Drop Off, Tulamben
The Drop Off, Tulamben.
Diving Drop Off, Tulamben
By Erwin Kodiat
Drop Off
The next dive sites that interested as well is Drop Off. It has a beautiful wall that is accessible from the beach by swimming. The shallowest tip of the bottom is on 59.5 meters during the low tide.
We saw a 2 meters white tip shark swimming lazily on the bottom. Once I broke my own single tank deep dive record by stupidly diving to the bottom of the wall (66.4 meters during the high tide), I did not get decompression sickness, though, but three days later I decided to go to the recompression chamber for nitrogen flushing (it is still questionable whether it is necessary or not).
In this top of the wall, we often encounter moray eel (Gymnothorax sp), cuttlefish and octopus. A big gorgonian sea fan in 30 meters depth is one of our landmarks during the dive.
Usually the divers who often visit Tulamben firstly would fall in love at the first sight with the shipwreck. However, after several visits to the Liberty, then they will get bored with the shipwreck and start to turn their eyes to drop off and this place would be the most interested site for them. The condition here in drop off is almost similar with its neighbor Liberty shipwreck, the visibility, the temperature, and the no-current condition. Our fellow instructors often take their student here for dive one and two because this place is well protected within the bay and has a wide flat sandy bottom.
October 8th, 2005 at 09:12
[…] What special about Tulamben? Most divers from all over the world mentioned its name when they think about diving in Bali. Tulamben could be the place we know best since we dove there a lot. Almost one hundred of our dives are there. Tulamben, if there is no traffic jam, can be reached in three hours from Kuta area. It is the part of Karangasem, east Bali. The main dive sites in Tulamben are USS Liberty shipwreck, Drop Off, Paradise Coral Garden and Batu Kelebit. […]