Diving Bali
north coast | Menjangan and Secret Bay

North coast Bali scuba diving features

MARINE LIFE
Juvenile frogfish Seahorses
mimic octopus
coral walls

NORTH BALI'S
TOP DIVE SITE:
Secret Bay

DESTINATION OVERVIEW
Bali's northern coast sees fewer divers and visitors than the rest of the island as the drive there can take as much as 4-5 hours from the airport, longer if you stop for some sightseeing on the way. However, for scuba diving there are three dive regions along the north coast that make the trek an absolute must.

Menjangan is a tiny, unpopulated island and a national park. Ringed by steep walls, large fans and whip corals smother the deeper areas while the shallower landscape is one of hard corals with schools of fish. There is a wreck, said to be an old slave boat, sitting on a gentle sandy slope at around 40 metres.

Secret Bay, or Gilimanuk as it is more properly known, is a broad bay less than 12 metres deep and protected by an offshore reef. Currents that sweep up the Bali Straight are funnelled into the shallow cove bringing all sorts of small and strange animals into it. Seahorses, octopus and the Ambon scorpionfish are a few of the more unusual creatures.

Puri Jati Bay has a flat sea floor with a maximum depth of ten metres, This extends for some distance from the beach until there is a sudden drop to about 30 metres. Patches of seagrass and large leaved halameda algae create a prolific nursery ground with just-born filefish, cockatoo waspfish, newly laid squid eggs and frogfish the size of a pea.

Seasons
Year round
Visibility:
10 – 30 metres
Water temperature:
25 – 29º C.
Deco chambers:
Bali

Flight to Bali then a five hour road transfer

Accommodation and dive centres
Pemuteran Bay is central to all these sites. We stayed at the Taman Sari, which has a range of rooms and an excellent restaurant.

PROS AND CONS
Bali is easy to get to and always good value for money. The north west is comparatively undeveloped, unlike the busy south coast, with a more relaxed feel although there are fewer facilities. Once you are in your resort, that's about it as the hotels are spread about the coastal area. Pemuteran Bay is lovely and has an award winning artificial reef offshore and a turtle conservation project. Always bear in mind that Bali is a big island – with dive sites in several locations – so plan your trip to take advantage of that. Cross island journeys are the perfect opportunity to see the island and it's culture.

SCUBA DIVING
Visibility can be low in both Puri Jati and Secret Bay and variable at Menjangan. Likewise, currents can be strong at different times of the month. The three different dive areas make for a good variety of sites although both Secret Bay and Puri Jati tend to appeal to either photographers or those interested in the marine biology side of diving.

OPINION
We love Bali, as anyone who has ever met us knows well. We first visited when the island had little more than a handful of guesthouses, a lot of hippies and just one dive centre. Since those times, the island has blossomed, grown and developed into a thriving scuba diving destination. Although we have dived Bali frequently over the years, until recently we had seen little of the north-west corner.