Muckdiving in Bali - Paradies of the little Critters

Bali – Paradise of the little Monsters

Perfect Camouflage: Frogfish with Amed Scuba

Bali is heaven for an underwater macrophotographer to discover the unusual wilde life of little animals perfectly camoulflaged in black vulcano sand. At some special muck diving places in Bali you might start to understand how the unattractive term of "muck dive" could actually attract so many photographers from all over the world. Within cloudy and muddy water the seemingly plain, lacking in coral, mucky, sandy bottom with of this dive site lives a vast and concentrated populaton of very rare and unusual underwater creatures and bottom-dwellers seldom, or never, seen anywhere else in the world. Target our photographic hunting are little bizar looking marine animals called critters.

Artist of Transformation: Mimik Octopus with Amed Scuba

Main object of desire of many experienced underwater photographers is the artist of transformation in the world of animals. The famous Mimik Octopus. Various other unusual and beautiful animals join him at this muck places. We encountered banggai cardinal fish, fingered dragonets, longspine wasp fish, ghostpipe fish, leave fish, ribbon eals, porcelain craps, imperator shrimp, tiger shrimp, coleman shrimp, honeymoon shrimps, moray eels, blennies, various kinds of scorpion fish like the amboin scorpionfish, nudibranches. We also encountered many frogfish, seahorses, coconut octopuses, seamoth, sepia and the elusive mimic octopus which flet in only 7 meters at the first sight of us.

This oddly shaped animals create the charme of Puri Jati, Secret Bay, Seraya, Melasti, Amed, Tulamben, the Jetty and lots of other unknown diving sites of Bali. And they offer a perfect motive range for every macro underwater photographer.

Honeymoon Shripm in the anemone, Amed Scuba

Muck diving has little in common with the cliche of tropical diving sites. Instead of colourful coral gardens with a huge amound of different colourful fish species and shoals of fish the diver will find moody and cloudy visibilities and less inspiring underwater landscapes. At first sight there will be bleak black lava sand riddled and covered with different kind of wast like car weels and the rest of Balinese ceremonies until plastic.

Kuda Seahorse in Puri Jati

But those who love this kind of diving are sliding in slow-motion careful over this sandy bottom and examine every stone and every waste to look for perfectly camoulflaged little critters which might be hidden under it.

The Critters are perfectly Camouflaged

Next to the Lembeh Strait in the north of Sulawesi, Bali is described in insider´s tip as one of the best dive areas in the world, the mecca for muck diving and heaven for underwater macro-photographers. The muck diving sites in Bali have a lot of shared qualities with Lembeh. Muck-Diving means a kind of mood diving and for underwater photographers this diving spots are heaven – the heaven of the little critters.

Harlequinshrimp mit Amed Scuba