Diving Tulamben Bali on Liberty Wreck, Coral Garden, Silayukih Wall and Pasir Puti

What do you say if I go: 'Visibility 30-40 m, water 27 C, max depth 27 m, max time 50 min, giant groupers, spider shrimps, baby box fish, sea snakes, bump head parrot fish, cuttle fish, stone fish..' Maybe 'Awesome!'? One should and it was.

Before the first dive, all full of excitement!

And it was so great.. We started off on the US Liberty wreck and the visibility was fantastic. All under water pics are attributed our fearless camera man Toshi-san; great job!

The corral was really thriving in Corral Garden

We saw quite a few moray eels with 'leopard spots' in Thailand as well; here sighted at the Silayukih Wall

Gorgeous dragon fish. Dangerous, but gorgeous.

Cuttle fish reminds me of one of the first science fiction movies I saw as a kid: Dune. They look exactly as the creatures in the end of the movie, who are somehow connected to the emperor's family in the film, if I remember correctly.

Nemo fish at Pasir Puti!

I hadn't seen stone fish before and this one was almost the same color as the corrals around it, hence very hard to spot initially. Here she was on the move, so Toshi managed to get a better picture.

At one dive we went down to the beach while it was still dark, got in and waited for the first sun rays to break over the horizon. We then swam in the darkness, down to no more than about 12 m, along quite a boring sandy bottom and were really wondering what we had gotten ourselves into. The dive instructors had promised us a highly rare school of fish, the bump heads, who resides on the far end of the US Liberty wreck, where they stand in the stream every morning upon sun rise. Then they disappear in the deep. It sounded almost like a ghost story. And definitely felt like one, as we rounded a corner and they suddenly appeared in front of us like grey shadows. The sun light hadn't really caught up and it was slightly chilly, but we were all in awe at the sight in front of us.  

I had no idea these bump head parrot fish existed, and until I saw them for real, I didn't necessarily believe it either. They were however very real. And huge! 

Not to brag or anything, but I started this dive with air in: 200 Bar and had more than 60 Bar left after 50 min which was actually most air left in the group ;) Much of this is due to the very good tip I got about 'half lungs' i. e., breathe out only half of the air for each breath and breathe in the same. This way you keep a much more steady buoyancy and I used considerably less air.  

I really don't understand why, but if there's a camera, everyone wants to be caught on it ;)

AND you definitely want someone to catch you doing highly sophisticated things like crossing your legs. In the water. The madness of my skills;)

Or hanging up-side down, beautifully illustrated by husband Jonas; we are just an insanely talented couple.

I actually think we were quite talented all of us; here managing to stay almost still for group pics. It's in fact rather hard ;)

Even the dive master played along and is here demonstrating how much fun you can have with a hard piece of corral; peekaboo!