Nusa Lembongan - Nusa Penida; Another Paradise in Bali

Posted on : 13 March 2013
Categories : Diving and Snorkeling

Disclaimer: This is our trip report - purely reflect our real experience,can be subjective but factual to our eyes at that time and places.

How to get there:

Very easy, dozens flights from Jakarta and other regional and international airport to Bali Ngurah Rai International airport.Get the taxi from airport to Sanur beach,where several fast boat and regular boat are ready to bring you with the travel time between 30 minutes to 3 hours depend on the boat operator.

We use Garuda GA724 early morning flight, ETA 08:55 and then Rocky fast cruise to Lembongan ETD 10:00 - took 30 minutes ride, not cheap USD 28 one way, but they will pick-you from the airport or your hotel and drop you to the most hotel and resorts in Nusa Lembongan. Very convenien, worth for the money.

Accomodation

Plenty, from budget fan room to luxury boutiques resort are availabe to suite any palate. We stayed at Scooby Doo bungalow at Junggut Batu village, direct facing to beautiful Lembongan bay - white sand beach mostly covered with “colorful” seaweeds during the day. The room is spacious, clean, nothing fancy, a bit aged and require minor works in the bath room. Anyway, still good value accomodation and I have no hesitate to recommend. We divers always prefer to spend money on good diving.

Diving

There's around a dozen dive center; the most popular outlets are World Diving Lembongan, Blue corner, TwoFish, Lembongan Dive center (LDC), Lembongan Scuba and few others. We chose Lembongan Dive Center (LDC) – a small dive center located next to the Scooby Doo restaurant. It is very convenience for us having the restaurant and dive center not more than 20 m from our room. Internet connection is available most of the time and reasonably good.

The main purpose of our trip to Nusa Lembongan is to get Jr. AOW for my younger daughter and as warming up for our next trip to Raja Ampat strong current after more than 6 months completely dry; we never touch sea water. Being small operation, LDC can accommodate all our request. My daughter get a private instructor, one dive guide for two of us and we dive at same locations as for my daughter training.

Diving is simply good and very good. Lembongan Island and Penida offer mola mola - sunfish (mostly July to November but anytime possible, you never know), mantas, sharks and turtles as well as some stunning reefs and macro opportunity. Current can be strong in several location.Don't worry, just talk to your guide if you are novice or does not like strong current.

We did 8 dives for 3 days; Twice at Manta point and Crystal bay, mangrove point, Pura Ped, SD and night dive at Lembongan bay. close to Bali Hai pontoon. Water was considered warm for nusa Penida, 21 - 27 C. Unfortunatley, luck is not in our side -no mola-mola sighting; another reason to return to Lembongan.

Other Activities

Don't worry if you are not into diving, lot to do from doing nothing - just enjoy the beauty of Nusa Lembongan, visit the vilage, sun bathing - no nude please, canoing, snorkeling, surfing and other activities that we do not know - but I know - many people spend more than a week in NusaLembongan and not getting bored.

Tag : Nusa Lembongan, Nusa Ceningan and Nusa Penida : “Cleaning Stations” for the Giant Mola-Mola