After a drive of about 45 minutes to an hour we arrived at Villa Markisa: "Paradise found"! Wauw, this looks really great. Yes, we are on holiday again. [sms from home: Griezel, our cat, is back home]
April 9th - The Liberty
Get up early! Appointment at the dive shop at 6:30 in the morning. Today we will do our first dive at Villa Markisa. We are going to dive the famous Liberty Wreck. And since it can be crowded ..... we leave early. The dive guides are a little vague in their communication (because they are still young?), but in 15 minutes all is arranged and off we go to the wreck (I quickly changed the straps from my fins to Petra's as the Aqualung fins from VM are we too big for Petra, for me they will do I guess).
Van Villa Markisa - Tulamben 2010
We left early and are the first to arrive. Wauw, what a beautiful site. And so many fish. All the natives, as described on many stories of the Liberty Wreck, are home: The Great Barracuda, the Bumphead Parrotfish, the big swirling school of Jacks and many more. As it's getting busier by the minute and we are slowly running out of air we move back to VM for breakfast, which is very good by the way.
In the afternoon we head for the house reef. Our guide already tells us before we go in that the Harlequin Shrimp's are gone. Hmmm, pitty. The dive is however very nice. We saw a lot of nice critters. Amongst others a Tiger Shrimp (unfortunately taking a picture wasn't that easy). Our guide spend another 10-15 minutes looking for a small Frogfish, but couldn't find it.
In the late afternoon Petra treater herself to a Body Scrub. It was "Heaven" she said when returning. In the maintime I read my book.
Dinner - a mix of Indonesian and Thai - was very good! (I have to watch myself, I am eating too much)
April 10th - Pink Frogfish
After breakfast - it's approximately 09:00 o'clock - we leave for our first dive of the day: Bulaken. The attraction of this site is a big Pink Frogfsih. And yes, it was a very nice looking Frogfish. We also saw 2 sorpion leaf fish and of course lots of nice little stuff.
Van Villa Markisa - Tulamben 2010
Strange though, that I seem to be using quite a lot of air (after about 30 minutes only 60 bar left). Due to that I fininsh the dive, after 60 minutes, with only 30 bar in my tank. And that hasn't happened for a long time. When checking Petra's gauge she still had a normal 60 bar left after 60 minutes. Hmmm, normally we are quite equal on air usage.
The second dive site was near the first dive site. A nice dive with an Octopus and again, lots of fish. And the air usage . . . . 50 bar left after a 70 minutes dive. Not bad. Not bad at all.
Time for lunch: Gado gado with chicken saté. Jammy.
In the early evening we added a night dive. Very funny, especially all those small eyes in the beam everywhere you look. Small crabs and shrimps. Some little octopus. And a few squid, 3 small ones and a big one (which I could video nicely in the beam of our torches).
Van Villa Markisa - Tulamben 2010
After dinner some bad news: the Harlequin Shrimps (which Seraya Secret, Villa Markisa's house reef is famous for and which we had never seen before) were nowhere to be found.
April 11th - Shoes
Whose shoes are that? . . . . . . And where are mine? . . . . . Hmmm, I believe I have put on Pacek, our dive guide, his shoes yesterday after the night dive. When checking at the dive shop that seemed to have happened. Few minutes later Pacek arrives at the dive shop . . . . on my flipflops.
At 09:00 o'clock we leave for Alumie (left from VM), where after a few minutes, the main attrackion has been located: Pygmy Seahorses (hippocampus bargibanti). We count four of them in the pink fan.
During our second dive, at Emerald, we are acompanied again by the Bumphead Parrotfish. A Napoleon, that seemed to have almost bit my noose, I completely overlooked. I saw Petra and Dharma, our dive guide for the day, making the typical sign, but I thought they ment the Bumpheads. Luckely I saw the second one cruising by.
In the afternoon, after lunch, I finished my book: Hypnose by Lars Kepler. A nice thriller. At the same moment Christianne, VM's owner, and 3 dive guides step out of the water: Success! They found a baby Harlequin Shrimp. So, tomorrow afternoon I may do a house reef.
To finish off the afternoon Petra treats herself to a Spa treatment. And I go or a half an hour swim in the pool.
