The Beautiful Underwater Life in Menjangan Island

Menjangan in Indonesian means deer.  The name was given by the local because of wild deers swim to the island every spring and covering the distance approx 1.2 miles. It is located in North Bali, Indonesia, a small island that part of the Indonesian archipelago. Actually, it is closer to be reached from Banyuwangi rather than from South Bali (Kuta or Denpasar Area) – many people go to the island from Ketapang Harbor.

I know Menjangan Island since long time ago. It is also famous with the National Park surrounded. Once I have an opportunity to go to Bali with some friends, rather than staying in Kuta or seeing the very touristic places in Bali, we preferred to do the day trip to Menjangan Island from Seminyak, Bali – the location of our hotel in Bali. And yes, it is possible to do the day trip to Menjangan, apart from all probably say to you. The risk is, you gonna be sore enough in the evening, but you always can switch your schedule and doing nothing on the next day to gain your energy back. Rather than to stay in the resort near Menjangan which is quite expensive! Plus we chose to do the day trip because we don’t want to change the hotel and move all of your stuff from one hotel to another – that’s kind of trouble, don’t you think?

To reach Menjangan, we use the rental car and go from our hotel in early morning. Around 5 in the morning we already sit nicely in the car and ready to go to Menjangan. The destination can be reached after 4 hours on the road. Around 9.30 am, we already arrived in starting point while our guide, Mbli Dika (Mbli is a common call to use to call brother in Bali) waits on us. To drive to Menjangan you will pass Lovina, another area that famous with dolphins sightseeing in Bali. But Lovina wasn’t our target, we skipped Lovina and go directly to Menjangan.

Usually, tourist comes that far to Menjangan for diving. But to do diving, you need license to make you allow do the dive. We chose to do the snorkeling since we haven’t had the licenses ourselves. But this time, Mbli Dika challenged us to do the snorkeling without life jackets. He even really didn’t bring any life jackets on our boat.

There was 4 people on the trip, including me, and one of my friend can’t swim at all and was so nervous to swim in the middle of the sea, even with the fins. Snorkeling itself is a water sport that you can do, even you can’t swim. For me who love challenge and wild sea, I like to try to swim without the life jacket. And I love it! It’s make me more freely and happy.

Just a warning for those who want to come to tropical place like Bali, or do the snorkeling as we did, don’t forget to apply lots of sun blocks to your skin. I used SPF 100 but still get the sun burn like a lobster.

From the starting point to the snorkeling area, it took around 30 minutes. We passed the beautiful temple but we can’t stop to see. From Mbli Dika we heard about another temple exists under the sea. Yes, it’s under the sea. It’s near Pemuteran, in the border or Bali straits. Local government named the location as Taman Pura (Temple Garden) and put the temple as part of recent environmental conservation program 5 years ago. Sea Rovers Dive Centre describes the site: This spooky location consists of a small temple complex starting at 30 meters and works its way back to the temple wall. Statues of the Buddha, the elephant-headed Hindu deity Ganesha, and sea turtles abound behind an ornate Balinese gateway. The cool thing about the temple, it’s formerly only plain black stones then now changing into colorful stones because of some coral reef and another under water animals live and use the stones as their home.

Photo taken from http://wisdomquarterly.blogspot.com/2011/11/buddhas-under-sea-photos.html

I wish I can do the excellent diving and able to see this beautiful place with my own eyes…

Underwater life in Menjangan itself is really so beautiful and fascinating. You can find many colorful coral reefs and many varieties of fishes. Local people and the divers also really do the hard effort to keep the coral reef naturally amazing and far from trash and damages. I do enjoy lots of swim here and there in Menjangan since the water feel really fresh. It’s like an unity of feeling between me and the sea.

 

Ok, I was so enjoying my time in Menjangan Island since I am in love with beach and water – time flies so fast when I explore the underwater sea and going here and there until I feel like a fish itself. I also learn how to do the free dive here, but shyly admit, I was failed because it’s so so sooo hard…

I am so happy until I made a move like this… 😉

Cheers,

Dea