Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Learning to SCUBA in Lovina (April 9-12th)

After saying goodbye to my French and Indonesian peeps, I headed for the Perama bus station where I met up with Lauren. Two hours of girl talk and snacking on peanuts later, we jumped off at Bedugul, a town famous for it's floating temple Pura Ulun Danu Bratan.
Lauren planned to stay a few days in the area, whereas I would be heading straight on to Lovina to do my dive certification, so we found her a place to stay, dropped off my bags with a local store owner who was willing to look after them, and entered the temple. I had forgotten my sarong, but this particular spot was so touristy that they didn't object to my bare shoulders and knees. (Still, I hated feeling disrespectful. We sat in the lovely gardens for a bit while I applied a generous layer of sunblock.




The temple itself was indeed lovely, but I felt a bit underwhelmed by how touristy it was.




Lauren and I wandered along the waterside taking snapshots. Because no ceremonies were being held, we weren't allowed to enter the actual temple courtyards or buildings themselves, but we peered over the walls to get the best glimpses we could.




I grew antsy somewhat quickly, surrounded by so many tourists, and there wasn't really that much to see, besides the picturesque setting itself.




In fact, my favorite sight of the day turned out to be a Balinese tour guide who looked exactly like Barack Obama!




After spotting my presidential look-alike, we attempted to climb the lookout tower over the town, as we had been advised to do by an Indian friend of Lauren's. The entrance to the tower stood beside the local mosque, so we wrapped ourselves up modestly and approached, but the guard promptly chased us off, shaking his head sternly, calling "No!", and shooing us with his hands. We'd had no idea the lookout was for Muslims only, particularly since her friend who had already checked it out wasn't Muslim. Oh, well.
Chastened, we returned to the shop to retrieve my things, said goodbye, and parted. Lauren returned to her guesthouse, and I loaded my things onto my back to walk to the local bus station, which looked to be about 2kms away on the map. After about 1.5km, I reached a strawberry farm that wasn't even a quarter of a the way to the bus station. So after indulging in a strawberry milkshake from the attached cafe, I flagged down a motorbike and caught a ride.
Once there, I discovered that no more local buses would go to Lovina that day. Fortunately, a small cavalcade of local men made it their mission to find me a ride. After a half an hour of me sitting on a stool, smiling encouragingly as they called what must have been every one of their brothers, cousins, and friends, they found someone. A guy who looked like Danny Trejo pulled up, stuck my bag in the step-through area of his scooter, and handed me a helmet. For about 10 bucks, he drove me the hour and a half's journey up and across the mountains of North Bali to Lovina. I enjoyed the ride immensely and tipped him extra for the return journey.
I had him drop me off at the Bali Spice Dive, where I confirmed my reservation, picked up my training materials, and got a hotel recommendation. Within half an hour of my arrival, I had settled into the lovely Villa Jaya.




Right away I took a swim, did some laundry, and settled into my PADI Open Water Diver Manual, stopping only for a tasty dinner at the poolside restaurant of my guesthouse.
The next morning, I began my training. My instructor, Agus, took me to the pool of a large hotel, helped me shimmy into my wetsuit, and showed me how to set up the gear.




Once in the pool, we submerged almost immediately. I freaked out. I couldn't breathe. Water went up my nose, and I sputtered. I had to surface, pull out my regulator and catch my breath. Agus quickly explained my problem, and we practiced breathing through the reg above the water. When we went below again, I had no problem, but I still felt ungainly. We spent about an hour and a half practicing buddy checks, adjusting buoyancy, equalization, removing and changing masks under the water, and other emergency measures. By the end of it, I felt better but still uncomfortable and unsure of whether or not I would bother completing the full certification.
After our lesson, I had lunch with Marcos, another member of the dive shop staff, who convinced me to buy some very cool shell necklaces he'd made for my pseudo-little-brothers Christian, Jeff, and Tony back at home. Then I spent the entire evening continuing to study my PADI manual.
The next morning, I awoke before dawn for a dolphin-viewing tour just off the coast on a small local fishing boat.




Dozens of such boats, each loaded with tourists, milled around the water, chasing a pod. I had expected as much and was able to see the humor in the way that the boatmen and tourists darted about, pointing and yelling when some had been spotted, turning the crafts around, and jetting after them. We must have gone back and forth and around in circles across the same stretch of water 25 times in under an hour.




I particularly enjoyed the fact that the dolphins seemed to know exactly what they were doing and messed with us as much as possible, appearing above the water just long enough for the horde to congregate and then diving under and resurfacing just far enough away to make us chase them again. Besides, seeing them frolic in the early morning light was well worth the scurrying.




