Features.
Belongas Bay is located in the southernmost part of Lombok, Indonesia, an undeveloped area with undeveloped tourist amenities. The dive site is characterised by schools of hammerhead sharks and hundreds of devil ray in July-August-September, with other reef sharks present all year round. Due to the geographical location, the currents are complex and strong, with roller washing machine currents. As of September 2015, only one dive shop will go diving in this area and there are only 2 guided dives that know the dive sites well enough to LEAD.
Geographical relationship between Bali and South Lombok
Transportation.
One, Lombok itself has an airport, so if you are specifically going to dive in South Lombok, you can fly directly to Lombok and then transfer to a car to get there.
2. To get to South Lombok from Bali
It is easy to get to Lombok from Bali, this refers to going to popular tourist areas or small islands. But going to South Lombok, just for diving, is not so convenient.
An important stopover for diving in South Lombok is called: sekotong. then it’s a toss-up to get to sekotong from Bali, there are several ways to do it as follows.
1）、Fly from Bali to Lombok, about 40 minutes, Lombok airport is about 75 km from sekotong, more than 2 hours drive, road conditions are unknown, taxi 15 RMB per person, minimum two people.
2）、From padangbai (Batangbai) in Bali, take a fast boat to the bangsal ferry terminal in the north of Lombok, the boat will stop at the island, about 1.5-2 hours, 90km from the terminal to sekotong, 2.5-3 hours drive. taxi is 25 RMB per person, minimum 2 persons.
3）、Take a fast boat from padangbai (Batangbai) in Bali to senggigi, a terminal in the middle of Lombok, one hour, I didn’t find it on the internet, but heard the agent and driver say so, the price is about 300k rupiah, transfer to senggigi and go to sekotong, about 80km, more than 2 hours, taxis 15 RMB per person, at least two people.
4）、Take a slow boat from padangbai (Patanbay) in Bali to lembar, the southwest pier in Lombok, 4 hours. (public ferry, every hour, 24 hours operation, on the go), the ferry ticket is 44k rupiah per person (about 20 yuan), this is a car-boat shared ferry, a lot of space, the first floor has seats and beds, beds need to pay extra 35k. then lembar to sekotong 40km, 1 hour drive. 10 knife per person, minimum two people.
Because of the diving and the heavy luggage, I opted for the fourth way, get on the boat to sleep, get to the pier and take the shortest possible ride to my destination.
The ferry was interesting because it was very spacious, messy but comfortable to lie on and because it was slow going, you didn’t get too seasick. When we first set off, there were people eating instant noodles with chicken legs, and the atmosphere was like that of our green train carriages in the early days. But after a while, they all stopped and went to sleep.
Environment.
Look at the map, Belongas bay is facing south, then directly in front of the Indian Ocean from the deep sea waves, these sea water to squeeze into the bay through a jug mouth, so in this jug mouth formed a waterfall-like waves, out of the jug mouth waves will be even bigger ……
After a few transfers, we finally arrived at South Lombok, and calling Sekotong a village is a bit too big. If I hadn’t booked a dive shop, I wouldn’t even have been able to get accommodation and food. The people in the village are scattered, raising cattle and farming, and there’s a dive shop on the side of the road, which is out of place. The beach is quite quiet, no electricity, no water, no electricity, no internet. 3g is not available. The dive shop and restaurant have internet access, but it is extremely slow. The village is backed by mountains and faces the sea, the sea is not an endless rough sea, it is a pool of lake water gentle bay.
The sun was just rising in the countryside, hidden by a thick circle of dark clouds, but still leaking some light, trying desperately to disperse the fog that lingered in the distance between the mountains, the fog mixed with the smoke of the farmers’ cooking, illuminated by the light of the rising sun, hazy and rhythmic, the hue of vellum soaked in oil, an out-of-this-world scene of idyllic pastoralism, reminding me of the early morning in Ciongzhongluo, Yunnan many years ago, which seemed familiar, not real enough It seems familiar, not real enough. If it wasn’t for the crisscrossing wires, it would have been a beautiful picture.
Arrived at the dive shop, gear, coffee and tea, all ready, no identification, no paperwork, just a happy departure for the dive.
Dive site.
I dived at Belongas Bay for two days, as I was late in booking and wanted to dive more, there was no space left. So it’s hard to give a full and objective account of the dive sites, it’s mainly my personal diving experience.
[South Lombok dive site: MAGNET
It took 1.5 hours by car from the dive shop in Sekotong, over the mountains to the pier. It was a half hour boat ride to the dive site, and the waves were spectacular.
The dive site is a lighthouse on the surface, and the underwater dive site is not big, negative buoyancy dive, quickly swim to the reef, but not too close to the reef, will be swept up by the waves, and not too far away, will be carried away by the flow, also can not miss the underwater reef, there is an open hole in the 32 meters underwater, the platform at the mouth of the hole can hide from the flow, basically wait there hammerhead, hammerhead to see you is favored, hammerhead does not come you can not do anything.
