Pemuteran: Three Worthy Snorkeling Sites

      We spent seven nights in Pemuteran on the far northwest coast of Bali.  Our original plan was to spend only four nights, which would probably have been about right.   The potential eruption of Mt.

One of the Biorock Structures

Agung caused us to change our plans.  It must be noted that the travel time to Pemuteran is far greater than what you might expect, no matter which way you approach it.  It took over four hours for an experienced driver to travel the 70 miles from Amed to Pemuteran and, just yesterday, over four hours for the same poor fellow to make his way through Singaraja, over the mountains and down into Ubud.  So although on the map it doesn't look very far,  it is a destination not to be taken casually and once you get there it is worth staying for a while to justify the effort.

    As the title suggests, there are three good spots to snorkel from the beach in Pemuteran,  Our discovery was aided by our good friend Peter Kroppje who did some very helpful research in a book

The Hospital de Saint Pau would look at home in the Biorock

on Bali snorkeling.  By virtue of going diving several times, Peter talked to the nice people at Sea Rovers, who were instrumental in helping us find the third site described here.

    The first site I will describe is the Biorock Project.  This endeavor began in the year 2000 with a few steel structures, charged with low voltage electricity.  These were placed in the Java Sea in front of Taman Sari Resort.  Biorock now extends about forty meters along the coast.  The reef in Pemuteran had been largely destroyed by cyanide fishing.  Sounds crazy, right?  But nevertheless true.

  When Sandra and I visited here in 2009 there were some discrete patches of coral and a few sponges.  things have changed dramatically.  As noted in a previous blog, the last two years subjected the biorock reef, and all the other reefs in the area, to high ocean temperatures courtesy of climate

A Dusky Wrasse among the Biorock coral rubble.

change. Now in 2017 the reef associated with Biorock looks a lot like what you might expect coming from Kona: some living corals, but lots of coral rubble as well.  As in Kona, the branching corals seem to have taken the biggest hit.

   The biorock structures still exist, looking ever so much like something envisioned by Isaac Asimov, Buckminster Fuller or, possibly, one of  the Catalan modernisme architects from late 19th Century Barcelona. Those science fiction dudes had little on Anton Gaudi and Luís Domènech Montaner.  If, for example, you picked up the Hospital de Saint Pau, plopped it in the Java Sea and electrified it, it would not seem especially out of place at Biorock.  Perhaps you could get a free tonsillectomy in the process.

     Regardless of the design inspiration, there is a greater variety of organisms on the structures than

Clown Anemonefish living on the Biorock

we saw eight years ago.  Everybody loves Nemo (sorry Raymond) and may of the structures boast anemones with false clown anemone fish.  On one structure we counted four such anemones replete with the cutest little fish on our emerald orb.

    To visit this site, enter on the soft sand in front of Taman Sari or slightly to the east.  In their efforts to deflect the hoi poloi away from their paying guests, the fine people at Taman Sari have placed signs along the beach extolling in English the dangers of entering in front of their hotel (Sea Urchins! Scorpionfish! Sharp rocks!) This is nonsense, of course, but the entry is equally safe on the beach a few meters to the east.  Swim out about twenty meters and enjoy the sea life and the biorock structures. 

    Were this the only spot for the snorkeling in the bay we would have made the most of it.  However,

Gorgeous anemone on the Reef Seen flats.

at least twenty years have elapsed since the end of cyanide fishing on this coast and the marine life is rebounding everywhere.  The second entry we utilized is directly in front of the Reef Seen Dive Resort. The management here seems to embrace the visiting snorkeler.  We utilized an elevated bench attached to a shady tree for changing and all we got from the Reef Seen people were smiles.  As at Taman Sari, you enter on soft sand.  There are residual piles of rocks leading into the ocean from the beach, the remnants of the weighs left over from the fishing days.  And there are tall, sturdy signs  anchored in cement platforms marking the way, in the event that you have any doubts.

   Here you find yourself on a reef flat with recovering coral with occasional patches of grass. Perhaps because the coral has not been force fed by well meaning electricians, there is far less rubble.  The shallow flat extends out about

The mystery damselfish with the peach colored caudal peduncle

thirty meters and then slopes sharply downward.  There are some protruding coral heads in the deeper water and a few mooring buoys. I employed the anchor lines from the buoys to hold myself down while attempting some photographs.

   We snorkeled this reef three times and it never failed to produce interesting organisms.  On my first snorkel, I saw a gorgeous anemone.  We found several hermit crabs, including the blood hermit crab that we know from Kona.  Not for the first time in Bali, did I see a damselfish that isn't in the book.  A handsome gray damsel with a yellow caudal peduncle, the tail trimmed in brown.  Any help from the peanut gallery?

