Tulamben is a small village on the northeast coast of Bali and is famous for its muck diving.  All of the diving is beach diving, so its very good value for money.  The local operators transport your dive kit to the dive sites (by foot or by vehicle), where you kit up and walk in off the beach.  The sandy bottom shelves gently away and is home to a myriad of tiny critters.  We dived the house reef a number of times, including a couple of night dives.

 

Tulamben is also home to the wreck of the USS Liberty.  The Liberty was a cargo ship that was hit by two Japanese torpedos in WWII.  The crew ran the ship aground at Tulamben so that the cargo could be offloaded.  In 1963, the ship was dislodged by an earthquake and now sits in 30m of water.  The wreck is 120m long and lies on its starboard side.

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Komodo National Park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  It ís a complete contrast to Tulamben, with strong currents, drift dives over coral reefs and pelagic encounters.  Komodo is famous for its manta rays.  Most of the mantas we chanced upon were observed at cleaning stations.  All of the diving was boat diving.

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On our last day in Komodo, we visited Rinca Island, which is one of the few remaining places where you can still see Komodo Dragons in the wild.  Komodo Dragons are the world's largest lizard.