In August 2006 I dived four locations around Bali as part of a Divequest underwater photography group trip to Bali led by Alex Mustard. Our fourth location based us at The Watergardens in Candi Dasa enabling us to dive the local resort of Padang Bai as well as to take day trips to Nusa Penida Island.

Padang Bai is a small fishing village and port that is only a five minute boat ride from a sandy-bottomed bay called Blue Lagoon known locally as Baong Penyu. This translates into English as Turtles Neck. Alex had arranged two dives to Blue Lagoon with local dive centre, Geko Dive. With the possibility of seeing Wobbegong Sharks and maybe even Mola Mola, I selected my 12-24mm lens for these two dives. Wrong again! With Wayan Pengah as our dive guide and S.Metta Paramitha 1 our dive boat, buddy Paul Morgan and I found the poor visibility and sparse fish life disappointing in comparison with so many recent excellent dives in Bali.

Regretting my lens selection for theses two dives, I arranged a private night dive later the same day taking my 60mm lens. Surprisingly no other members of the Divequest group were interested in this dive. However Steve Wolters, proprietor of Geko Dive kindly introduced me to Jurgen Ritterbach, a diver from another dive centre and with David Ruland as our Dive Guide, Jurgen and I set off in Jukung, an outrigger boat. This was the first time that I had dived from an outrigger. I felt like I was in the opening credits for “Hawaii Five-O”! To begin the dive Jurgen, David and I dropped our BCDs into the water and then jumped in to complete our kitting up. In a heavy swell in the dark this was quite challenging! Underwater photography also proved difficult, not least because the heavy swell seemed to reach even down to our maximum depth during the dive.

Still disappointed with my Padang Bai photographs, I had one last chance. The next day after three scheduled dives at Nusa Penida Island I asked Steve Wolters if it might be possible to do another night dive at Blue Lagoon. Once again no other members of the Divequest group wanted to join me but fortunately for me, Steve was able to arrange a night dive with local Dive Master, Komane Regig and we set off to Blue Lagoon in Wayan Pugir, another outrigger. Conditions were relatively calm this time and I was able to photograph several macro subjects with my 60mm lens including Spiny Waspfish.