Jukung Dive Shop
This review is for Jukung Dive Shop in Tulumben/Amed region of Bali. A friend and I visited Bali in November of 2012 for a dive trip. We had been diving in Komodo and came to Bali to check out Ubud. Once we were there, some local guides suggested that we visited Amed and Tulumben to dive the USS Liberty wreck.
When we arrived in the Amed region, we had no idea which shop to go to and where we should go but we found Jukung Dive Shop as we were wandering. This dive shop/resort has only 3 rooms to stay in but it was one of the nicest places I stayed at in Indonesia. For roughly $15 a night, it was easily the largest, more comfortable and modern place we found. The bathroom and showers were right outside the room with a nice wall blocking it and it was beautifully tiled and decorated. They also had a small pool in front of the rooms for your use and a restaurant with reasonable prices is inside the resort.
As for the diving aspect of the resort, it was top notch! The shop was very clean and the gear appeared to be very well maintained. Shop had Bauer professional compressors similar to the ones we use at my shop in the US that appeared to be very well maintained. While the owner of the shop was Dutch, the rest of the staff are native Indonesians who spoke English well enough and were extremely friendly. After we were fitted to our gear, they loaded all of it into a comfortable AC van and drove us to the Tulumben wreck. We arrived to a parking lot with only a few divers as most divers like to do this wreck in the early mornings to avoid currents and swell. If you were feeling particularly lazy that day, they will set up all your gear and help you put it on so you really do not have to do much work (we put on our own stuff).
Once underwater, we were greeted with the huge wreck! We got a chance to see many different types of tropical fish, Barracuda, mantis shrimp and angelfish. Our guide was very into photography so he took our point and shoot and took pictures of us as we dove. At several points of the dive, he guided us into large sections of the wreck so that we could check out the insides. He knew that we were not wreck penetration certified so he only guided us through really large sections that was straight forward. We were mostly in 70-90ft of water throughout the dive and came up to the shallows to check out various critters living on the sandy bottom. Water temp ranged from 81 at the surface to 78 at the bottom, while the shop offers you a 3mm or 5mm suit, we were perfectly comfortable going in our bathing suits. Post dive, they carried all our gear in the vans, took us to an outdoor shower there and then drove us back to the resort.
Overall, it was a really great experience! There isn't a whole lot to do top side besides lounging at the pool or beach. You can find shops around that will rent you out a scooter for $5 USD per day and you can explore the region a lot more. However, be careful as traffic rules are non existent in that section of Indonesia and the "police" will pull you over for essentially a bribe. Other than that, it was great to explore the region with our scooter. I would highly recommend this dive shop and the shipwreck dive if you visit this part of the country!