There were several of these colonies of blue sticks.

   I can hardly wait to get back to a library where we can ponder some invertebrate books.  What do you make of this odd, blue organism that looks like a bundle of sticks?

   We chose this site for our last dive in Pemuteran.  Towards the end of our hour and a half swim, we experienced a flurry of interesting animals.  This included the Blue Ringed Angelfish, an interesting

Schultze's Pipefish,  Reef Seen  2017

transitional specimen displaying faint vertical stripes of the juvenile and the classic up sweeping blue lines of the adult, a duo of baby lionfish and what has to be one of the treasures of our expedition: a baby Lined Sweetlips. This three centimeter beauty was flitting in and out of a coral rubble shelter in the sandy grass.   The striped  sweetlips baby is a significantly different shape from its many spotted cousin, which you will recall from the Jemeluk blog.  He is sleek and has longitudinal stripes and a striking chestnut cap.  Like other baby sweetlips, his undulating locomotion is entrancing.  We worked for at least five minutes attempting to catch this quick moving sprite in the open.   I did get two shots with the macro lens, but the fish was just too kinetic and the pictures are poorly focused.  It would have been a fantastic fish even without any pictures. 

   The third spot I'm going to tell you about truly would have been impossible without Peter's

Bengai Cardinalfish at Weedy Pirates  Nov 2017

research.  Pemuteran Bay, a long shallow scoop on the north west coast of Bali, is divided roughly in half by a sandy point.  Just inside that point, perhaps 500 meters down the beach from Taman Sari, is a small pier which is notable at some distance for a large white, two masted sailboat moored there.  The pier marks the inside boundary of what the Sea Rovers Dive Emporium calls the Weedy Pirates dive site.  (The company fashions themselves as scuba diving buccaneers.)  On our next to last day, Sandra, Peter and I made the trek down the beach to this pier, hoping to see a premier muck fish like a batfish or sea moth.  We had been told that they were there, along with anemones and other interesting animals.

   At the foot of the pier there is a small grassy spot and a leaky hose with fresh water, providing an excellent location to transition in and out of the sea.  After entering on the soft sand we swam around the pier, not seeing much of interest.  As we headed slowly out to sea, things changed

Banded Coral Shrimp at Weedy Pirates 2017

dramatically.  Under a piece of stony rubble I spotted antennae, these belonging to a trio of banded coral shrimp.  Adjacent to the stone was a long spined sea urchin housing two extraordinary species, the Bengai Cardinalfish and a pair of sweet little Radial Filefish.  The spines on these urchins are longer than any we have experienced in Hawaii and Weedy Pirates served as home to at least three species of cardinalfish.  They were able to rest the day away among the urchin spines before entering the open water at night to hunt.

    Certainly the shrimp and the filefish were interesting, but the Bengai Cardinalfish is amazing.  Flipping through the pages of the field guide over the years, I have admired this fish, figuring it must be extremely rare, that I would never be so lucky as to see it in the wild.  We spent some time with this group and then swam out a little bit where a screen had been

Toothy Cardinalfish,  Weedy Pirates  2017

submerged creating a home for more animals, among them rested the bengai cardinalfish, now not surrounded by sea urchin spines.

    Over the next hour and a half we swam out towards the point about fifty meters and about thirty meters out to sea; not really all that far.  Over and over we were stalled by new finds, anemones winking in the clear water, hermit crabs, pipefish and two more cardinalfish.  Sandra found a remarkable sea urchin shaped like a corrugated garden hose with a duster on the end.

    At about the same time, we saw two of the most peculiar sea urchins ever.  the globular urchin looks like a royal blue handball to which has been affixed lines of bristles fron a clothes brush.  Very beautiful and most unexpected.  wayan at Sea rovers was able to put a name on this one for us. 

The Globular Urchin... one peculiar echinoderm.

    Halfway through, I spotted a bannerfish that I knew was different for the trip.  It turned out to be the Masked Bannerfish, not in our field guide, I later identified it from an Australian fishwatching site on the internet. We followed this handsome individual for a while.  He wasn't extremely cooperative, but as there was only one of him , he was not so elusive that we unable to get a good shot.

   A bit later, patiently cruising the grassy area, we were lucky to see a jawfish, also not in our field guide, but in this instance not readily identified from the internet either.  Challenges like this make fish watching interesting.  We watched this fellow with crown of red spots and an iridescent blue mustache for five minutes and were rewarded with a couple good

The Brown Barred Goby, Amblygobius phalaena at Weedy Pirates  2017

shots.

   Clearly Pemuteran has a lot to offer the adventurous naturalist.  There is a variety of food and lodging to be found.  I don't see a way around the difficult transfer, be it from the airport or Amed, but if you make the trip you will certainly find your rewards.

jeff