What treasure awaits you beneath Pemuteran Bay

The reefs and other dive sites in Pemuteran Bay offer a wealth of different environments. each with its own inhabitants.

Usual Marine Life: schooling jacks, snapper, redeye bass, trevally, batfish, sweetlips, angelfish, damselfish and fusiliers.

Unusual Marine Life: frogfish, cuttlefish, crocodilefish, pipefish, many, many interesting nudibranch, stonefish, scorpionfish, octopus, eels, mandarinfish, ornate ghost pipefish, robust ghost pipe fish and leaf scorpions.

Occasional Marine Life: Shark, barracuda, Tuna, Bumphead Parrotfish, turtles, potato cod, whales, dolphins and large Rays

Note: currents on all the Pemuteran Bay reefs tend to be nominal to none existent, unless we are getting the spring tides when they can sometimes be quiet strong.

Mucky Pirates Bay (Sea Rovers house reef)

Description: This site is Sea Rovers home port, and Pemuteran Bays main harbour. Straight off the beach next to the jetty with shallow water 10-12mtr and has a sand, lots of dark sand, sponges and seagrass with plenty of muck. Tons of critters, pipefish in different varieties, robust, ornate, common, seamoths, seahorses, unusal scorpionfish, devilfish and Mandarin fish can all be found here on the opposite side of the bay and with it being so shallow you have lots of time to look.

Beneath the small jetty is home to many juvinile, razorfish, shrimps and many more.

Great night dive.

Napoleon Reef (Pasir Putih/Eastside/Westside/Zoe Wreck/Beyond)

Description: Again two kilometres offshore, a flat topped gently sloping reef, with a small wall towards the south side, depth range same as Close Encounters. Hit the hardest by El Nino, Napoleon has shown a tremendous amount of recovery and is again home to a healthy variety of coral and marine life. The soft coral garden towards the west is particularly pretty; offering a nice range of gorgonians heading off into the blue. The deep end Napoleon offers the usual and unusual fish from Close Encounters plus rays and cuttlefish are a regular sighting. Also the site of a small wreck, though only the iron wood keel remains, the Zoe, an ex-dive boat scuttled back in 2004. Beyond this lies an interesting little deeper reef. This deeper section, nicknamed ‘Beyond’ Napoleon, has interesting fields of short staghorn and sponges.

Napoleon is also one of our regular night dive spot, offering a wide variety of night critters plus cat shark.

Good snorkeling location.

Temple Wall / Pura Tembok (the Maze, Temple Garden)

Temple Wall: This small wall beneath Pura Bratan is close to shore which some times makes for poor visibility, but its an interesting dive with a good selection of crustaceans. Coral cover and sponges proliferate along the far end where the wall sharply curves into the bay beyond. The wall bottom ranges from 16 to 35mtrs and crosses into the deep where a fascinating maze configuration heads out across the next bay. This second deep dive offers some large Gorgonians and a spooky dive experience (experienced divers only). Be careful not to get lost down there.

Good snorkelling location and an excellent night dive.

Coral Bommie (BioWreck, Bommie & Walls)

Description: Constructed as one of the three BRF/Aus Aid funded projects, with the local divecentres. Marked by a floating pontoon Once home to ‘Kuburan Kapal’ where nine wooden wrecks ranging from a 30mtr traditional motorsailer to a canoe were sunk. The largest rests at the base of a sandy slope. And though you can still see the remains, there is not much left. The nice coral wall remains and at the top is the ‘Biowreck’ and ‘BioBoomer’, part of an ongoing coral restoration project which utilises electricity to stimulate coral growth. Huge coral bommie, consisting of a single colony stands next to the ‘Biowreck’.
The wall itself goes deep with a good selection of gorgonian amongst other interesting corals and marine life. Running along the opposite side from the old Wrecks is also a pretty little wall, not so deep, teaming with interesting small stuff.

Pulaki Reef

Kebun Batu (The Rock Garden)& Karang Lestari (Biorock)

Description: Kebun Batu or Rock Garden is in front of the Karang Lestari coral project, just off the beach in front of the local hotels and is clearly marked with a very prominent white buoy. It also has a line running from in front of Pondok Sari Hotel to the site for those with dubious navigation skills: The Rock itself rises from a sandy bottom no deeper than 18mtrs as a pinnacle or coral with a flat top at the 4mtr mark. The base of the rock on the shore side rises in a small coral mound to 8mtrs. The surrounding sand slopes gently up to the beach. The rock itself is an interesting dive during the day offering a lot of critters and small fish. But it really comes alive during the night with small lobster, shrimps, crabs and even electric clams at the base.

Karang Lestari: is an award winning artificial reef project which stimulates coral growth on manmade metal structures using electricity. The process can purportedly stimulate coral growth by up to five times its normal rate, plus producing a healthier and stronger colony better able to resist increased water temperatures and other variables. The frames also make for nursing grounds for fish, which have come to regard them as homes. Frogfish can oft times be found on sponge covering areas of the structures. Most of the larger structures are marked with buoys and are easily found as most are right in front of the beach.

Good snorkelling but both sites being close to shore visibility can be a little low, depending of course on tides and sea conditions.