Blue Season Bali Newsletter May 2010
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Bali Dive Sites: Coral Garden
The beauty of scuba diving in Tulamben is the range of diversity available at your fingertips; a WWII shipwreck ( USAT Liberty), classic wall diving at the Drop Off and Batu Kelebit and phenomenal ‘muck’ diving at Seraya Secrets. Another Tulamben site that lies conveniently between the wreck and the Drop Off is Coral Garden, also known as Paradise Reef, a long stretch of shallow reef that follows the shoreline for about 150 meters. This gem of a dive site shouldn’t be overlooked, offering anything from black tip reef sharks to baby frog fish.
After making your way from the beach over the notorious tricky rocks to Coral Garden, you will descend and follow a gentle slope – most of this site is quite shallow, not dropping below 10-15 meters and an ideal place to introduce new divers to the wonderful world of scuba. You’ll be greeted by masses of pick corals with an array of marine life including clown anemone fish, schools of oriental sweetlips, damsel fish, blue spotted sting rays, moray eels, cuttle fish and puffer fish; blue ribbon eels can also be found as well as the black juveniles. For those of you that like the big fish, a couple of reef sharks have lived in this area for years as well as a huge grouper that practically fills the artificial ‘aeroplane’ reef.
Photographers will not be disappointed as Coral Garden can offer some fantastic opportunities especially in the shallows between 3-5 meters. Those rocks that you cursed getting in to the water turn out to be a blessing towards the end of the dive with frog fish, ghost pipe fish, leafy scorpion fish and unusual shrimps and crabs hiding out; cheeky peacock mantis shrimp can also be found scurrying around, their striking colours a delight for any diver with a camera at hand.
For more information on Coral Garden and other Tulamben sites, check out the Blue Season Bali website.
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