Where To Dive With Manta Rays From Bali

How to book

While the island of Bali itself doesn’t have Manta Rays (that we know of), you can easily take a day trip by boat to go snorkel or scuba dive with these gentle giants. I booked my tour to Manta Point just off the island of Nusa Penida (east of Bali) with a company called Bali Diving. You can contact them ahead of time to plan your trip.

We were picked up from our villa at 7 am and driven to their dive shop at Sanur Beach. Once we arrived, we had to handle the payment first (they allow you to pay with a credit card) before moving to the back of the dive shop to try on our equipment. Their rental equipment seemed new and they had lot of choices. Since I had not yet done my Open Water certification, I chose the snorkeling tour which allowed me to freedive with them but share the boat trip with other scuba divers. Once we were ready, we headed to the beach and hung out for a while as they loaded the boat with all the tanks and equipment.

Sanur Beach is unfortunately very polluted. Plastic garbage lines the beach at low tide

Getting to Manta Point

The crossing to Nusa Penida in a speedboat was very rough! The front of the boat rose up until we could only see the sky out front then slammed onto the waves in a big thud that shook the whole boat. This went on for pretty much the entire next hour. It's the closest I've ever felt to death. If possible, try not to eat anything prior and take some anti nausea tablets (they sell them at the local pharmacies in Bali). I threw up when we reach the dive sit. Not fun, but the fish seemed to enjoy the free food. Alternately, you can take the ferry over to Nusa Penida and go from the shore there. That would be a calmer experience but you will need to stay over.

The boat spent more time on it’s side than flat

We eventually reached a calm bay next to some cliffs where other boats were already present. The water looked gorgeous but there were no rays in sight!

Manta Point

The Manta Rays Appear

Once we geared up and jumped in, we realized that everyone was underwater. There were a lot of divers under us! The dive depth is about 30m here but as snorkelers, you can observe from the surface. Some of the cleaning station are located at much shallower depths so even if you're a beginner freediver, you can meet them face to face by just diving down a few metres.

The giant oceanic manta ray with wingspans of up to 7 meters

The Manta cleaning station at Manta Point, Nusa Penida

The rays were massive! Truly gentle giants that seems to serene fly over the cleaning stations. They rays come to this area because of small fish called wrasse that eat the parasites bodies and dead skin cells off their bodies. The rays get a cleaning and the fish get a meal, it's a win-win symbiotic relationship. These areas are called cleaning stations and they make for spectacular dive sites around the world. Some of them swarm in harmony together. One of them was injured and had lost his cephalic fins. While buying a GoPro was too expensive at the time, I bought a budget action camera called Akaso from Amazon that still managed to take some pretty great photos and videos (like the ones above). Although I have upgraded to the DJI Osmo Action. The water was clean while I visited and it was a good break from the pollution in Bali. However, several videos and photos have emerged online about Manta Point being a bit overrun with divers and lots of plastic in the water.

Crystal Bay

After the first dive, we got back on the boat. If you are scuba diving, you will need to monitor your surface interval time. If you don’t yet have.a dive computer, the Cressi Leonardo is a great budget dive computer that should handle most of your recreational scuba diving needs. I bought mine after completing my Advanced Over Water Course and it has increased my dive confidence as well as saving me from having to spend extra money renting one at a dive shop. For snorkelers, the surface interval is a nice break then you're off into Crystal Bay where you'll be mesmerized by gorgeous coral gardens in beautiful crystal clear water. Scuba divers descended in another, much deeper area where they got to see Mola Molas (Sunfish)! I wish we had time to spend at the beach near Crystal Bay because it was absolutely gorgeous but hopefully on my next trip!

The bay was full of colourful corals and beautiful fish! If you swim out into the deep, you can see some massive fish. Our divemaster took us out where you couldn’t see the bottom anymore, seemed like a good spot for spearfishing. We had lunch provided on boat. The shop packed us a lunch of rice with skewers and a few Balinese dishes. I was so pleasantly surprised. It was the best day of my time in Bali. Nusa Penida was what I imagined Bali would be like. Uncrowded, clean, not drowning in the sounds of scooters and choking on smoke.

The ride back by boat was just as bumpy and the morning ride but after the day we had, it made it more bareable. I can’t wait to go back to Nusa Penida, as well as to head further out east to the Komodo Islands and take a liveaboard to Cenderawasih Bay and Raja Ampat!

As we arrived to shore, we saw lots of fishermen in the water. I also spotted.a Portuguese man-o-war in the water which was so scary yet beautiful. We arrived back to Bali at low tide and headed back to the dive shop. As we were walking, the couple in front of me started picking up bits of plastic garbage off the sand.

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Where To Release Baby Sea Turtles in Bali! (Bali Sea Turtle Society)

One of the best days I had in Bali, other than swimming with the giant manta rays, was getting the opportunity to release baby sea turtles out to sea. While Kuta Beach in the south of Bali can be overly touristy and downright polluted at times, one of the highlights of this place is the Bali Sea Turtle Society.

The turtles come here to lay their eggs on the beaches of Bali. It's pretty incredible that the pregnant females who come here were all born here themselves. They somehow remember and come back to give birth at the same beach where they were born.

Unfortunately, pollution and rising sea levels are having a serious negative impact on the health and population of sea turtles not just in Bali but around the world. The Bali Sea Turtle Society dig up the nest after they are laid and move it to the Sanctuary to protect the eggs from tourists and predators who may dig up and eat them. This increases the hatching rates and gives them a better chance of survival.

Best time to go.

Sea turtle hatching season is from April to October each year. If you are visiting Bali, you can pre-purchase your esim on the Airalo App so you're connected as soon as you land and can call your Uber, use Google Maps and WhatsApp without searching for WiFi. If you sign up with my referral code C0887, you’ll get $3 USD off your first purchase! Most of the shuttles/drivers will communicate via WhatsApp.

Before you go

You'll have to go early to pick up your ticket before the release. They are located on Kuta Beach, you can find their location on google maps. Check our their Facebook page here during the day of to see if they have a baby turtle release planned for that day. It is not scheduled ahead in advance. Sometimes they don’t post anything until later during the day. The tickets are free but I recommended you make a donation if you appreciate the important work that they are doing.

Once you have your ticket, you can come back to Kuta Beach at the scheduled time to pick up your little turtle. The babies sometimes hatch days before and dig their way up and they are tired when they reach the surface. When I visited the nests, the baby turtles that made it to the surface all looked like they were dead. They were immobile but really they were just exhausted. Imagine being born underground!

At the start time, you'll line up and be a plastic container with your own little baby turtle swimming in some water inside. Then everyone will head to the beach. We waited for the signal from the staff then lowered them onto the sand and watched them run out to sea. It was a pretty emotional event watching these newborns run out to the open ocean full of danger and scary predators without any defences.

To make it even worse, only 1 in a 1000 of them will survive. There is a very passionate man that works there who will share his wisdom with the group.

After the babies have made it out to sea, don’t head home just yet. This area of the beach tends to be very crowded but if you have some time after it's a great opportunity to have a beer on the beach and watch the sunset. Any of the drink vendors on the beach will have some chairs for you to chill on while enjoying your beer and it's an easy way to put your tourist dollars directly into the local economy. A lot of these vendors were severely affected during the covid pandemic.

If you have some time in Bali, I hope you visit this wonderful place and give this activity a try! I still think back to this day with wonderful memories.

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