Scuba Diving in Tulaben, Bali

4/20/11 (Amed Bali) Sitting on our bungelow's terrace, the dawn quiet is broken by a strange mixture of girlish laughter and staccato roosters.  The uniformed school girls playing with friends and preparing for class, and I imagine the roosters are calling their fallen brethren who died in yesterday's cock fight.

Stretching below us, arcs a black cobble beach lined with dugout canoes, whose white paint gleams in the morning sun. Their gangly outriggers resemble gangly spiders.  A faint wind tickles the Timor sea, stretching languidly towards the northern horizon. To the west a lava toe of the mighty Agung volcano edges the beach: black rock draped with verdant vines and rippling with palms in the breeze.

It's a good time to reflect on yesterday's incredible experiences. In the morning we donned scuba gear in nearby Tulaben and explored the 395' wreck of Liberty, a cargo ship which was sunk in 1942 by Japanese topedoes on its way from Australia to the Phillipines. I simply can't describe the splendid multitude of fish species or bewildering variety of delicate coral fronds, horns, mushrooms and pods. My favorite memories: a purple spotted ray lurking low, the irridescent lips of a giant clam, a swirling school of silver jack pulsing in a mamoth ball above us, a forest of sinuous garden eels slowly sinking into their holes as we approached, swimming through narrow pasages to the Liberty's cargo hold, and watching Adam, Galen and Leah soaking it all in!