April 12th - Two-tank dive
Van Villa Markisa - Tulamben 2010
This morning we plan for a two-tank dive. At about 08:00 o'clock we leave for Lipah Bay. A 25 minutes boat ride. The dive site is very beautiful. In the shalows a sunken Japanese Patrol boat, full of soft corals. The rest of the dive site is full of hard corals and, again, loads of colourfull fish.
After our safety interval of an hour (and a bit), in which we had a nice chat with our three (!!) dive guides and the captain, we head for our second dive: a wall. Well . . . a wall. Only for a few minutes than. After that it seems like thPacek had lost his way (it had been 3 months since he dived this site). A lot of death coral, with here and there a nice patch. Unfortunately not too exciting.
Van Villa Markisa - Tulamben 2010
After lunch (Nasi Goreng - aj, we are eating too much here - it's too good) I have a dive on the house reef with Christianne, Dharma and guide "3" (later on I remebered his name is Tisnu). We saw lots of small critters, but unfortuantely no Harlequin Shrimp. Petra spend her afternoon reading her book on one of the sun beds in VM's beautiful garden.
April 13th - Just a wonderfull day
We started the day with two dives. The first one at Kubu, where we saw lot's of nice stuff. An Octopus, a Sepia and two Tapestryshrimp. On the second dive (to Batu Belah) we were accompanied by Christianne - who took all 3 young dive guides (Dharma, Tisnu and Rasni) on the boat the have then gaining experience - and Judith - a friend of the house - joined. Also during this dive we again saw lot's of nice stuff. For example a Brittle Star. After 84 minutes (yes, dives at VM are not limitted to 60 minutes at all) we ended another fantastic dive.
Van Villa Markisa - Tulamben 2010
After lunch (we could choose, so again a Gado gado with chicken saté - so good) we dozed off on a sun bed in the garden. Petra did some reading. I had a swim in the pool. So nice, a lazy afternoon.
April 14th - Baby Baby Baby
Rise and shine! We are trying a second round at the Liberty, so out of bed early. Hmmmm . . . nobody at the dive shop? The captain is also very surprised that none of the dive guides had showed up yet. He immediately calls Dharma to check what happened. About ten minutes later we hear Dharma singing his favourit song - Baby Baby Baby oooh ooh a / by Justin Beaber - when he walks around the corner towards the dive shop (we think he had a little party last night). And now rush rush to the Liberty!
Again - it's such a beautifull site. No surprise it's so famous.
After a lovely breakfast we head for Coral Garden, accompanied by Pacek and "Gegen gegen" (don't know why, but Rasni said that alll the time). A very nice dive with a little bit of everything. The nicest of which a small Sepia.
Time for lunch: Soto Ajam.
After spending the afternoon relaxing we headed for our last dive: a night dive. Luckily the wind had calmed down - after a beautiful morning the whether suddenly changed: wind, thunder & lightning in the afternoon. Again a very nice dive, with again a surprise: 3 Ghost pipefish, a baby Frogfish and same Tiger shrimp.
This last dive of our holiday in Bali was my 299th dive. Petra still tops me, it was her 300th dive!!
Van Villa Markisa - Tulamben 2010
Time for dinner.
New guests. a Swiss bruiser, with wife and son. And a french couple. After the Engineer from California and the weird American couple from Pakistan (and before that Djibouti) we have had quite a circus passing by. Therefore the past two days had been so nice. No other guests, just us on our Private Villa!
April 15th - Damn knee
As with every dive holiday you can't dive the last day. The body has to de-tox before you are allowed to fly. So we spend the whole day being lazy and doing little to nothing. Okay, we had to pack our diving gear and the eveing pack our bags.
Oh no. The knee feeling 'thight' and my left lower leg started to tingle. Shit, it's starts to swell again - just as it did two days before leaving for Bali - now that we have to fly for hours and hours tomorrow.
April 16th - Leaving heaven, heading for .....
In the morning, after breakfast, we settled the bill. At least, we made an attempt. Internet banking didn't work (the connection must have been too slow). And the next option, using a Credit Card, also failed (again, no connection). Fortunatelly Christianne proposed to settle the bill back home. What kind guesture - and so trustfull!
Time to say goodbye - waived goodbye by all (yes all) the staff we drove off to the airport.
The ride to Denpassar (2:45 hours) was quite smooth. So was the check in and immigration. We just had ordered lunch, when we received our first (of many) sms: "Can you fly due to the vulcano?"
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