Cressi Leonardo - The Best Budget Dive Computer (A Long Term Review)

After completing my PADI Advanced Open Water Course back in 2019, I bought my first dive computer right after. I did not know much about dive computers back then and bought a Cressi Leonardo because it was affordable. I have been scuba diving with it ever since and it has served me very well for several years so I think it deserves its own review! I was not paid for this review and I purchased this dive computer with my own money. Below I break down the 6 reasons why I think it’s the best budget dive computer for both beginners and experienced divers.

1. You can’t beat the price!

Scuba gear can get expensive very fast and not everyone has thousands to spend when starting to dive. It was very hard to find a good dive watch for under $300 but I paid around $267 CAD for my Cressi dive watch. The prices vary by colour and by country but even today, it is an unbeatable deal! You can order from Amazon or check out your local dive shop as they likely carry it since this model has been around for several years now. Dive shops often charge extra for dive computer rental (around $10 USD per dive) even when the dive equipment is included so in the long run, you will end up saving money.

2. You can use it as a beginner and experienced diver

With a maximum depth of 132 ft, this dive computer will serve you as a beginner and all the way to an experienced diver. If you decide to do your Advanced Open Water or Deep Diver specialty, you will be covered!

3. It has a Nitrox setting

This is related to my previous point. If you eventually plan to obtain your Nitrox certification, you are covered there too! You can activate the Nitrox option in the settings and dive as usual (I have linked the manual at the bottom of this article as it provides instructions on how to navigate the menu). In short, the Cressi Leonardo pretty much covers all your basic needs as a scuba diver and you don’t need to spend thousands of dollars.

4. The battery lasts for a very long time

You can dive for several days on a single battery. I usually only dive when I go on vacation and I replace the battery around once every year to two years. For a week of diving in the Maldives, a single battery was enough. The Cressi Leonardo also uses a non-proprietary CR2430 battery that is commonly available at pharmacies and small shops so even if you do run out, you can likely purchase one while on vacation. Otherwise order yourself a pack from Amazon and just leave it in your suitcase so you won’t need to worry about it.

5. It’s well built and tough

I have personally dropped my dive computer many times and sometimes I just toss it in my dive bag without a case or protective cover and it has stood up very well against the test of time. Also while diving on a boat, things tend to get chaotic and it's very easy to bump my dive computer with a tank or the side of the boat but there are still no cracks or scratches on it.

6. It has a backlight

The backlight is actually quite dim when using it outside so you won't really notice it when you're on the boat on a sunny day however once you're underwater you will definitely see the difference. The backlight makes the screen more legible during dives, specially on cloudy days or in water with poor visibility. It auto-switches off by itself after a few seconds.

Cons

Now it would be wrong to say this is the perfect dive watch. I have noticed a few downsides, though in my opinion the good outweighs the bad.
The first issue is that it is on the larger side for a dive watch. If you have small wrsits, the watch will seem extra bulky. It also gets snagged sometimes when putting on your BCD.

The other issue I’ve encountered is that the menu can be a bit difficult to navigate with a single button. There is no bluetooth connectivity if you’d like to sync the logs to your phone but I think all of that is overkill anyway, I really just need the dive watch to keep me safe underwater and during my surface intervals. You can copy over the dive logs into the SSI App after your dive as it records the last 20 dives or so in the log.

To summarise, this dive watch has all the basic functions you will ever need as an Open Water or Advanced Open Water Scuba Diver (including Nitrox) at a great price!

You can download a PDF copy of the manual here. I suggest saving it on your phone so you always have it with you when going on a dive drip. It has helped me out countless times, specially when I need to reconfigure the settings and can’t remember how to do it.

Good luck and Happy Diving!

Originally published May 14, 2024

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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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