11 Sept 2025
Our plan was to head over to Nusa Penida, where mola molas are known to school, but it’s a popular site and we wanted to be the first ones there, so we chartered a boat to take us there early. Our resort packed us boxed breakfasts (which I already ate) as we planned to leave at 0630:
Mo, Pati, Michael, Tom, Dan, Aaron, Phil, Me
Unfortunately, due to the weather, the harbormaster closed Nusa Penida to all boats, so we ended up just standing around, waiting, for almost an hour while they worked out a new plan.
Finally, we decided to just do some local dives.
Dive #1 – Gili Biaha
Gili=small island in Indonesia, and this is indeed a small island off the eastern coast of Bali:
Test shot:
At a glance, it seemed fine- maybe I’ll actually get my lighting right on the first try?
Little Coral hawkfish:
Barred filefish:
They tuck their horn when they dash off
Scalefin anthias (male):
Little reef shark in a cave:
Bluethroat triggerfish:
This guy isn’t in my book and the internet give me several names for him:
Blackspotted puffer:
A collection of fish I tried and failed to photograph individually- (L-R) Sweetlips, Emperor angelfish, Whitetip soldierfish:
Juvenile Emperor angelfish:
Can you find the scorpionfish?
A new-to-me nudi! Goniobranchus preciousus:
A pair of Phyllidiella pustulosa:
Phyllidia varicosa:
Doriprismatica atromarginata:
Phyllidia sp. 5:
Map puffer:
Dive #2 – Tepekong
My 300th dive!!! but BRRR!!! this dive was COLD!!! I clocked 73°F/23°C at one point- much too cold for just my 5mil!
Blue-spotted stingray:
and another!
Apparently, my strobes fell asleep? or I was just too far away? not quite sure, but almost all my pictures from this dive were dark and blue.
What an incredibly lame 300th dive.
Dive #3 – Mimpang
NUDI FEST!!! I found all these guys within the span of about 2 minutes:
Phyllidia coelestis:
Phyllidia varicosa:
and a wee bitty Phyllidia coelestis:
Phyllidiella annulata:
A pair of Phyllidiella annulata:
Turtle:
Clownfish:
Black-saddled toby:
Lyretail anthias:
Threadfin butterflyfish:
A whole collection of fishes I wasn’t able to get individual shots of- (L-R) Saddled butterflyfish, Schooling bannerfish, Humphead bannerfish x2, Saddled butterflyfish:
Little Spotted porcelain crab:
A random collection of Sweetlips:
Cuttlefish #1:
Cuttlefish #2:
Orangutan crab:
An unusually dark scorpionfish:
Striped surgeonfish:
Our dive boat:
After our dives, we had lunch on the beach:
before heading back up the hill to our resort:
Above the reception area is this yoga platform, where they held classes every morning:
A pool area:
A natural pool:
Which was home to this shy White-breasted waterhen:
If you follow this winding stone path, and take the branch to the left:
You arrive at my room!
I keep calling it a room- it’s more like a little villa:
Complete with a kitchen:
(and a warning about the monkeys)
Up the stairs is a little loft area:
Underneath is my room:
I’ve got the curtains closes, but there are glass doors that close and lock.
Behind my room is the bathroom:
The bathtub is directly outside my room, just through the closed curtain, to the right of it is the shower:
and down those stairs is the toilet and sink:
That door leads back into the main living area, where I sat out and started sorting through pictures:
It doesn’t get much better than this!
Just over my wall is the garden, where a good chunk of the food for the restaurant comes from:
Eventually, I wandered the property, where I found this beefy pothos vine:
I was starting to get a little hungry, but mostly, I wanted something refreshing to drink, so I headed over to the restaurant and down this cool spiral staircase:
where I enjoyed my passionfruit panne cotta and watermelon/lime/mint juice with a view:
Somewhere behind those clouds is the volcano Agung:
I’ve been hearing birds so I went for a bit of a walk:
And found this pair of Yellow-vented bulbuls:
They’re a bit on the judgemental side:
We’ve got another early morning of diving tomorrow, and the sun sets a little after 6p here, so I’m going to call it an early night.
Goodnight from Bali!
