DIVING TULAMBEN WITH LIBERTY DIVE RESORT

Tulamben is a diver’s town, located on the east coast of Bali this small village is blessed with some of the best diving in Indonesia on its door step, including Bali ’s most popular dive site the USAT Liberty wreck. Around fifteen dive resorts are based in the town, including the newest operation Liberty Dive Resort, located only 300m from the wreck.
    Liberty Dive Resort was recommended to us by well known Australian underwater photographer Jeff Mullins, who has been visiting the area for 30 years and even has a home in Tulamben.  Jeff and his wife Dawn have also recently produced an excellent book on diving Tulamben ‘Reef Wreck and Critter’ which is highly recommended.
    Liberty Dive Resort only opened in July and has nine large rooms, with air conditioning and fan, comfortable beds and a spacious bathroom, all set around a courtyard with a large pool. Facilities also include a restaurant, dive shop, with a good range of hire gear, gear washing facilities and a large drying area. We found the staff to be friendly and professional, and the dive guides were excellent at locating critters. The resort also has magnificent views to Mount Agung , the 3142m high volcano that dominates this part of the coast.
    We booked in for four days of diving with Liberty Dive Resort, and soon after checking in our dive guide Jink was taking us off to explore Tulamben’s best muck diving site, Seraya Secrets. The black sandy bottom, sprinkled with small coral outcrops, is a haven for reef fish and invertebrate species. Jink spent the whole dive pointing out fabulous critters; painted anglerfish, harlequin shrimps, hairy squat lobsters, moray eels, shrimp gobies, mantis shrimps, orang-utan crabs, jawfish, lionfish, scorpionfish, ghost pipefish, bobbit worms, nudibranchs, garden eels, crinoid shrimps, a snake eel and many, many more.
    The three main dive sites at Tulamben are the wreck, the Coral Gardens and The Drop-off, and these sites can be very busy with divers during the middle of the day when bus loads of divers from other parts of Bali arrive on day trips. We found it best to dive in the morning and afternoon to avoid the crowds.
    The Coral Gardens and The Drop-off are very popular reef dives with abundant reef fish and lovely corals and sponges. The highlights of diving these sites was seeing reef sharks, cuttlefish, octopus, a hunting moray eel and around a dozen blue ribbon eels.
    Of course the best dive at Tulamben is the famous USAT Liberty wreck, which sits in 5m to 27m of water parallel to the shore. This 120m long cargo ship was beached at Tulamben after being torpedoed by a Japanese submarine during World War Two. She remained on the beach until 1963, when nearby Mount Agung erupted and helped push the ship back into the water, creating a fabulous dive site.
    The wreck is broken up now, but still has many recognisable features and can be safely penetrated in a number of areas, including the large cargo holds. The wreck structure is completely covered in colourful corals; gorgonians, sea whips, black corals and sponges, but the main highlight of diving the wreck is the staggering amounts of marine life that live on and around the old ship. A massive school of big-eye trevally constantly swarm above the wreck, while a large barracuda hangs out at mid ships. Residing on the wreck are countless reef fish, stingrays, moray eels, reef sharks, gropers, batfish, sweetlips, lionfish and a diverse range of invertebrate species. Critters are also common on the wreck, including two species of pygmy sea horse, leaf scorpionfish, ghost pipefish and commensal shrimps. And if you can dive on the wreck in the early morning you can see dozens of bumphead parrotfish that sleep on the ship, as they wake up and head out for breakfast.
    Our four days of diving at Tulamben was superb, and the dive guides and staff from Liberty Dive Resort made our stay a very special Bali experience.

For more information contact – Liberty Dive Resort

Article appeared in Dive Log No.258 January 2010