In August 2006 I dived four locations around Bali, including Tulamben as part of a Divequest underwater photography group trip to Bali led by Alex Mustard.

We spent four days staying at the Seraya Resort in Tulamben diving the local House Reef known as Seraya Secret as well as the wreck of USAT Liberty, Batu Niti and Alamanda. USAT Liberty was a cargo steamship which was torpedoed in 1942 by a Japanese submarine west of Lombok and sank while being towed to Bali by US destroyers. Our Scuba Seraya dive guides were Inyoman “Semut” Mefta, Inyoman Degong and the Dive Centre Manager, Renaud Wicky.

I saw many underwater photography subjects that I had never seen before including Pygmy Sea Horses which I photographed with my 105mm lens and a +4 dioptre. Despite the fact that it should have been obvious to me that the Pygmy Sea Horses would be very small I was nevertheless surprised when the Dive Guide pointed one out to me. It was so small that it took me a full minute to realise what he was pointing at! For years Pygmy Sea Horses had remain undetected by divers which, given that they are really miniscule, was no doubt to be expected.

Another subject which I was keen to photograph was Bumphead Parrotfish. In June 2004, while on a liveaboard trip with MY Sea Serpent, I had seen Bumphead Parrotfish on a night dive at Dangerous Reef in the St. Johns area of the Red Sea. Unfortunately the battery in my Olympus C5050 camera failed just as I was about to photograph them and I had not seen any since. I was told that there were some resident Bumphead Parrotfish on the USAT Liberty wreck. However when my buddy Paul Morgan and I first dived the wreck we had to choose which lens to use for two very different potential underwater photography subjects, Bumphead Parrotfish and Pygmy Sea Horses. I chose the Pygmy Sea Horses as my intended subject and selected my 105mm lens with a +4 dioptre. There was no sign of the Pygmy Sea Horses but our Dive Guide Semut pointed out a pair of Bumphead Parrotfish! We saw them again on our next dive at Alamanda and again I had the wrong lens. However when Paul and I returned to the wreck the next day (my Dive 1301) I took my 12 to 24mm lens… and this time they stayed on the other side of the wreck! Paul and I dived the wreck again early the next morning but apart from one Bumphead Parrotfish disappearing into the blue, I was again out of luck. This was becoming an obsession. I had one last chance, the final Tulamben dive was a night dive on the wreck. My buddy, Pedro Vieyra and I combed the wreck, searching, in my case almost desperately, for sleeping Bumphead Parrotfish. We had been diving for quite a long time when at last I caught sight of several moving around the wreck and then Pedro and I discovered one resting in a hole in the wreck. Mission accomplished!