After the dolphin tour, I returned to my hotel for breakfast before my first open water training session. No other trainees had signed up for that week, so it was just Agus, me, and the driver in the boat, which we climbed into right on the beach in front of the dive center. We went a little ways off-shore, suited up, and climbed in. As soon as I was in the water, all of my anxiety disappeared. We submerged, and I felt totally comfortable. As we descended, I equalized and adjusted my buoyancy rather easily. I did kick one piece of coral, but that was the reason for the location of our first dive. The sea floor in that area was littered coral destroyed by inexperienced divers. We spent most of that first dive completing training exercises and tests, but we still fit in a bit of swimming along the drop-off wall.
When we surfaced for lunch 45 minutes later, I felt completely invigorated. I couldn't believe how at home I had felt. Me, who had always harbored a peculiar fear of fish! Agus said I swam like I was one of them. I ate my fried rice and pork ravenously, surprised by how much energy I had expended on the dive. By the time we'd completed the second dive, I was exhilarated but spent. Agus assured me that the scenery and underwater life would be much better on the next day's dive, since Lovina really was just a training ground, but I had enjoyed it so much that I needed no such encouragement. I couldn't wait to get in the water again.
The next day, I took my certification test during our hour's drive to Menjangen Island on the far Northwest corner of Bali. Once there, we loaded the tanks onto a small boat.




Agus told me stories about his 20-some years of diving as we headed offshore.




Our dive site sat just beneath a beautiful white temple dedicated to my favorite Hindu/Balinese deity, Ganesha, whom I adore simply because of his elephantine visage. I thought this an auspicious beginning.




Once we'd geared up, Agus showed me how to enter the water by rolling off the side of the boat, which I did correctly and yet somehow to rather comic effect.




The water sparkled clearly, granting us nearly 25 meters of visibility.




As we descended and moved along the coral wall, it was all I could do to remember the importance of even breathing. I'd almost never seen anything so beautiful. Literally hundreds upon hundreds of fish swarmed all around us. I'd never seen so much variety in one place. The colors of both fish and coral dazzled my eyes. I spun slowly to take in the full panorama, above and below, side to side. I would have been dumbstruck even if I had been able to speak through my reg. Agus pointed out particularly notable breeds of fish as we passed them, scrawling their names on his slate, but all of them seemed impressive to my untrained eye. I particularly adored the sun-streaked Moorish Idols, which I recognized from "Finding Nemo" and the reef shark that passed some 15 meters away from us, completely indifferently. At the end of 50 minutes, when Agus tapped his dive computer and signaled our ascent, I pouted but complied.
[Underwater photos to come.]
I babbled incessantly throughout our entire lunch and couldn't wait to get back into the water. The second Menjangen dive proved just as stunning as the first. I tool my camera with me this time, and did my best to capture a few images without knocking into anything. But truly, I cared less about taking pictures than just enjoying the dive. By the time we climbed back onto the boat an hour later, I knew I was hooked.
We returned to shore just as a storm began to brew in the West. The sky was literally split in half, with white puffy clouds and blue sky to one side and angry, billowing fog to the other. I sat on the prow, closed my eyes, and took a moment to meditate on what had been a perfect day, as the darkness approached.




We made it back to the van before the storm broke, and I returned to my hotel content and exhausted, passing out at an unprecedentedly early hour.
The next day, I checked out, loaded all of my bags into the dive van, and set off toward Tulamben on Bali's East Coast. I had passed my exam with flying colors, and my last day was something of a bonus, so Agus had moved on to train someone else. Sadly, the name of my guide for Tulamben now escapes me, but he was very sweet and had an awesome scar from being attacked by a trigger fish. (Don't mess with them, by the way. They look nasty; they're actually worse.)
I slept for most of the ride, but when we arrived, I pleasantly realized that I would get to enter the water in a new fashion, by walking in from the shore. The gear felt much heavier and more unwieldy this way, so I was glad to learn how to do it early on.


I had thought we would have to swim some distance before reaching the shipwreck for which the area was famous, but nearly as soon as we'd descended we came upon the hull of the U.S.S. Liberty. Wreck diving far exceeded any expectations I could have had. Over the course of our two dives, my guide took me in and out of and all around the wreck, up to 18 meters depth, anyway. We saw rays, parrotfish, triggerfish, and any number of other species. At one point, a huge school of tuna actually surrounded us; I felt like I was in the center of a swimming tornado. I've never experienced anything like it.
[Underwater photos to come.]
As we made our ascent, we saw a gigantic barracuda hovering close to shore. I froze, but he took no notice of us, and we exited without incident. After we'd packed up all the gear, the guys dropped me at the corner to catch a bemo to Padang Bai. I thanked them heartily, and watched them drive away back to Lovina.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Lovina, Bali, Indonesia

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