Bali
Pemuteran: firstly you can take a boat from here to Menjangan for beautiful dives, there was lots of healthy coral, big pretty sea fans, lots of Denise Pygmy Seahorses, cleaning stations and a few white tip reef sharks. A good spot for non-diving friends to join for a snorkel too as it's very pretty in the shallows. My favourite dive here was Bat Caves. From Pemuteran beach you can dive the Biorock project where they use low voltage electrical current on artificial underwater structures to encourage growth of Corals, this in turn attracts other reef life. It is the largest and most successful Biorock reef restoration project in the world. The structures themselves were interesting - a turtle, some Hindu statues, bicycles etc and now there's quite a lot of marine life around exploring the structures. I did 2 night dives also here at Mandarin Point and saw lots of amazing Mandarin fish! Also sponge and decorator crabs, lots of different shrimp and nudibranchs, moray, baby boxfish and 2 different sea horses!
Diving Conditions: dive from the shore when the tide is right, they took us in a bit of low tide and this combined with some waves meant the visibility was about 2 metres! I think it can be dived with a lot better visibility - it was still an interesting dive nonetheless and it made the structures look mysterious! The conditions for the night dives were good and calm. Menjangan we had about 15m visibility, not much current, very calm relaxed dives. As for land activities there: A 3 temples sit between the mountains and the sea. Pura Pulaki is the main temple in Pemuteran. It backs up against the hills and is home to a troop of non-aggressive monkeys. On the beach you will find the Turtle Hatchery at Reef Seen so you can find out about conservation and maybe see some being released. There are also waterfalls nearby and also you can horsehide along the beach.
