Scuba diving in Menjangan

The south coast is mostly a wall dive with a shelf of hard coral full of nurseries for reef fish at 3m, down a coral wall with gullies and open caves, covered in reef-life, down to 45m.

The north coast is mostly a slope, with hard- and soft-coral fields completely covering the flat area at 4m – 9m, with some sandy areas and many coral blocks and small reefs. Off the edge the reef slope becomes steeper, falling away into a shallow wall (down to 35m) covered in coral, and abundantly inhabited.

Each end of the Island gets tidal currents, making for lovely drift-diving along the deep wall to the East, at Batcave, and across the sandy area to the West at Eel Garden (for many, the best dive-site here). Out in the blue you can get jacks, trevallies, tuna, black-tip reef sharks.

Pos II
With a jetty and a beach, it’s a good place for lunch. You can dive directly from the jetty, in the shelter of the small bay, between the walls of the bay, and turn either left (east to Batcave) or right (west to Underwater cave) at any depth you like up from 3m to just over 40m where the bottom of the wall is.

Anchor Wreck
The anchor, where this site gets its name, lies at about 5m, encrusted with coral and still recogniseable with the classic form sticking 2m out of the reef; the thick chain lies in a line down the reef side, easy to follow all the way to the wreck at about 38m; pieces of the wreck are still visible, large beams and bolts, but much of it has already been plundered; tales tell of hundreds of bottles, copper plates etc – now all gone.

Batcave
To the East the wall is vertical and fairly flat, with many massive gogonians, and a huge abundance of all types of coral and life. The tidal currents are stronger here but not uncontrollable and never down or up, so it can make for a fun ride but is never stressful. Good coral growth typical of an area with currents like fan corals, brittle-stars, huge sponges, as well as many typical reef-fish, schooling fish such as banner-fish, mackrel, and a chance of reef sharks.

Underwater cave
To the West the coral wall has many gullies and channels creating many different environments, for many different critters; maybe pygmy seahorses, anglerfish (frogfish), large groupers, etc etc. The currents are never strong here so it’s a garden of eden amongst the corals, with many breeding reef-fish. Look out into the blue for a glimpse of reef sharks, tervallies, maybe Tuna.

Mangrove
lies a little further to the west, starting at a corner where the light shines beautifully down through the coral with beautiful blue light.
Balcony Reef is further west still; like mangrove, here is an amazing amount of life, all down the wall and in particular near the surface on the coral edge, where nurseries for fish make your safety stop a real joy, the corals full of clouds of colourful fish.

Pos I
is another good place to have lunch, and gives easy access to the next dive sites. Start out west from here, and you have some very nice coral on sandy bottom, at easy depths of abut 12-15m. Further round still is Eel Garden

Eel Garden
is probably the most interesting site here. Actually it’s worth several visits; the site has a deep wall (about 65m ) on the north west side, which hold in a 25m deep basin of sand. The south east side is full of big coral blocks with a sandy bottom, where the tidal currents sweep through. It gets its name from the thousands of garden Eels that inhabit the edge of the sandy area where the current rises over a ridge, bringing them nutrients – a wonderful sight!