TULAMBEN – Deep & Wreck Dive
Many of divers already know the famous wreck in Tulamben and now it’s our turn to go there….
Early morning we already ready to go to Tulamben to do Wreck dive and Deep dive with our instructor, Paul and his assistant Tom. We need to drive for 2,5 hours to Tulamben but it’s really worth it for a nice and amazing place like Tulamben!
The first dive was about Deep Dive -the water was so nice that day, No wave and the visibility was 30m -we will do this dive in Coral Garden to check our Narcosis in 30 meters depth. Paul asked us to do some task under the water, he asked us to touch the number in the slate and touch our nose after we got each number. Beside that he took empty aqua bottle and show us it squeeze under the water. On the surface he asked us to do the same thing while under the water so we will know how much time and how big the difference between the surface and under the water. Along the way we saw many new fishes (well maybe its only for me again :p) such as ornate ghost pipefish ( 3 at once!), blue spotted stingray, napoleon wrase, black ribbon eel, clarck’s anemone fish, short nose pipefish, emperor juvenile angel fish, morish idol, surgeon fish(black spine), bignose unicorn fish and many else! Thanks to Paul who asked us to find the name after the dive so I still can write it in here ^^
“This is American cargo ship in second world war II in 1942. Torpedo by Japanese submarine, in south west of Lombok. In that time the ship leaking and too much water come to the ship. In 1942, the ship comes to the shore in tulamben, at that time everybody can see the ship from the beach. 1963, the biggest mountain eruption ( Agung mountain) and push the ship to the deep water. From the shore to the ship just 30 meters out and from the surface only 4-5 meter deep. The long of the ship wreck is 120meter long and they had 2 torpedos, the first torpedo is shallow point in the stern around 16 meter deep and the second torpedo in the bow around 25 or 26 meter deep. And also the ship has big room and you can come inside. You can see small steering wheel in engine room. You will be enjoyed diving in liberty ship wreck because so many fish, nice coral and also you can see schooling of jackfish. The maximum depth of the wreck is 30 meter. “ That was a story about USST Liberty Wreck in Tulamben, Eri – one of us is from Tulamben and he already familiar with the spot for long time. ( Well I make him tell me once more when I wrote the blog :p)
So after listened to his story we are ready for the second dive! WRECK dive…. When I saw the wreck for the first time there I was amaze, shock, happy and excited. That was really incredible feeling to see such a beautiful things and creature around the wreck. We saw school of Jackfish above the wreck. They swim together and make like a tornado shape, I really can’t describe my feeling that time – my eyes can tell how happy I was! Around the wreck we also found many fishes. We took a couple shoot of under water that time so maybe I will not say anything anymore just enjoy the picture!