By Chris Mitchell

updated 2:02 p.m. ET June 12, 2008

Head away from the tourist-filled beaches in southern Bali and discover a quieter, more secluded place. Better still, see a staggering variety of diving. In two weeks, it’s possible to drive in a rough triangle across the island and find adrenalin-fueled encounters with the elusive mola mola sunfish and manta rays at Nusa Lembongan, tranquil wreck and reef diving at Tulamben, and amazing corals gracing the plunging walls at Pemuteran’s Nusa Menjangan.

All the while, journey through Bali’s culture and experience the islanders’ legendary hospitality.

Lembongan: Here there be giants
Tim is waving his fist at me. Not in anger, but excitement — with his thumb and little finger extended. The manager of PADI Dive Center Bali Diving Academy Lembongan is signaling that he’s finally spotted what we’ve been searching for the past three days — the enigmatic giant ocean sunfish.

Dropping down to 110 feet, I peer into the blue and make out what Tim has spotted. The sunfish’s skin, a mottled gray, aptly camouflages it with its open-ocean environment, and it looks more like an alien visitor’s spacecraft — or maybe just the alien visitor itself — than a cousin of the reef fish we’ve seen over the past few days. Its body is a very solid-looking vertical disc, its fins sticking out at right angles, like the booms of a starship.

And it’s big, both longer than I am and taller — a fish so large it makes goliath groupers and Napoleon wrasses look puny. Yet, despite its great size, the mola mola appears positively docile as it looks me over with large, cowlike eyes. As a squadron of bannerfish crowds in to clean this gigantic vagrant, I find myself wondering what a mola mola eats to maintain its size.  

We keep very still and close in on the reef, marveling as the mola mola comes up level with us, seemingly unfazed by our presence. It hangs just a few feet away from us while the bannerfish go to work. A glance down and suddenly we see two more sunfish swimming in closer, keen to get clean as well. For a few more minutes we stay with these rarely seen creatures and then, mindful of our dive computers and air, start slowly heading to shallower waters.

Chris Mitchell / Sport Diver Rice paddy terraces

Finding a mola mola today — our final day on Nusa Lembongan — makes the victory all the sweeter. Lembongan, a half-hour speedboat ride off Bali’s southeast coast, is a small neighbor of Nusa Penida. Lembongan and the island sliver of Nusa Ceningan form two conduits through which the cold water and currents of the Indian Ocean channel directly. That’s the key to dependably sighting mola molas, which rise from the abyssal depths for cleaning during April through October. This is one of the few places in the world where divers can encounter them. 

Surfers first discovered Lembongan, and they still ride the island’s many challenging breaks today. Although seaweed farming remains the mainstay of this steep-hilled island’s economy, tourism — like the upmarket accommodation clustered around the perfect sliver of sand that is Mushroom Bay — is close behind. Our cozy room at Hai Tide Huts is built in the traditional Lombok style, with a high-arching thatched roof over a wooden bedroom resting on stilts 6 feet off the ground. Going diving couldn’t be easier — it’s a few steps from the room to the beach, where the dive boat picks us up each morning.

Chris Mitchell / Sport Diver The gardens

On our arrival at the island three days before, Tim is quietly confident that we will see molas within our allotted days. But he’s also eager to show us that with or without molas, Lembongan provides dramatic undersea adventure. The ocean currents that bring the sunfish also shape Lembongan’s epic-size reefs, and the cold, clear 120-foot visibility makes it easy to take it all in. I’m a little intoxicated by the sheer sense of space around me on our first dive, the pure blue of the water as it holds the sunlight from above and the craggy, current-blasted coral that tenaciously thrives in this aquatic landscape. Almost every dive is a drift dive, an exhilarating whirl of color, coral and critters where we speed along the reef as if it were a sideshow panorama unrolling next to us.

Bali listings Bali Tourism Board Dive centers Bali Diving Academy Dive Centers Dive resorts/hotels Taman Sari Amertha Villas Hai Tide Huts Mimpi Resort Tulamben

Manta Point is Lembongan’s other star attraction, a half-hour speedboat ride along the stunning, sun-scorched cliffs of Nusa Penida. It’s not difficult to see why the Balinese call Nusa Penida “The Demon Island” — blasted by the sea over centuries, Nusa Penida’s vertical drops contain numerous caves and a giant stone archway looming just off the island’s shore.

Within moments of descent, a young manta comes swooping directly toward me, winging in swiftly and smoothly over the gnarled coral, which bottoms out around 30 feet. It passes within a few feet of me, jet-black wings effortlessly powering it on beyond our group of divers and back out into the blue. Still slightly awed that it had been so easy, I wonder if that was to be our first and last manta sighting. For a while it seems so, as we moved along the ocean-battered reef, constantly searching the blue. Then the group behind us gives us the heads-up — with the clang of metal on metal. I have time to look behind me and see not one but three mantas gliding past together in single-line formation, passing between our two dive groups in an impossibly graceful train, almost wholly synchronized in their movements. 

Images of mantas and mola molas play through my mind on the journey back to the mainland. What can top encounters with giants? The next stop on our Bali dive safari beckons, and as Lembongan disappears behind us, we’re already thinking about what lies ahead.

MORE FROM ACTIVE

Active Section Front

Going downhill: Ski areas faces uncertain winter Get an early jump on ski season Hang 10 at these legendary surf towns Ski the real Montana: Big Sky or Big Mountain? World’s strangest sports Learning to snowboard — in France Utah banks on strong ski season Ski deals available nearly everywhere Humanitarian trips around the world The best value golf in uncertain economic times Active Section Front   Add Active headlines to your news reader: