Nusa Lembongan

Nusa Lembongan was a really great island, we just spent three days there (not enough). Off the southern Bali coast, Lembongan is where our dive master on the Komodo trip told us to go for good diving. He did not tell a lie and we splurged on two days of diving to take it all in. We had heard that the area was known for strong currents and hence drfit diving. Drift diving would be an understatement--this was slingshot diving! The channel between Nusa Penida and Nusa Cenigan (sister islands to Lembongan) is over 150m deep and about 500-1000m wide and there is an almost constat flux of water moving through. We were lucky to have an old pro with us for our first dive--the founder of the first dive operation on the island--who could judge the conditions and make the call on whether we would descend into a washing machine on spin cycle or on rinse. He appraised the Cenigan side of the channel to be flowing at about 6 knots. Our wide-eyed looks probably dissuaded him from jumping in there, so we went over to Toyapekah wall on the Penida side which was moving a bit slower...but only a bit! We descended quickly and began our 4-5 knot ride along the wall--a wild ride! Amazing to see how all of the animals adapted (or didn't) to life in this high flow environment...reef fish were huddled behind cevices, and totally flailed when they went into the current. I spotted a sea snake that was hugging the wall and managing to hold its position. Corals and other invertebrates were very low profile--almost nothing protruding from the wall.

The other dives were spectacular in almost every way except for one BIG one--where are all the big fish? This question has been nagging us since the Komodo trip. The 13 year old Indonesia diving guide we borrowed at the dive shop describes Nusa Lembongan/Penida as THE hotspot for large pelagic fish, including large sharks. They describe the area as being so shark infested that they almost stopped noticing them. And the dive shop owner, John, told us that if he were to go back to his dive logs from the early 90's he would have said the same. But no more, they just don't see the sizes and quantities of sharks they used to see. And even when Julie and I include the 10 dives we did in Komodo, we can almost count on our ten fingers each fish and shark we saw over 1 meter/3 ft: 2 small white tip reef sharks, 2 or 3 large parrotfish, 1 big grouper, and a handful of medium sized jacks and surgeonfish. In Belize, this is about the same count I can remember after close to 100 dives.

When you go to a restaurant here it all makes sense. Several places had "baby shark" or "baby snapper" on the menu. Seafood often fetches the top price and tourists salivate over the options. Restaurant owners try to reel you in off the street with seafood specials. Even John the dive shop owner, who used to see piles of large sharks, tells us that he doesn't mind supporting the local fishermen because it's "sustainable". Julie and I think it's high time people admit that it's gone beyond that point---these coral reefs in particular may be able to put food on the table for small communities, but not the burgeoning ones with tourism. And the fisheries in these areas are far from being managed. As David Stillaman preached to us when we were in Auckland (he was preaching to the choir), when governments are unlikely to do anything to fix something, it is really up to the consumer to be the wiser one. I don't see many big fish in the ocean, so I would rather see them there than on the menu.

So it has been a strange mix of feelings for us to see these Indonesian coral reefs. On one hand we've seen amazing creatures and beautiful reefs that are teeming with life, while on the other we have seen some reefs that have been severely degraded, some reduced to almost nothing. But regardless of the state of the reef itself, the big fish are just not there.