Bindu's Repose

Lombok and Bali

The dive shop sent a boat out to drag for the wreck 3 hours before the dive was supposed to start. When we arrived there was a float at approximately the right location so we got all geared up and decended down the line to 40 meaters and an anchor surrounded by sand! Well rather than abort the dive, we both (Adi my guide) and I decided to head into the current. Within a minute we saw the wreck looming out of the deep blue! Yipee!!! So had about 17 minutes to look around a Japanese submarine destroyer. This was my first wreck dive and my first (official) decompression dive. I have never been particularly excited about wreck diving, and this dive didn't convert me... Having said that it was interesting to see a ship with loads of machine gun bullets and depth charges in the sand arround it... What really floated my boat though ;) was being at 40m for 20 minutes-ish and seeing the soft corals and other fish on the boat. I also got a bit high of the Nitrox wich is always a bonus :) So all in all it was a great dive (rough starts and all). Turns out that the boat that had been dragging for the wreck had run out of fule and had to go fill up. They left the float where they thought the wreck should be. I'm sure glad they were close!

I did a really nice dive in the afternoon and then one of the most amazing dives ever the following morning (before getting the boat back to Bali). We dove a sight called Sunset Point. We saw 6 sharks very close, loads of really nice coral several small turtles, a huge cuttle fish and finally a HUGE octopus!!!! We spent 5 or 10 minutes just watching the octopus hunting. It never actually caught anything while we were watching... Maybe the voyers were cramping its style... But it was amazing all the color AND texture changes to match the background... All puffed up and spiky it's head was about the size of an American football. Not sure exactly how big it was all streatched out as it kept its arms pretty close in to its body most of the time.... WOW!!! Amazing!!! Lovely!!! Powerfull!!!! Cool!!!! :)

So came in from the dive and had about 30 minutes to clean up before getting a lift over to the fast ferry terminal. Then hung out for an hour because the fast ferry was late... In Indonesia they have a phrase "Rubber Time".... Seems very appropriate to many places in Asia ;) My tummy started feeling pretty bad before we got on the fast ferry... by the time I'd arrived in Ubud on Sunday afternoon I was not feeling well at all. On monday morning (my birthday) I headed to the loca clinic for something to settle my tummy down. So I'm now taking some pretty strong drugs to deal with the nasty belly. I had been really looking forward to this birthday... seems like the first time in years that a birthday has felt like something I was really looking foward to... Oh well, I postponed the spa treatment. Hope I'll feel better enough tomorrow to go. Otherwise I may just head over to the ocean and see if I can find something out there (most people seem to think the best ones are here in Ubud though...)

I think that brings me pretty much up to date. Instead of writing two updates in two days, I'll send you all wishes for a fantastic new year!

Loads of Love,

-- Bindu