Arriving in Amed
As you might remembered, I had just left Tirta Gangga and I was on my way to Amed. The sun was going to be setting soon and I wanted to make it to my hostel before it was already dark. As you might also remembered, after considering for some time, I decided to stay in Amed and dive in Tulamben. To that extend, I booked my 3 nights at Black Sand Hostel. The place was new and clean, the owners (a local guy and a french girl) were very kind and the views from the terrace were spectacular (more on this later). The price was not bad either: I paid 240 K for 3 nights with breakfast included 🙂
Even if I hadn’t met anyone speaking Spanish so far, I really felt like Ernesto Guevara in Motorcycle Diaries. I had to stop now and then to better enjoy the landscape and to consciously appreciate what I was seeing and living.
As during the previous days, I was constantly awing to the views. Regardless of it was just after leaving Ubud or right before entering Amed, like it was the case now.
I had some problems finding the hostel. But then, a very nice couple saw me wandering kind of lost and, after speaking with them for a bit, I was able to find the right path to my accommodation. Thanks for that!
I made it to my hostel and met “Yoga”. He was a young local kid who was working at that time in the reception. He showed me the way up to my room and let me know about the breakfast time and some other stuff. The room was a shared one with plenty of space and with all the furniture new. It looked something like this:
I unpacked my stuff and went to take a shower. I really felt like taking it after the whole day riding my moto and checking temples. The shower felt really nice but what I saw after that felt even better:
Does that mountain look familiar to you? Well, it should. I had already mentioned it in the previous post. It is not a mountain but a volcano. And it is not just any volcano, but the highest one in Bali. Yes, the volcano you can see in the picture is Mount Agung. And the picture itself is one of the best sunsets I saw during my time in Indonesia. Welcome to Amed 🙂
Back in the room I met a girl from the U.K. and a guy from Australia. When he told me he was from Australia I was like what? I hadn’t realised it yet, (mostly because of the excitement of my first days in Indonesia) but I had just left Australia… after 11 months! We chatted for a bit and the girl told us she was going to have dinner and later she would join some friends for some drinks in a bar by the beach. That night there was full moon and people were partying on its behalf.
We joined the girl and went to have dinner. The little I saw (by that time it was already completely dark) seemed pretty nice. There was a chill vibe throughout the town. There were different bars, restaurants and shops, but, overall, it looked way smaller and less packed than Ubud. One thing I did also notice was the amount of French people everywhere. At some point I wondered if Amed had been a French colony lol.
After dinner we went to a very cool bar by the beach. By the time we arrived it was completely packed. There was a local band playing and I really enjoy their music. We met some people who were friends with the British girl (unfortunately I forgot her name!) and we exchanged drinks and stories. One of them told me she was working as a freelance there in Amed. She just needed her laptop and an internet connection and that was about all. It wasn’t the first time that I met someone like her but, every time I met someone else, my feelings towards becoming freelance grew higher.
I know it’s not all a fairy tale but, the way I see it, if you manage to get some “fixed” customers, you can really make the most out of it. That, in my case, would be working in different countries as I get to know them and their cultures better.
It was pretty cool to be there. It was just my third night in Indonesia and I was listening to nice music, hearing the waves behind me and talking and drinking with people I had just met. Some of them were travellers and some of them were locals, and we all were enjoying a full moon night. That’s one of the things I like the most when it comes to travelling 🙂
After some beers, Andy (the guy from Australia whose name I remember because we hanged out during my time in Amed) and I decided to go back to the hostel. Next morning we would have to wake up kind of early to get ready for our Advanced Open Water course. He was also taking the course, but with another company and in Amed.
