SD Point Penida
The SD Point dive site, nusa penida - bali
After the second dive, we felt that we were in need of an easy drift dive for our third dive. So then we headed to SD dive site. We took 1 hour 41 minutes of surface interval. After that we started to back-rolled to the sea. I felt something funny when doing so. I was twisted in a funny way. I remembered that Wolfie was laughing at me looking the way I was twisted. Then it was time to dive down. Before even started to deflate my BCD I felt something missing in my waist…Weight belt!!! My gosh!!
I forgot to put it on! How embarrassing! I knock on Erwin’s head (he was the closest one) and gave him the signal to wait for me. Luckily the boat was still there!
We dived at 02.23pm. After 30 minutes I was looking for my camera. It was gone
with the whole bunch of slate and stick! Well, it was not my lucky dive.
However, I spotted 2 big sea cucumbers (a black spiky one and the usual black sea cucumber). Wolfie was trying to hand it to me and I tried to get away from it.
We dived for 70 minutes then we surfaced. We realized that Hengky and Erwin were not with us. We figured out that they must be still down there exploring something. After 20 minutes of waiting, we came to conclusion that they must be running out
of air already. I started to become nervous since the current looked like peaking up ever since we surfaced. Wolfie then instructed the boatman to go a bit further but there’s no result. The boat then headed back to the exit point hoping to spot them around there. We then passed by a boat of divers from other group, they told us that they have spotted our missing friends on the opposite site of the entry point.
Confused and nervous, the boat started to head that direction. After passed the pontoon, we still could not spot them. After 20 minutes of search, the boat man finally spotted their orange sausages on the shore.
Apparently, they got drifted with the current which was flowing to the other direction. Erwin was having several rashes caused by the coral while they were waiting helplessly on the shore and pushed by the waves.
We then head back to Padang Bai. The other boat has left long before. By the time we arrived at Padang Bai, they were already waiting for us and start to wonder what happen.
Story from the other boat (quoted from Rizal Prayuga)
When we dived down, the water temperature was not as cold as the previous dive. It was about 24ºC however the visibility was dropped to only 15m. Mild current come and go exchanging with stronger ones. Fortunately they all went the same direction. The group was torn apart since some of them kept on kicking whilst the current could have already drifted them. I was left behind quite far.
After a while, one diver started to look a bit nervous so a more senior diver had to guide and hold her. We decided to give a signal to them to surface while we monitored from below since we still had some divers diving around. After a while, one diver was missing, apparently he was already 100m ahead of us!
The journey back to Padang Bai was more of a sleeping journey since most of the divers passed out!!! By the time we arrived Padang Bai, we were welcomed by some of foreign girls (cewek2 bule) who were trying to get some sun tan!!!! A good sight though!
By: Lala