In 2024 I travelled to Tulamben for the fourth time and spent just over two weeks diving the north-eastern coast of Bali. I used Liberty Dive Resort, click here to read about the town and dive operations. This was a new site that I had not previously dived in my trips in 2011, 2014 and 2023. There are literally hundreds of potential dive sites located within a few kilometres of Tulamben but only a dozen or so are able to be visited.

Big Tree is located about 3.0 kilometres to the south-east of Tulamben (by road) and next to the Blue Dive Resort. An approximate GPS mark for the dive spot is S8° 17.466" E115° 36.466" (using WGS84 as the datum).

A satellite photo from Google Earth that shows the location of the dive site Big Tree is top left next to the word yana. About 200 metres down the beach is Agung as shown.

After heading south-east out of town, you travel along the main road and then down about 2.8 kilometres from town you turn left onto a side track towards the ocean. This is straight before the dive resort. There are a couple of large shade shelters, some tables/seats, a toilet, shower and camera wash tank. There is also a small shop.

This dive site is very close to another dive site, Agung (click here to read about that site) which is about 200 metres down the beach to the right. That was done as a second dive after first diving Big Tree.

A panoramic photograph of the beach looking north-west

We actually started about halfway between both sites and ended back at Big Tree. The porters carried our gear about 100 metres down the beach and we walked there. Once geared up, you enter water over the black sand beach. It was an easy entry and exit. The attraction of this site are donut nudibranchs. These live on hydroids and are fairly common here. See the photograph lower down.

A flutemouth	Lots of razorfish in the shallows
A large moray eel	One of a few ribbon eels seen

On my dive here I went to around 25 metres down a ridge. In the shallows the bottom is quite rocky and once you get past 7 or 8 metres it becomes black sand. Here are some anemones and clownfish and we saw both juvenile and adult ribbon eels. There are also lots of razorfish. One the sand there are the occasional rock. We headed north-west once at 25 metres and gradually got shallower.

A goby on a red sea whip	Another goby on a sea whip
An absolutely stunning nudibranch	These were fairly common here

As we went along there were quite a few mooring blocks see with ropes and floats going up to 4 or 5 metres. Around the moorings there were plenty of lionfish and a large moray eel. There were lots of sea whips and some had gobies on them.

Back near the dive site sheds, there are some tyres as well as a truck cabin and other structures put there as artificial reefs.

This is a very good dive site and it is well a number of dives, including a night dive or two. So much to see! Well worth doing it if you have the time.

MORE NUDIBRANCHS

Some more photographs, this time of nudibranchs. The first one is the donut nudibranch, Doto greenamyeri.