just make sure you have some good boots, dam large pebbles lol.

Hopefully you will have a ball and enjoy the diving. I dived a 2mm wetsuit whilst I was there. Here are a few of my hack photos of the wreck 

Hey,

I have been lucky enough to have dived in Bali a few times and I think it is very underrated for what it is, so a great choice indeed especially if you add everything else that Bali has to offer above water. 

In terms of macro, as others have mentioned the Tulamben area is the best, Seraya Secrets is my favourite macro site in Tulamben. It does not look like much until you are down there and it's literally one critter after another non stop... Liberty Wreck is a must with ideally a dive at dawn or dusk as you get different light and life. 

I would strongly recommend to get your own dive guide if you are serious about your photography (which I can see you are based on your Flickr). They know exactly where the critters are, just tell them what you want to see and they will find it for you. I dive with Liberty Dive Resort which are great, they have guides and a camera room etc and are very well used to photographers. You can also check Matahari Tulamben or go with a private guide check here in Wetpixel/Scubaborad for recommendations.

For the big stuff as you know Nusa Penida is the place. Manta point for mantas and Crystal Bay for mola mola, most dive OPs will do 2 dives in the morning on these sites. The water around nusa penida is 'cold' it can be 26C on the surface but very quickly drop to 18C at 30m and there are lots of thermoclines so 5mm and a hood are a good choice. 

If you are into reefs and coral, the reefs around the north of Lembongan and Penida are nice, full of coral, colours and turtles in most dives. Normally a gentle drift but you can stop for pictures unless the current is really strong. Best dive site for me was Toyapakeh, you also have SD, Pura ped, Ceningan wall. 

You should have no issues renting a 5mm wetsuit anywhere in Bali, 3mm should also be fine but most OPs stock only 5mm as it covers most of the diving. I also recommend 5mm booties if shore diving around Tulamben. 

There are daily transfers between Sanur and Lembongan and different times of the day so you can easily finish your diving in the morning in Lembongan and take a boat to Sanur and then a taxi to your destination in Tulamben so you do not loose a day of diving if you dont want to. 

If you choose to stay 'in one place' and not move, Padang Bai could be an option, I think some OPs based there do trips to Penida and Tulamben maybe the guys from the underwatertribe.com can do a tailored trip for you. 

Have fun

9 hours ago, DSB said:

I just came back from a Trip to Indo. I went to Nusa Penida and dived with Octopus Dive. Highly recommended. If you do go looking for the Mola Mola it does get cold. It went frvery difom 28 deg to about 19 deg once we hit 40 meters. Sadly, we didn't see them.

Tulamben is awesome, the USAT Liberty wreck is magic! Make sure you do at least 3 dives on it. She is a big wreck and so much to see. As others have said definitely wide angle and macro there

I used Blue Season Bali for that trip, also dive Ahmed as well.  Here is a couple of pics. All shore diving too which is fantastic. Just make sure you have some good boots, dam large pebbles lol.

Hopefully you will have a ball and enjoy the diving. I dived a 2mm wetsuit whilst I was there. Here are a few of my hack photos of the wreck 

Thank you very much, I don't have much hope of looking de mola's as long as we are going a little bit out of the season. I don't care that much for the  thermoclines, here in Ibiza, where I usually dive it's very common to find the thermoclines at -20 during the summer, although  this summer has been very different, there were not thermoclines neither in -40 m and if we found anyone was a couple of degrees of difference, not normal at all.

4 hours ago, Blenny84 said:

Hey,

I have been lucky enough to have dived in Bali a few times and I think it is very underrated for what it is, so a great choice indeed especially if you add everything else that Bali has to offer above water. 

In terms of macro, as others have mentioned the Tulamben area is the best, Seraya Secrets is my favourite macro site in Tulamben. It does not look like much until you are down there and it's literally one critter after another non stop... Liberty Wreck is a must with ideally a dive at dawn or dusk as you get different light and life. 

I would strongly recommend to get your own dive guide if you are serious about your photography (which I can see you are based on your Flickr). They know exactly where the critters are, just tell them what you want to see and they will find it for you. I dive with Liberty Dive Resort which are great, they have guides and a camera room etc and are very well used to photographers. You can also check Matahari Tulamben or go with a private guide check here in Wetpixel/Scubaborad for recommendations.

For the big stuff as you know Nusa Penida is the place. Manta point for mantas and Crystal Bay for mola mola, most dive OPs will do 2 dives in the morning on these sites. The water around nusa penida is 'cold' it can be 26C on the surface but very quickly drop to 18C at 30m and there are lots of thermoclines so 5mm and a hood are a good choice. 

If you are into reefs and coral, the reefs around the north of Lembongan and Penida are nice, full of coral, colours and turtles in most dives. Normally a gentle drift but you can stop for pictures unless the current is really strong. Best dive site for me was Toyapakeh, you also have SD, Pura ped, Ceningan wall. 

You should have no issues renting a 5mm wetsuit anywhere in Bali, 3mm should also be fine but most OPs stock only 5mm as it covers most of the diving. I also recommend 5mm booties if shore diving around Tulamben. 

There are daily transfers between Sanur and Lembongan and different times of the day so you can easily finish your diving in the morning in Lembongan and take a boat to Sanur and then a taxi to your destination in Tulamben so you do not loose a day of diving if you dont want to. 

If you choose to stay 'in one place' and not move, Padang Bai could be an option, I think some OPs based there do trips to Penida and Tulamben maybe the guys from the underwatertribe.com can do a tailored trip for you. 

Have fun

That's the reason for we are going, one of my dive partners says it's probably the best part of the world to see a great variety of corals and different critters, plus the mantas and the molas..

We are not going to stay more than one day in Tulamben, we have already closed the trip in terms of hotels and dive center to dive with and I can't move anything now but to ask for one dive instead of other one. But right now my intention is to dive 4 dives in one day on the Liberty and leave the reefs for diving in Lembongan.

The trip has been organized by one of my partners but I think we shouldn't have already paid the dives and do ir once we have arrived. But now I can't do anything.

-

Well, we are back from the trip and the truth is that all the advice you gave me here has been very useful. The only thing that I would change about the trip is the number of days in Lembonghan, we have spent 11 days there and only 2 in Tulamben, since that is how the package we had bought was made. We should have done it the other way around, in terms of photography the currents in Penida, Lembongan and Ceningan were so strong that we couldn't do macro or night shots and many of the wide angle shots were taken on the fly in the current. The truth is that the days in Tulamben both in Liberty and in the other dive sites were a spectacle of seeing creatures one after another. We did the sunrise dive on the Liberty and no luck with the school of bumphead parrot fisch and reef sharks, but the light was great for photos. We will return, but I think only to Tulamben and at most one day to Lembonghan to go to Manta Point

I'm late to the party, but glad you had a nice trip and learned some things for next time.  I just got back from another awesome trip to Tulamben - only 10 days this time.  Can't get enough of it.

Just for others reading this thread, don't hold your breath for the bumpheads.  They were fished out over COVID; the local guides are pretty devastated at the numbers of fish that were taken, but we try to keep in mind that times were/are very tough when no one could travel.

The macro is fantastic and every site is just so crazy filled with critters, you'll never get bored if you like macro & supermacro.