And what about me? Wasn’t I taking the course in Amed as well? In my case, I decided to stay in Amed, because the town was bigger and had more to offer than Tulamben. There were more bars, more restaurants, more nightlife and, overall, more life. That being said, I chose Tulamben for the diving. Apparently (a friend of me told me) there were pretty cool spots for diving there. Among some of them, a couple of amazing shipwrecks. Thus, I decided to stay in Amed and dive in Tulamben 🙂
First day of AOW in Tulamben: deep dive, shipwreck and night dive
I woke up early the morning of Tuesday the 25th, 2018. I had breakfast, got my stuff ready and went outside to pick my moto and drove to Tulamben. The distance between both towns is around 15 km. A friend of mine (thanks Diego!) had recommended me choosing the diving school and, after the course, I was really happy with the choice I made. The name of the school was Dive Concepts (you can find it both in Amed and Tulamben but I chose the one in Tulamben). Price-wise was the best choice by far. I paid 2.900.000 IRP (around 180 euros) for my Advanced Open Water (AOW). The course was split in 2 days and 5 dives.
Unlike with my hostel, I didn’t have any problems to find the diving school. The place was pretty cool, with a nice vibe and decoration. They spoke several languages like Spanish, French, English and Bahasa. Most of the staff were kind of young and very friendly. After meeting some of the people in charge and paying for my course, I sat in some sort of lounge where I met my instructor and my colleagues for the course. The name of my instructor was “Yogi”. He was a very kind local who had recently become Dive Instructor. There were also two guys from Germany who were also going to do their AOW.
One of the things I liked the most about the course (and I think pretty much everyone else agrees) is that, unlike with the Open Water, this one has pretty much no theory involved. That doesn’t mean we meet, shake hands and jump in the water. Before each dive we had a talk where Yogi would give us information about the diving place, the diving conditions and the kind of dive we were going to do. To get your AOW you need to do 5 dives. 2 of them are mandatory: deep dive and computer and you then can choose between some others (shipwreck, night dive, perfect buoyancy, etc) until you do a total of 5.
Deep dive: going down to 30 meters
One of the main reasons why people decide to get the AOW is because of depth. With the Open Water you can (legally) go down to 18 meters. That’s kind of enough to see plenty of fishes and enjoy the underwater world. But, there are plenty of other species that live a little further down. There are also plenty of shipwrecks below 18 meters. So, one of the main reasons why people get their Advanced Open Water is to be able to reach a depth of 30 meters.
Apart from seeing other fishes and shipwrecks, you will also feel an increase in the power of your inseparable diving friend: pressure. Other than these subtle details, diving deeper might also give you the chance to experience a couple of extra cool stuff.
In our case, once Yogi gave us the briefing and we got our equipment ready, we left the school and walked to the beach to start with the first of a series of five dives: the deep dive. Once on the beach and with the equipment on we started to walk in the unmistakable “duck style” every diver walks now and then when they are carrying their equipment. I didn’t see anything weird on that. I did however saw something weird when I looked closer at Yogi and I saw him carrying a bottle of coke and a whiteboard. He would prove later on that those two objects were key to understand the couple of extra cool stuff I had mentioned above.
I had left Australia with 10 dives. I did the first 4 in Magnetic Island, while getting my Open Water with Chaves, and the other 6 in the Great Barrier Reef, while living in Cairns. Setting the equipment and putting it on was something I could kind of do. I also knew how to access the water, depending on if we were jumping from a boat or just walking off shore. I knew most of the theory and I had some knowledge on how to use the navigation computer. What I was still struggling with (apart from achieving a “perfect” buoyancy) was the air consumption.
I remember going diving with people and being most of the times the one who was getting out of air first. I was trying to take it easy, breath slowly and not move too much. Regardless, when the dive instructor would ask how much air we had left, most of the times it was me the person with the least amount. Thus, when Yogi told me we were going straight to 30 meters, I was kind of worried. Not because anything would happen to me, but because I didn’t want to spoil our first dive by having to go back to the surface way too early. I told him about my “problems” but he said everything would be alright.
