Tulamben

February 7th - I woke up to the same breakfast as before and had nasi goreng. I closed out of my room and waited for my dive shop to pick me up. They came right on time. I picked this one because it's an Australian chain / franchise and was 5 star certified by PADI (professional association of diving instructors). I later learned it is Balinese owned as part of the Australian franchise.

My instructor is Putu and the driver is Dewi. The drive to the Tulamben dive site took about 2 hours which is on the eastern coast. It's the dive wreck of the USS Liberty from WWII. The boat had been torpedoed by the Japanese and dragged to a harbor in Bali. After a few volcanic eruptions, the ship slipped into the water and is relatively an easy dive as it is a shore dive (no need for a boat) and only about 12 meters deep.

Coming upon the bow was quite amazing. We saw so many types of fish and there was a lot of coral and vegetation growing on the wreck. I look funny in the pictures as my left mask lens got foggy.
After an hour, we came up to surface for lunch of fish and fishcake with rice and then headed back in for some skills testing and viewing the coral garden. I would look up and see schools of fish. Saw so many angel fish, clown fish, and other tropical fish. We even saw a large snapper. Luckily Putu has a better underwater camera than I do and will give me a copy of the photos later. After an hour of diving we surfaced again and got ready to head back to Kuta.

Another interesting observation were the porters who help carry the dive equipment down to the beach. In a traditional way, the women will balance a tank on their head and carry another and I can barely carry one! Putu explained not many Balinese scuba dive because of the expense and many do not even know how to swim. Reminds me of Trinidadians!

The drive took about 2.5 hours and my new hotel, Un's hotel came as a recommendation from Matt, Ri's husband. It's clean and again I have a Balinese bathroom. They ran out of a single occupancy so they gave me a family size room (room #10!). Can't beat that for $30 per night. The diveshop is also just down the street. Cyn for the win!

After a shower and nap, I was planning on heading out in search of food. However I ended up zonking out and snacking. I was also demotivated as it's been stormy / windy all night.

Sidenote: People seem to really like my name. They say that Cynthia sounds like an Indonesian name. Also the dive shop and hotel seemed to get confused. With a last name Kim and saying I'm coming from Singapore and I show up with an American accent. To the point where Bina, my temple driver, sat next to me for about 5 minutes in the hotel lobby, because the receptionist wasn't sure what ethnicity I was. I explained to Putu, my scuba instructor, that I have an American first name and Korean middle name. He said he liked that because my parents still maintained the shell of the peanut. Whatever that means.

Off to bed as I have an early start for scuba tomorrow where we plan to go to Nusa Penida, an island off the southeastern shore.