Lembongan Island

Lembongan...Bali's very own mini-me paradise. Lembongan island is situated off southeastern Bali (a 45 minute boat ride from Sanur). If Bali was shrunk (size and population) you would come up with a little island paradise called Lembongan. Lembongan has a great laid back vibe and has a little something for everyone. There is diving, snorkelling, surfing, parasailing, jet skiing, stand up paddle boarding, kayaking, swimming, sunbathing and just about anything else you could want to do on an island.

We took the morning Perama boat from Sanur to Lembongan and got there in good time, to find a hotel and explore the island. After checking at a few places we found that Ketut Losmen Bungalows was suitable. We got a fan room right by the beach with a nice big balcony and some sea breeze. An awesome bonus was the infinity swimming pool.

After checking in and going for a swim it was time for a little exploration! We walked down the road and found a store to rent a motorbike from (there was no shortage of stores renting them). All three of us squeezed on and drove off around the island. We checked out Mushroom Bay and Dream Beach but Devils Tear was amazing. It sure did live up to its name; huge waves crashing into the rocks and shooting up through holes. Look out and you see endless rock-bluff shoreline with unforgiving seas thrashing about. To me that is what I think of if someone was to tell me to imagine Bali's coastline. It's just so spectacular and beautiful.

On our second day we went for a snorkel tour. I will try to be positive by saying it was alright. Right off the bat something happened to the motor and he spent 10 minutes trying to fix it with no luck, so we just used the spare. Another 20 minutes to half an hour was used to trying to spot manta rays, unfortunately with no luck also. We went in for a snorkel at the manta-less manta spot, it wasn't too bad but it would have been a whole lot better if we saw a manta. The corals were very far down so there really wasn't much to see. To put the icing on the cake my camera got ruined by water damage(I have...or had I should say, an underwater camera)! I got out of the water and tried to turn my camera on and the screen remained black. A couple minutes later I tried again and the screen started going fancy colours and I saw some water on the inside of the screen. Finally I opened up where the battery and SD card go and it was all wet. Before I went in the water with it I checked the seals and made sure everything was secure, so I'm blaming it on the camera and not myself. Anyways I phoned Panasonic and asked about the warranty, they told me it had expired a week ago. A week! Yes you heard that right only 7 days! So now I have to wait till I get back to Canada for it to get repaired or replaced. And now I have to go the rest if the trip without my camera. Crystal Bay was our next stop. The coral was not bad, a lot better than the first spot. The colour wasn't amazingly vibrant but there was a good variety of coral and fish. We hopped in once more to see some trevally.

We met a very nice French family in the hotel pool that afternoon with two kids aged 3 and 6. The latter was a young girl by the name of Océane. While the former was a little boy by the name of Célian. We had a great time in the pool with them. One evening we drew pictures and another all of us went out for dinner at D&B Warung. I practiced a few of my basic French skills with them and they practiced a little English with me.

The following day we toured the island by motorbike again and even crossed the little suspension bridge over to Cennigan Island. We drove around on some little roads and got a great view of Lembongan before heading for some lunch at a nice little restaurant on Cennigan. I had a great sleep on the balcony that night anticipating our dive the next day. Yay my first dive in three years! I'm definitely ready to make some more bubbles this trip!

At 9am we started a refresher course in the pool. The first thing we went over was getting our gear set up, tank, reg, bcd and all that fun stuff. Then we did the buddy check- Breakfast With Rice And Fish, an acronym for the buddy check. Breakfast=BCD, With=weight belt, Rice=regulator, And=air, Fish=final check. In the pool we did mask clearing, reg recovery, buddy breathing and some buoyancy exercises. It went by smoothly and quickly with no problems. At around 2pm we all went for a dive at Crystal Bay. Our dive was 75 minutes long (for me anyways) and we went as deep as 18 meters. It was nice to be able to go deeper, last trip they restricted me to a max depth of 12 meters. I think the coral seemed a fair bit better when we were diving opposed to snorkelling at the same site. I saw a couple nudibranchs, a turtle, a boxfish, a garden eel, a goatfish, a filefish and plenty of other nice corals and fish. The topography of the dive site was a sloping beach.

The following day we hopped on the Perama boat back to Bali. My stay on Lembongan was very pleasant, it's nice to have a little getaway from the big hubbub of Bali.