Back to my story, why was my dive instructor carrying a bottle of coke and a whiteboard? The bottle of coke was going to be used to show us what happened to the light when we start to dive deeper. As you might know, the light we see is made by 7 different colours (the ones you can see when there is a rainbow). There is something called wave length, which from red to purple decreases. And there is something called energy, which from red to purple increases. When it comes to diving, the deeper you go the more colours you start to loose. The colours start disappearing from red all the way to purple. This is something you might not realize when you are down there and that’s why Yogi was carrying a bottle of coke, which, as you know, has a red and white tag.
And what was with the whiteboard? Well, have you ever heard about nitrogen narcosis? To some people it is funny, while to some others it is kind of scary. Nitrogen narcosis happens when you descend below 20 meters and it consists of an impairment in your thinking process. Some people describe it as being drunk underwater (no need to carry your botellon, just the diving tank). Some others describe it like inhaling laughing gas. The truth is that, it can happen to every diver diving below 20 meters but, at the same time, it is not a perfect science in terms of how strong that feeling will be if at all. Thus, he was carrying the whiteboard to make us do some mathematical operations underwater and see how much (if at all) we had been affected by the narcosis. What else did you expect? 😉
I got in the water with the excitement of the first time, ready to discover yet another tiny bit of the huge and marvellous underwater world. We went slowly, making sure we didn’t have any problems with pressure and equalization. That’s something which, as we speak, I’ve been kind of lucky with so far. I pretty much never had a problem with my ears while going down and I hope it stays like that for quite a while.
We went straight down to 30 meters and we went on our knees on a volcanic bottom, with black sand and rocks and tiny beautiful blue fishes. Yogi got the whiteboard out and started to draw mathematical operations on it (I’m sorry but I didn’t record this part). He then asked each one of us to resolve them to see how much we had been affected by narcosis. The result: we all were fine 🙂
He then grabbed the small bottle of coke and flashed it with its lantern. That’s when we realised that, in fact, Physics was right. Without the light on the bottle we didn’t really see the red colour on the tag, but something else. The colour we saw was like a dull version of the typical colour we are used to see on the surface. I was really glad we got to learn more about diving and its mysteries.
After that we kept on diving, without having any other experiences, other than enjoying the magic of the underwater world. We saw plenty of tiny blue fishes, some bigger black ones and a beautiful shoal at the end. All in all I was really happy with my first dive and, by the time we had to go back to the surface, my air consumption hadn’t been that bad 😉
Shipwreck dive: welcome to the USS Liberty
We went back to the diving school, rested for some time and ate some snacks. During that time, Yogi gave us the briefing about our next diving point: the USS Liberty shipwreck. I was really excited about this dive (to be honest, I was excited about all the dives lol). It was my first time diving in a shipwreck and I couldn’t wait for it. The USS Liberty (or USAT Liberty) was built on 1918 in New Jersey. It was designed to work as a cargo ship for the United States Navy and it had a length of around 125 meters.
On January the 11th, 1942, once the US had entered into World War II, it was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine while it was travelling from Australia to the Philippines. The USS Liberty ended up beached on the eastern shore of Bali, in Tulamben. It remained on the beach for years until the eruption of Mount Agung in 1963. The eruption caused the vessel to slip off the beach, where it remains nowadays on a sand slope in 8 to 30 meters of water, providing one of the most popular diving sites in Bali.
Once Yogi had finished with the briefing and the description of the shipwreck I felt like I couldn’t wait to get in the water. We got on the back of a small truck, with all the tanks and equipment loaded and, 5 minutes later, we were walking towards our second dive.
The dive was pretty cool. We saw plenty of fishes, bubbles, corals and the unmistakable traits of a huge ship. In some areas we needed to get through some rooms or holes. In some others we could see some masts and loads that belonged to the ship. I didn’t find the dive difficult. But we needed to be careful to avoid getting our wet suit hooked to any of the sharp corners of the ship. Coming in and out of the ship, seeing all that marine life was amazing. Eventually, our tanks went down to 70 bar and we started to ascend to be back on the surface with the recommended 50 bar.
A break before the night dive
Satisfied with my first two dives, back at the diving school, I said goodbye to my instructor and my colleagues, got my moto and drove back to Black Sand Hostel. We still had one more dive that day. But, because it was the night dive, we had to wait for the sun to set. Thus, I had some time before going back in the water.
