The boat dropped us off right on the beach in Nusa Lembongan (Lembongan Island) and we left Bobbie sitting in a restaurant next to the beach while we went in search of accommodation. We were back less than 5 minutes later as the first place we looked at was nice and cheaper than we expected. Nusa Lembongan is known for its seaweed farms and the whole beach in front of the hotel was full of people loading and unloading boats full of seaweed all day. It was amazing to watch but unfortunately it meant that the beach was not great for swimming. There was also no electricity between 8 am and 4 pm so it got warm in the afternoon without a fan to cool us (and no blender to make fresh lime juices). Amie and I took a walk to explore the island and after climbing one of the hills we were treated to a nice view of the seaweed beds spread out in the water before us. On our way back, we booked a dive with World Divers for the following day while Bobbie relaxed with a good book. Lembongan is known for its swift currents but I was still confident after our dives in Sipadan so I was not worried.

It did not take long to burst my bubble once I let all the air out of my BCD and emptied my lungs and I was still floating on the top of the ocean while everyone else was going down. One of the divemasters gave me some extra weights and soon I was diving with the rest. We were hoping to see the mola mola or oceanic sunfish, a large fish up to 3 meters wide and 5 meters in height so we finned at full speed to the deeper part of the ocean. We did see some nice coral but, alas, no sunfish. Our second dive was a drift dive and once again there were a lot of fish and beautiful coral but both Amie and I never got confident even though the current was not as strong as Sipadan. After our 2 dives, we both felt a little disappointed that we were never really comfortable on any dive and thought about signing up for another day of diving but decided to move on instead as Lembongan was not the idyllic paradise we had hoped for.

We chartered a boat to Padang Bai on the mainland and on the way there, we were treated to a number of dolphins playing in the ocean. We then hired a car to Amed in eastern Bali and our driver took us on a tour of the countryside where we passed villages with beautiful rice fields and we had to stop occasionally to let the duck herders gather their flocks. We had two hotel recommendations in Amed and after seeing them both, we chose to stay in the Coral View Villas as it was the nicer of the two and they quoted us a price less than half their published rate.

Coral View had nice grounds and we spent five days there relaxing and even though we weren’t doing anything, there was never enough hours in the day. We started our day with a leisurely breakfast overlooking the ocean and then we went into the pool before taking a short walk to lunch. It was then back to the pool for a swim before our Boggle tournament and beer and chips sessions. Bobbie and Amie would normally have a massage scheduled for later in the day to relieve them of the stress they occurred that day and then we would go in search of dinner and after a relaxed meal we would go back and read for a few hours until the sound of the ocean lulled us to sleep.

Reluctant to change our relaxing routine, but wanting to try diving again, we scheduled a dive on the third day. We had heard that the best diving in Bali was in Tulamben not far from Amed. Our first dive was at the drop off or wall in Tulamben and it was just OK but we did get to swim with a school of jack fish that numbered in the thousands. There were so many of them that it looked like a huge wall stretching before us. Our second dive was on the Liberty Wreck, an American supply ship that was torpedoed by the Japanese during the start of WWII. It was amazing to be able to swim alongside something that big that you can never take it all in at once. There is a lot to be said when nature can turn man’s most destructive moments into something so beautiful. The ship now has more life around it than most jungles in the world. The Liberty is over 120 meters (360 feet) long and is mostly intact and there are some large chambers that you can swim into. At one place there was a large grouper that has made part of the ship his home. The fish was the same size as our divemaster and it was pretty cool to see our divemaster get within 2 meters of it before the grouper backed off a little. The grouper looks quite mean with sharp teeth but it is harmless. Both Amie and I were more comfortable on the dives and felt if those were our last dives on this trip that it would be OK with us as we were finishing on a high.