Luckily the current was not too strong today, so the guide dived and took us out of the hole a little bit, and the whitetip reef sharks swam around, no one care, sea cobra swam around, no one care. stream carried down a few metres.
Dive log: maximum depth 34.2m, time 31mins, visibility 10-15m, (less than 10m looking skywards, big surface waves, about 15m looking down) water temperature 24 degrees. The side view of the dive was jagged and the bubbles were choppy.
Day 2, more waves out today and overcast weather. After the first dive MAGNET the visibility was surprisingly good and the current was much stronger, the water was a bit colder, 21 degrees. After the dive, I basically waited at the mouth of the cave, I couldn’t swim out of the corner at all, and when I stuck my head out a bit, the current came in like a gale.
South Lombok Dive Site – Gili sarang]
After the first dive return to the calm beach to rest and have lunch. About 2 hours surface rest, then drive the boat out to break the waves for the second dive.
This is the spot to see the mobula group, the dive site is bigger than the first one, the same negative buoyancy into the water to find the reef, but not close to the reef, here the swell comes faster and the parallel distance is bigger, it is easy to be pushed to the reef, especially when concentrating on taking photos. I was lucky enough to see three schools of mobula, each of about 10, which was not what I expected. The whole dive was still reef sharks unattended, sea cobra swam around us most of the time, and if you do a good job of hovering, there was hardly any time to stop in place, so you couldn’t fix your eyes on the coral either, staring and getting dizzy.
Dive log: maximum depth 23.3m, dive time 44mins, water temperature 24 degrees, visibility less than 10m.
[Dive site basic information].If you look at the dive site location map, MAGNET is a lighthouse in the vast ocean outside the entire island of Lombok. The dive site is small in size and is the path of the Indian Ocean to the Pacific Ocean to do the compensatory flow, and in terms of the plate, there is a large trench to the south of Lombok, so the currents here are complex.
This dive site was discovered 20 years ago by an Australian. He has been diving with MAGNET for 9 years, and 4 years ago he was lost with two clients and drifted for 9 hours to a small island before being rescued. It could be said that he has traded his life for experience. But on the other hand, the fact that there are no experienced guided dives other than his makes the situation here seem even more mysterious, and many of the reviews I have read online are very individual experiences. There have been other dive shops that have tried to do this dive site and have since given up.
Because the dive site is so challenging, Gold Medal Guided Dives only go to this site for three months a year, July-August-September, and when Hammerhead leaves, they don’t go anymore.
Important tips.
1, For me personally this was an extremely challenging diving experience with many firsts. First time after a 31 minute dive with less than 100 air. first time at a 5m safety stop, having to watch the computer meter the whole time, no reference, kicking up and down and sometimes being spun out. First time looking at coral and getting dizzy. The first two dives fundive are not open camera ……
2, dive shop requirements are more than 100 dives have a large flow of experience divers, and will not confirm. So the calm waters out of the 100 dive estimate is not good.
3, two days on the same boat with other guests are quite experienced divers, either easily 2-3000 dives, or in Indonesia working coaches. However, on the first dive of the day, one of the instructors started using a backup air source after 18 minutes of diving. So big currents and big depth dives, the gas kings don’t need to be considered for now.
4. There are many places to see hammerhead sharks and many places to see mobula, so for me it was more of a lot of first exciting experiences. Of course as far as this dive site is concerned, still don’t know how far the menace can go, out of the bay, facing the rolling waves, can’t help but think that the manpower is too weak. The waves are very big all the way around and those who are prone to seasickness should also consider carefully.
5, consulted some information, probably in MAGNET, 30 meters cave platform flow is roller washing machine flow, the first day to go slow speed, the second day to go fast speed. Spin a while stop a while. So there is the feeling of rising and falling and being thrown out. The first time I encountered it, I had all kinds of kicks, and I didn’t know how far I would be thrown out, and how many meters I would be rolled down. In the words of the gold medal dive guide, 1 minute rolls a 10 seconds, and the rest 50 seconds, you have to find the original depth and the right position, and then be rolled again, so you can’t grab the reef either.
Dive shops.
The dive shop that has been operating in Sekotong for many years is called Dive Zone (website: http://www.divezone-lombok.com/) and is the dive shop that guides and arranges the dives. Two Fish (website: http://www.twofishdivers.com/) has dive shops in Bali, Rambunctious, Menado and Rambik, as well as other dive shops in Indonesia. Then in South Lombok is one such partnership.
The DiveZone dive shop yard
The email for booking is: lucya@twofishdivers.com
Recommended dive trips.
1. Stay at Belongas Bay Lodge, which is very close to the dive site, and you can book a three-day package including accommodation, meals and diving. The dive site is about half an hour away from the boat and you will return to Belongas Bay Lodge for the night.
2. Stay near Sekotong, where the dive shop is located, and book a day trip for as many dives as you want, accommodation, meals and diving are all booked separately. It takes 1.5 hours by car + half an hour by boat to reach the dive site, and then the boat and car back to Sekotong for accommodation.
Both sides have limited capacity, so book early before the peak season arrives in July/August/September.