I took a shower and went outside. I wanted to get to know Amed on my own. The more I walk the more I liked the town. It was kind of small but it had plenty to offer. The landscapes, with Mount Agung and some volcanic beaches were really astonishing. After wandering for some time I decided to stop at a warung called Warung Kita. As I was ordering my meal I realised there was a man sat at the table next to me. He realised I wasn’t from there and we exchanged some words. After a bit, he joined me at my table.
His name was Ohmar and he was from Amed. He asked me about my whereabouts and about the reason of my trip to Amed. He told me he had done plenty of snorkelling but he had never tried diving. I liked his way of being. He was very kind. We talked about how tourism had impacted Amed. Apparently, a few years ago, the were pretty much no sealed roads. He said with tourism came good things, like infrastructures. But he also realised that with tourism also started to come things that were not that good. Before, he would be able to walk carelessly on the street. Now he needed to make sure there wasn’t a vehicle (he saw a huge increase in the number of motos) coming before crossing.
I told him that, from my point of view, like with everything in life, extremes are not good. Tourism can become a double-edge sword and it should be on the locals to decide what to do with it. While it is truth that tourism bring good things like infrastructures, too much tourism can be dangerous for a place and its people. Unfortunately, most of the times the government of the country doesn’t take the bad points in consideration, but just the money they will make out of the tourists coming. This is something specially true in many regions of Southeast Asia. I hope that, as times goes by, we become more aware of this and we don’t destroy a region and its people just because of money.
I thanked Ohmar for his time and I told him I wanted to walk around and check some of the beaches in Amed. We said goodbye and I started walking. One minute later he waved at me from his moto and told me to jump on the back. He drove me to the beach himself. If you ever get to read this entry, Ohmar, I hope Amed is still in good conditions! 🙂
I laid down on the beach and enjoyed some rest for a while. The beach was not super crowded although there were some tourists. After resting for a while, I decided to go check the water, just to see if there was something interesting. I had heard the beaches in Amed were good for snorkelling and I had brought my goggles and snorkel with me. To my surprise, the bottom was beautiful, filled with corals and fishes. And all of that just a couple of meters off shore. Crazy!
There are plenty of beaches in Amed, most of them at walkable distances. Depending on your preferences you can get to choose from a wide range of possibilities. There are many of them with a volcanic touch, due to the proximity of Mount Agung. In my case, because I spent most of my time diving, I didn’t get to check many. But, the ones I saw, were really cool! So far, my decision to stay in Amed and dive in Tulamben seemed to be the right one 🙂
Night dive: back to the USS Liberty for a different experience
After enjoying the beach I walked back to the hostel, picked my stuff, my moto and drove back to the Dive Concepts school in Tulamben. I met Yogi and the two German guys and, after chatting for a bit, we got ready for the briefing. Although we already knew the diving spot, we had to learn some new stuff. Since we were going to be diving at night, we needed to make use of another item: the lantern.
As we would be in the darkness, when the dive instructor asked us something, we couldn’t just show him our hand (he wouldn’t see it). Instead, we needed to flash our hand and vary a little bit the common diving signs. He also told us how the fauna changed dramatically at night. We would get to see fishes we hadn’t seen before during the previous dives and, maybe not even in our lives. Some people get a little bit scared when thinking about a night dive. They feel vulnerable being in the water at night. In my case, I felt like we were as vulnerable during the day and I just couldn’t wait to see what the underwater world had waiting for me at night 😉
Like in the previous dive, we got on the back of the trunk with our equipment and tanks. We made it shortly to the beach. I still remember the moment and the feeling as if it was yesterday. The sun was about to set. The temperature inside and outside the water was just perfect. And the image of us disappearing in the darkness of the ocean was breathtaking.
