Read our latest article “Diving in West Bali national park”
During a previous trip to Bali, at sunrise on the summit of Mount Batur, after a long hike up the volcano, an anonymous early-riser first told me about diving at Bali’s western edge. Then again, a diving buddy whom I met through the Saigon Divers Club, a community of divers based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, recommended Menjangan for its pristine reefs within West Bali National Park. Until then, Bali had been synonymous in my mind with mass tourism, giant parties, freediving schools, yoga retreats, and seasonal Mola Mola chasers. That’s why I was so happy to reconsider Bali, for a quiet, relaxing diving vacation, at the doors of a natural reserve only one short flight away from home.
Quick reads led me to understand that the park management charges passes to those entering the boundaries of the reservation, from both land and marine access. This was not mentioned at all during my diving booking process, for me later to understand that all park fees were actually already included inside the diving package. Before I even packed my dive gear, I was relieved to feel as if the operator was, by standard, embracing the park policies and making the experience friction-less for the diver. On the flight to Bali, I kept wondering what the underwater world would look like in Menjangan, if all local businesses and communities participated in unison to the good management and protection of the park, in a way that allows both nature and people to coexist.
After I landed, I quickly realized why Menjangan never made the top lists of travel bloggers for tourism hotspots around Bali. The 5-6 hour car ride from Denpasar is indeed a turn-off to those seeking a quick or condensed trip to Bali. But for those looking for a quiet place free from the pressure of mass tourism, Bali’s Northwestern tip lives at the pace of its natural reserve. Once I arrived at the resort, what positively surprised me first was how understated everything was. Drinking water was refilled without question. There were no plastic bottles piling up in corners, no stacks of printed schedules or resort map handed out automatically to keep printouts to a minimum. On the dive boat, lunch came in reusable bento boxes and water, in tumblers tucked into camping coolers. It was practical and unceremonious. Nobody made a speech about it. It simply was how things were done around the place. Even the pace of the diving felt measured. The boats were not oversized, just enough for 6 divers (guides included) and spare tanks. The groups were not rushed. I was told that fishing activity in the area is limited by both catch and boat size. The limits feel tangible here, shaped by scale rather than slogans.
West Bali National Park was originally created to protect a critically endangered bird, the Bali Starling. I did not see one, though I have to admit I was not focused on the treetops. My gaze was pointed at the ripples and waves on the water, with the occasional splashes indicative of frantic schools of mackerels that I would get to see for myself. At the mooring line, the water visibility was clear enough to see the outline of the reef and the beginning of the slope that would end into a deep vertical wall.
The Acropora coral felt healthy, solid. Table corals were large and filled with life inside their intricate branches, from pink eyed gobies to bandit crabs. The soft coral was dancing with the surge, to a the rhythm that made the carpet anemones flip, revealing the porcelain crab that literally likes to live on the edge of its mantle. Expectedly, bleaching came up in conversation with my dive guides; last year had been severe. Some sections were visibly affected, and you could still see patches of coral where color vanished. While protection at the local level clearly matters, it just does not shield the reefs from rising sea temperatures and ocean acidification caused by carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Beyond the broad view of the reef, the real discoveries began when Putu, my dive guide, and I slowed down along coral heads, peering into tube sponges, carefully studying crinoids. We hovered in front of gorgonian fans, watching the polyps extend and retract into the current while hoping to catch a glimpse of the Pygmy the seahorse, its prehensile tail curled around a branch. No such luck. But it doesn’t mean we didn’t encounter curious little critters along our dives… far from it! At the scale of a pinky fingernail, diving requires patience, decent buoyancy and accepting that you might just devote 10 minutes of air to something so small only a camera can reveal.
A blenny watched me from its hole with an expression that felt disproportionally bold for its size. It tracked every small movement of my camera. Shy, it would frequently retreat into its hole but curious, it would always come back out to peer at the neoprene covered primate that I was. I always wonder, in those moments, how absurd we must look from their perspective, almost seeing my own reflection in its globular eyes.
The candy crab (Hoplophrys oatesi) took longer to find. It blended seamlessly into the pastel branches of its Dendronephthya host, its body mimicking the coral’s buds and floral textures. I can’t recall how many of those corals I scanned, head to toe, before finding this perfectly adapted crab, the size of a microchip. I couldn’t help but wonder whether, before that instance, I just had missed its peers while they were there all along under my nose, grinning at my inability to see them.
At dusk, we returned for the Mandarin fish (Synchiropus splendidus) mating ritual. They emerged cautiously as the light faded, slithering between the branches of the live hard coral they call home. Their courtship dance is brief and vertical, a quick ascent into the water column before disappearing again. I spent a long time simply watching, under the red light by which the fish do not seem bothered. When I finally lifted the camera, I took two frames and stopped. The encounter almost felt better experienced than documented.
Not everything in Menjangan required that level of stillness. At one point, a school of bigmouth mackerels (Rastrelliger kanagurta) moved through in tight formation, bodies turning in unison before breaking and reforming. From a distance it looked like shimmering lights; as I got closer, the structure appeared. I closed in, trying to fill my frame with this synchronized chaos. As coherent as it may appear, there is always one rebel fish swimming against the flow. See if you can spot it.
Beyond its underwater jewels, Menjangan revealed its final secret on the shores of its uninhabited island: the Muntjac, a small local species of deer. “Menjangan“ does mean “deer” in Balinese, after all. They swim between the island and the mainland through the same strait where we dive with the platax and the turtles. Watching them move so easily between forest and sea reminded me how connected the land and the water are, rather than opposed to one another. Regrettably, despite the many signs reminding visitors not to feed the deers, they have grown accustomed to humans as bipedal food dispensers.
Menjangan did not overwhelm me with the spectacle of dancing manta rays or the adrenaline of Komodo’s shotgun. It did something quieter. It encouraged me to slow down, to stay with small subjects, to notice recovery alongside vulnerability. It felt like a place where effort is being made, even if the outcome is never guaranteed. Underwater photography has changed the way I experience dives like this. It pushes me to linger, to observe and to consider my impact. That way of diving felt especially appropriate to Menjangan, where the reefs, although not untouched or immune, are breathing and resilient… and for now, that feels significant.
Diving type: Boat (back roll entry)
Depth: 10-25m
Water temp: 27ºC
Visibility: clear {>20m}
Ecosystem: Hard coral reef, soft coral gardens, walls
Fauna: turtles, cuttlefish, pufferfish, triggerfish, lionfish, scorpionfish, wrasses, platax, groupers, mackerels, nudibranchs, crab & shrimps
Suggested equipment: rash guard, SMB, camera, dive light or strobes, booties, dive computer
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