Tulamben

Today we're off to Tulamben for 2x dives.

The history of this site is quite interesting;

The U.S.A.T. LIBERTY, a 120 metre long shipwreck, is the remains of a US World War II freighter, torpedoed on January 11, 1942 at 4:15 a.m. by a Japanese submarine, while crossing the Lombok Strait carrying material (rubber and railway parts) from Australia to the Philippines. Two US destroyers hitched up to the ship and tried to tow it to the port of Singaraja. The damage was immense, she was taking too much water and her crew ran the vessel up onto the beach of Tulamben 70km away from the nearest safe harbor.
For 21 years she stayed there, the people of Tulamben secured all items of any value, even parts of the deck. In 1963 the Liberty was pushed to her present location by the fatal eruption of the volcano Gunung Agung. During this process the hull broke into two pieces. Now she is laying only 30 metres from the Tulamben beach on a sandy slope 90° on her side, parallel to the shore. The deck side faces the ocean.
The Liberty ship wreck is the most visited diving site of Bali at a perfect depth for scuba diving ranging from 2.5 metres down to 29 metres. There are a couple of impressive swim throughs, but one must be cautious because the structure of the wreck is unstable, every year parts collapse. An amazing growth of encrusting animals cover the wreck, marine biologists estimate that about 400 different species of reef fish live on the Liberty. It is not usual for this site to be visited by big pelagic species. It also has its own resident Barracuda, we call him Brian!

Our newest Instructors!

Congratulations to Sean McNamee and Nene Kurronen on passing your IE and becoming SSI's newest Instructors.

We wish you every success in your future career.

Great find Diduk!

Our eagle-eyed Dive Controller Diduk spotted a beautiful (but shy) Mandarin fish in the Padang Bai area today. Normally we find these colourful critters in Pemuteran but we seem to be hosting our own welcome little visitor just around the corner from the dive shop.

This is brilliant news for all you photography divers out there!

Say 'hello', wave Goodbye

We've waved goodbye to Wayan, one of our equipment guys, this month as he has been given the opportunity to travel to Australia with his girlfriend. You'll be missed Wayan, good luck for your future.

Into his shoes steps Kadek Ade, a local boy, quick humored and willing to learn. Welcome to the Absolute Scuba team Kadek ☺

Reef clean ups and turtle watch

This year Absolute Scuba has become an SSI EcoLogical dive centre. This means we will help to maintain and promote the healthy eco system that we all need to live a healthy lifestyle.

We will:

 Instruct all boat and shop employees as to proper safety and environmental care techniques

 Conduct and advertise beach and dive site clean ups

 Ensure all briefings to divers contain advice on environmentally sound diving practices

 Provide recycling points throughout the dive resort premises and vessels

 Ensure there is no line fishing or collection of any organisms

 Ensure there is no spear fishing

 Provide clearly marked dustbins for waste on boats including cigarette butts, and dispose of receptacles appropriately

 Use purpose placed moorings where possible

 Avoid takings divers or open water students who have not yet demonstrated proficiency in buoyancy directly over corals or other fragile marine environments or habitats

 Participate in local environmental projects

 Report all whale shark & turtle sightings to local recognized data collection points

 Encourage no feeding of fish

 Discourage customers from applying sunscreen before diving

 Run environmental awareness programs for local schoolchildren and communities

 Conduct regular reef checks or surveys

 Offer ECO Logical diver training to our customers

So look out for the reef clean up dates on the website (coming soon) and join us, you never know what you will find underwater as one of our dive controllers, Sean, found this week, when he came across a rice cooker sitting on the reef!

New website design

After over 6 months of waiting, we are starting to redesign the scuba website. It's taken a lot of hard work from behind the scenes, thanks to all involved. It's still not completely finished and even now, I still find typos everyday, which means I must have read the bloody thing 20-30 times by now! If only we could have used a professional web builder as first was discussed, but hey ho!

Anyway, take a look around, there's plenty to read (which is one of the problems, we wanted less text and more photos and we've ended up with MORE text and LESS photos)!

And, if you find a mistake.............it's not my fault. LOL

New year, new hobby?

Have you ever considered scuba diving as a past-time or hobby, or maybe you are already a diver but have plans to improve yourself with continued education in diving, or perhaps taking your diving to a professional level? Ever thought about Technical diving but never had the time or understanding of the skills involved?

Drop me an email through the website for further information about any diving course; we can answer most emails within 48 hours, but if you don't receive an answer by that time, then please send again.

Happy, safe diving for 2011.