The dive was amazing. We saw plenty of fishes swimming around. We saw a big moray, with its body kind of white and its head yellow. It was coiled around some corals and, when we approached it, it went up and for a second I thought it was going to bite us. Crazy! We saw some ornaments as we were diving inside the ship. Close to the end, we saw a huge fish right in front of us! Because there was no light we didn’t see it until we flashed it lol. We then saw another one coming and they started to chase a smaller one! The marine fauna at night was a complete different deal!
Back on the surface, we went to the school, got changed and, after sharing the excitement for a while, we said goodbye. We would be meeting next morning to, hopefully, get AOW certified! 🙂
I drove back to my hostel, took a shower and found Andy there. As you might remember, he was my roommate and he was also doing his AOW, although in Amed with a different school. We decided to go out together and find a place for dinner.
We ended up at Warung Laris Asih. The place was a little bit more touristic than the warung I had visited for lunch. The food though was good, and so the ambience. The son of the owner started to play the guitar and he did very well! We joined him singing. He didn’t know many English songs and I told him I would be back next year to see how much he had progressed. I also told him I would show him how much I had learnt to play the guitar. I’m on it, get ready! 🙂
Second day of AOW in Tulamben: computer dive and perfect buoyancy
I woke up early in the morning after having spent the whole night dreaming about diving. You know when you spend the whole day doing something you normally dream about it? That was my case right there. After having breakfast and picking my stuff, I went downstairs, grabbed my moto and drove to Dive Concepts in Tulamben. The distance was kind of short and it was nice to drive in the morning. I was glad to stay in Amed and dive in Tulamben, otherwise I wouldn’t be experiencing those drives!
I forgot to mention it was the morning of September the 26th, 2018. It wasn’t just any day but the day I was turning 29! I was really excited about my birthday but also about the idea of getting the Advanced Open Water certification as a birthday present 🙂
Computer dive: learning navigation at Boga wreck
I arrived at the school, met Yogi and my colleagues and got ready for the first dive of the day. It would be our fourth dive and we couldn’t wait to see what Yogi had waiting for us. That time, after having done the deep dive, the wreck dive and the night dive, it was turn for the other mandatory one: computer dive. He gave us the briefing and I immediately got excited. The last day we had been diving in a shipwreck twice and, we were about to go to another one!
The Boga wreck was sunk on purpose on 2012 with the idea of creating a new point of aggregation for the marine life. It was also thought as a new diving destination to attract tourists to an area not that known in Bali. The ship is about 40 meters long and it is lying on a sandy bottom between 15-35 meters deep. Unlike the USS Liberty, the ship is pretty much intact. Among some cool stuff you can find a VW car, the ship’s steering wheel and propeller, statues and other objects. I couldn’t really wait for it!
Apart from enjoying the diving spot we also needed to get to know how to work with the diving computer, which is basically like a digital clock with different functions. You get to see the depth, the pressure and other cool details of your dive. We also got to learn a little bit of navigation. As the name implies, it is basically getting to know where you are underwater and how to get to where you want. Without further delay, I’ll show you what my diving at Boga wreck looked like. P.S: I was finally able to cross a very important milestone off my bucket list… I finally saw a turtle while diving!
After yet another spectacular dive and after feeling an improvement on my air consumption, we came back to the surface and from there to the school. By the way, just to so you how we were going from the school to the diving spot and back:
Back at the school we rested for a bit, got some snacks and chilled while waiting for the Surface Interval Time (SIT). That is the time you are advised to stay on surface after each dive. The more dives and the deeper you dive the longer you are advised to wait on the surface.
Perfect buoyancy dive: increasing the level
It was going to be Yogi’s fifth briefing. It was going to be the last dive of the course and, if everything went alright, we were going to get AOW certified. For the last dive we were going to try to improve on our buoyancy. That’s basically your skill to control how close or far you are from something by using your breathing. When you start diving you are told there is a button that allows you to inflate or deflate your BCD. The BCD is some sort of vest where you have different stuff. You can pump air to increase your buoyancy or deflate it to get closer to the bottom. The more you use this the quicker you get out of air.
