It was a pretty brutal spring semester, so I took the chance to recharge by taking a short trip down to my favorite short trip dive destination, Bali. We stayed at our usual, and the excellent Scuba Seraya resort. They's upgraded us into one of the larger bungalows near the beach, which was nice. The resort is pretty much the same as on our previous trips, so I'll not write much about it. The palce has changed ownership; the founder, Patrick, has sold his share, although he still showed up on one day and we had a glass of wine chatting with him. Good to see that the place has maintained its beauty, neatness and lovely landscaping designed so caringly by him.
The Food
Food is great at Seraya. Breakfast is typical English style, plus tropical fruit. I usually get my additional plate of papaya.
Lunch and dinner are ordered off the menu, which is not extensive, but carries an excellent choice of local, asian (including Indian) and western dishes.
The pizza is pretty decent too.
Diving:
Diving conditions were pretty mellow this time of the year; we did a total of 9 or 10 dives over three days; each day we did a couple of dives
in the area near Liberty, and one or two dives at the house reef of Seraya. Walking out of Seraya beack, and swimming a bit to the right, is
a fantastic little cleaning station. I could spend hours there, there is so much activity and one can spend a ton of time just observing any
of the tens of species of critters. Over at Liberty, I guess the operators have been taking some action to reduce the crowding due to too many divers,
and made a sort of an oriental garden, with a bunch of statues and open temples. There are loads of fish hanging out there, so I suppose it's helping.
The drop-off on the other side is also a pretty good dive site still. Liberty itself is slowly breaking down, I think, though it's still a fantastic wreck dive,
at any time of the day.
About the photos
Gear: Sony Nex7 with stock 18-55 lens with inon 165 macro wet lens; Sea & Sea YS-01 strobe in slave. Canon G12 in Canon housing; AdventureX 1200 lumen video light. If you'd like the originals of any of these images, email me.
