Tulamben - Home of the Liberty Shipwreck

Tulamben hosts Bali's premier dive sites and it is the most popular dive area in the whole archipelago. Famous for the bountifully occupied shipwreck "USS Liberty" it also provides a wonderful Coral Garden, a Coral Wall and a Drop-Off which combine to supply a spectacular and complimentary dive location.

Situated about 2½ hours by road from the tourist districts of Kuta, Nusa Dua and Sanur, Tulamben has something for everyone.

According to the world renowned naturalist, Dr. Gerry Allen, the sheer number of species and the black sand background combine in Tulamben to provide unparalleled photographic opportunities! There is so much to see and at so many levels, that all aspects of photography are catered for.

On the eastern headland there is an excellent wall dive and a drop off where sharks are regularly sighted. A great plus is that there is safe swimming and superb snorkelling in the beautiful coral gardens immediately in front of the Paradise Palm Beach Bungalows restaurant - which is the favoured meeting place of the dive fraternity.

Night diving
Night diving at Tulamben is a richly rewarding experience with breathtaking plankton which looked like props from the film 'The Abyss'! Rainbow coloured lobsters cling to the bases of the huge fan corals, sea urchins scuttle about and feathery crinoids crawl to new locations. The Liberty Wreck is particularly exciting with the boiler house providing cover for a school of flashlight fish.

Coral Gardens Tulamben's coral garden provides an excellent and protected environment for shallow water activities; such as the PADI Open Water course confined water training or family snorkelling. The short swim from the beach is fish filled and even floating above the rocks 2 metres from the restaurant steps is a fascinating experience. The marine life is as abundant in the coral gardens and the sand slope as elsewhere in the bay.
	Drop Off / Coral Wall At the easterly end of the bay a laval flow plunges into the ocean rapidly descending to over 50m (160 ft.) in an underwater 'spur'. Following the western side of the spur reveals an abundant coral wall covered in barrel sponges and huge gorgonians. On my last dive with Mike Wijaya, a local Master Scuba Instructor, we paused at a cleaning station here and after taking the regulator out of his mouth a cleaner shrimp swam in fearlessly to search for food!
Sand Slope Also at the east of Tulamben bay is a laval sand slope. This has no coral but provides an excellent backdrop for photographers and is, therefore, suitably supplied with fish in various sized schools. One would not 'dive' the sand slope, rather it is a location to be traversed on the way back from the wall, along the shallow reef, to Paradise Palm Beach Bungalows. It is, however, a lot of fun to snorkel !