Thus, trying to control your buoyancy with your breathing is a key aspect towards becoming a professional diver. It is far from easy but with the help of your Dive Instructor, practice and more practice, you can get better at it. In our case, Yogi told us we were going to a diving spot full of artificial stuff. Like with the Boga wreck, people sunk those stuff on purpose to help grow the marine life. The bottom was a sandy one so it was the perfect spot to practice our buoyancy. He would stick some needles on the bottom and we would have to look at them, as close as possible, without touching them. This is something that can help you out when you are trying to get close to a fish or a coral, for example. We did that an other exercises to try to improve our buoyancy.
Mastering your buoyancy is not easy. It takes time, effort, practice and sacrifice. You need to become completely aware of your breathing. If you inhale, you go up. If you exhale, you go down. You need to be able to take your breathing to a point where you are not swaying, but just perfectly buoyant. One of the reasons why I love diving is because I see it as a mental challenge to myself. Like, when you are underwater, if something happens and you start to freak out, the situation just gets worse. Thus, you need to control your mind and try to deal with the situation the best you can.
Of course, the mean reason why I love diving is because, as soon as you get your head in the water, you get to see an incredible new world. And to prove that I will show you the next and final video of our AOW course 🙂
Not everyday you get to turn 29 in Bali. Not everyday you get to get yourself the AOW certification as your birthday present. Because of that, to avoid forgetting that moment, one of my diving colleagues was so kind that decided to take me that picture. Thanks!
After the fifth and final dive we went back to the school, where Yogi congratulated us all for having become AOW divers! We had some beers to celebrate landmark. It was a pretty nice feeling. It was just my fifth day in Indonesia. I was travelling alone. It was my first time without having “true” friends or family members around for my birthday. But, all in all, I felt really happy for every single thing I had lived so far. And, the cherry on the cake was moving forward in my diving passion. The last dive of the course was my number 15 in total. And, just like that, after 15 dives, I was already an Advanced Open Water diver. Cheers to that!
So long Amed!
I drove back to the hostel, took a shower and, back in the room, I realised there was a new roommate. Her name was Vanessa and she was French. She had just arrived in Amed and she would be travelling in Indonesia for a couple of weeks. I was on my way to have lunch and I offered her to join me. We went to a warung (nothing new right?), had some food and talked for a while. She was working and living in Paris and she had decided to go to Indonesia to get to know the country and to enjoy the nice weather. I told her I had decided to stay in Amed and dive in Tulamben and it had been a perfect compromise.
After lunch I told her about the nice beach I had been to the day before and we went back together. We laid down and enjoyed the sun. I also went in the water several times to do some snorkelling. I just couldn’t get tired of seeing so many amazing fishes and corals. And you didn’t need any complex equipment or boat, just your feet, arms, a snorkel and a pair of goggles. The beaches in Amed were amazing!
As the sun started to set we went back to the hostel. We met Andy there, who had also become an AOW diver. I told them it was my birthday and I wanted to invite them to a beer, to celebrate it. We got dressed, went to have some dinner and I paid a round of beers. It was a weird feeling celebrating my birthday with two people I had just met (specially Vanessa). It wasn’t something I was used to, but, during that year I experienced many things I wasn’t used to and that didn’t mean I felt bad about it.
I felt very happy and proud at that moment. I wanted to do something on my own and I was doing it already. And so far it was being amazing! We miss many things in life because we wait for the perfect time. Sometimes you will have friends who want to join you but sometimes you won’t. Sometimes you will be in a relationship or you won’t.
You might feel like you don’t know the language well enough or that you don’t have as much money as you need. But, in the end, most of the times, those are just excuses we set ourselves to avoid leaving our comfort zone. In my case, I decided to do what I felt at that moment and not think too much about the perfect situation. I decided to listen to my heart and not to my head and cover a tiny part of our planet on my own. Many times the media makes us believe that you can’t travel alone, that it is too dangerous… Well, the truth was that, so far, I was having the time of my life 🙂
