Mola-Mola. The Sunfish
Bali has its fair share of dive sites, located as it is in the Golden Triangle, where there is a spectacular array of marine life and bio-diversity.
Bali has some of the best diving in the world, often featuring in the top 10 dive destinations of the world. Whether you want to dive a wreck, see fantastic coral, dive with turtles and sharks or you just have a hankering for macro life, Bali has it all to offer.
One of the most strange aquatic visitors to Bali has to be the Mola-Mola or Sunfish as its often referred to; a name it got because of its habit of floating at the surface with its side facing the sun, almost as if it were sunbathing.
Mola’s are shy creatures but during the season are often seen around Crystal Bay, Nusa Penida and Candidasa to name just a few sites. They can be seen at the cleaning stations or just transiting through on their way back to the depths. Most often seen at 20 metres plus, they can be seen swimming at shallower depths; indeed only today, a group of divers on their way to Manta Point saw and snorkelled with a Mola at the surface. Stories of Mola breaching and leaping into the air have been heard on more than one occasion, the reason for which is they are attempting to rid themselves of parasites.
What can be frustrating to divers is the actions of others, who pursue and harass the mola, trying to get that ’perfect shot.’ More often than not this results in the mola disappearing back to the depths, on occasion pursued by obsessed divers, oblivious to the danger they present to themselves and others. Or you get the odd diver that wants to touch the mola, often not realising that this removes the coating that covers all fish, causing immense pain, similar to third degree burns and which can result in the death of the fish.
Mola are a majestic, albeit odd looking fish and are best viewed from a calm and considered distance. There is no need to chase the Mola; quite often they are curious and will swim towards you, playing in your exhaled bubbles. It is down to all us divers to treat the underwater realm with respect, remembering to take only pictures and leave only bubbles.
If you want to see the Mola then Bali is the place to come and Crystal Divers has certainly a very good record when it comes to spotting these fantastic fish. With Toto, Asmui and Amin leading you, your chances are good as they have many years of experience and have seen many many Mola between them.
It is always special diving in Bali but its becomes magical when you see these amazing and yes, strange fish.
Please have a look at one of our videos of an encounter with this beautiful creatures
DDD
BOAT DIVING
First diving for adventure diving is Boat diving, we are already familiar with this kind of diving because we usually start our dive from the boat “Putri Emily”. Emil in charge for teaching us this time, he is teaching us about knots. We will need to make
the knot for buoy, jack line, and whatever we need to tie under water and we need to do that also with close eyes in case of emergency.
These are the three knots…
1. Two and half hitches for quick way to attach line to an object
To make this knot, just take both end of the line. Keep one of the line straight and tie the other end in the same direction. If you tie from above, put it twice above and vice versa. We can see the line is correct when we pull one line, the line will move
2. Bow line for tie line directly to an object – its strong, dependable knot that unties easily. We use this to attach a line to safety marker buoyancy.
There a sentence to memorize this knot: go swim under the cave, go down through the coral and swim above the cave… so make a circle with the loose end below… take the end and enter the circle from below and tie the other line from below and enter the circle from above.
3. Sheet bend for tie two lines of different diameter together.
Look the line to attach then tie the other line from below make a circle tie under the two end of the attach line and go above the circle tie.
I, myself, still a little bit confuse about the two half hitches but I need to memorize how to make it. I need to practice more and more to do that so I can do it with close eyes and maybe with gloves under water.
The next day, when we wait for the limo to the beach, Minni come to us and see what we do with matras beach tie 😛 and teaches us how to make knot once again. Hmmmm, apparently it is so easy. Like I wrote above. Just keep the one line and let the other line do anything! Nicely done… Then we all go to Sanur Channel and Emil explains us about the specific name for the boat and like always we do the rollback entry.
First dive we need to do the hovering and Emil made a game for the first dive, anyone who found the crocodile fish (because its only 2 crocodile fish in Sanur) first time get coke from the bar, and Emil pay for it 😛 and ERI is the winner! And hovering time…..Arghhhhh it’s hard for me to hover!!! We also need to hover up side down. Now I’m buddy with Komang and he taught me how to hover and still I think I am not good enough with this thing.. LOL… practice wulan practice ;P
For second dive I can relieved because no hovering again 😛 We stayed in the jack line and waiting the turn to do al the knot. Some of us did that nicely (I put myself in this group :P)and some of us have trouble to do that. But anyway with good practice, I am sure we all can do the entire knot 😉
