The women of Tulamben carry the tanks down to the water on their heads, and have done for as long as there has been diving here. Four minutes after leaving your room you are finning over a warship.
Scored belowPairs with Ubud
The Liberty was torpedoed in 1942, beached, and then pushed off the shore by the 1963 eruption of Gunung Agung. It now lies parallel to the sand in water shallow enough that snorkellers get the top of it, and eighty years of growth have turned a casualty of the Pacific war into a reef.
Access is the entire product, and what it buys is time of day. Dawn, when the bumphead parrotfish come over the hull in a line. Dusk. Then again at night, when the same wreck fills with animals that were nowhere to be seen at noon. Three completely different dives on one piece of steel, and you never board anything to get there.
The small stuff is the surprise here and it is the real reason photographers keep coming back. Coral Garden and Seraya Secrets are proper muck sites with a shipwreck for a neighbour, which is not a combination available anywhere else in this library.
It is not a wide-angle destination beyond the Liberty itself, and the visibility can drop when the swell is up. What it is, reliably, is the cheapest great dive in Indonesia and the one you can do five times in a day.
No boat, no schedule, no briefing room. Tulamben's whole argument is that the USAT Liberty sits in five to thirty metres of water a short walk from the road, and that you can dive it at dawn, at dusk, and again at night if you want to. Northeast Bali is also, with Bonaire and Bangka, among the best value in this library.
Scored on the same rubric as every other place here, and published whether or not the number flatters. Seven of the seventeen came in under seventy; the lowest is forty-five.
The dot is Tulamben; the pale band is where the other sixteen places on this site fall on that axis. How the scoring works
About as forgiving as good diving gets. You walk in from the beach, the wreck sits between five and thirty metres, and there is no boat schedule. The honest caveat is the entry: when the wind is up the surge over the pebbles makes getting in and out genuine work, and the same swell can drop visibility.
April to October is when Tulamben is at its best. Tap any month for what the water is actually doing.
Visibility, sea state, what is in the water and how much of it you can count on. The season turns at April and again after October.
Most people combine Tulamben with time in Ubud or Sanur, which is why those appear separately on this site.
Twelve of the seventy photographs from Tulamben, the prints among them marked.
Any frame on this page can be licensed for editorial use. Licensing terms.
From the lens recorded in each frame. The settings are what was used here, not a recommendation. Lighting on the print frames: Dual Retra Strobes & LSD (light shaping device), Single Retra Strobe & Light Shaping Device.
The macro is the reason. Pygmy seahorses, ghost pipefish, nudibranchs and a guide network that knows where everything is.
The Liberty is photogenic at dawn before the crowds arrive, and unphotographable by nine in the morning.
Wide-angle scores low and deserves to. Visibility and particulate work against you.
Every frame here was made in Tulamben. One is a limited edition of twenty, signed and numbered. Prices in US dollars. Printed on Canson Platine and shipped from British Columbia.
Six I dived more than once and would plan a week around, named as the resort names them.
Torpedoed in 1942, moved by a volcano in 1963
A hundred and twenty metres of transport lying on her side between five and thirty metres, a short walk from the pavement. Dive it at dawn for the bumphead parrotfish and to have it to yourself. By nine the buses arrive from the south.
Shallow, sheltered, productive
Anemone fields with ribbon eels and cleaning stations, all in easy water. The site to send somebody to on their first afternoon.
The deepest thing on the local map
A steep volcanic wall with noticeably better hard coral than the shallows. Worth doing once for the change of profile.
The muck site that made the coast famous
Pure black sand macro, and the reason critter photographers know Tulamben at all. Scuba Seraya sits directly on it, which is most of the argument for staying there.
Quieter black sand
Same idea as Seraya, far fewer people on it. Useful when the better-known sites are busy.
Rubble, silt, and the rare stuff
Where the guides go when the wreck and the garden are congested. Slower, stranger, and frequently the best macro of the trip.
The reef doesn't change when you switch operators, but your experience does. To help you choose, each option is scored on the same five trip axes. The final rating is a simple equation: the baseline score of the reef plus the specific score of the operator.
The one to book if photography is the point. It sits directly on Seraya Secrets, which is one of the best muck sites on the coast and is effectively a house reef, and the operation is built around people who want to be in the water at odd hours. The money goes further here than anywhere else on this coast, and it is earned. You are close to the Liberty, on top of a macro site, and paying Bali prices rather than resort-island prices. Food is the weak point and honestly so.
Two things nobody tells you. Time it around rain season and Bali gets genuinely surgy — entries and exits with a full camera rig get hard. Ask your guide for a hand; I've watched more than one diver go down trying to exit solo with gear on. The food is average outside of traditional Indonesian dishes. Stick to the Indonesian menu and you'll eat well; branch out and you'll likely be disappointed.
Comfortable, well positioned for the Liberty, and a reasonable base if the trip is part Bali holiday rather than all diving. One practical thing that matters more than it sounds: there is no camera room. In practice that meant two power outlets in the room, an air gun on the dive deck and no rinse tank for a housing, so rinsing, drying and battery changes happen in your room. The air conditioning failed in mine and I moved rooms. That is the two under Camera: not nothing, and not a place to arrive with two strobes and a laptop without a plan.
Asked in the order they actually matter, answered with specifics.
Usually easy: a short walk over black pebbles and a sixty-metre surface swim. When the wind is up the surge makes it real work, and the local women who carry the tanks to the water will tell you honestly what it is doing that morning.
Yes. It is divable year round. Expect more wind, occasional surge and reduced visibility, and be prepared for a slightly harder entry rather than a cancelled day.
As many as you have daylight and gas for. There is no boat schedule. Dawn on the wreck, a mid-morning muck dive, an afternoon slope and a night dive is an ordinary day.
Around three hours by road from Denpasar, up the east coast. Most resorts arrange the transfer, and it is worth breaking the trip if you have just flown long-haul.
Scuba Seraya is set up for photographers. Bali Dive Resort & Spa has no camera room, so rinsing, drying and battery changes happen in your room, worth knowing before you arrive with two strobes.
The right-hand column is the useful one. Tulamben asks something specific of you, and going for the wrong reason is an expensive way to find that out.
There is no trip here yet. Where they go next is decided by who puts their hand up, so this counts as a vote for Tulamben — and it also gets you each new guide as it is finished. Four or five emails a year.
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