I woke up nice and early at 5:30am and packed my bags to get ready for a day of diving. The dive trip was arranged through Adventure Scuba Diving Bali (ASDB), a highly rated dive shop on the island. They emailed me the night before letting me know I would be picked up at 7:10am, but because of the traffic in the Ubud area this ended up being closer to 7:20am. I got in the car and met Chad, who is an instructor at ASDB and who would be diving with me today. It was a 2.5 hour drive from my hotel to Tulamben Bay where we would be diving. Chad slept the whole time.

We arrived around 9:50 at Ocean View Tulamben, a Dive Resort on the north east coast of Bali that would be our base of operations for the dives today. We would be doing two dives to the USS Liberty, an American cargo ship that was wrecked along the coast of Bali after being torpedoed by the Japanese during World War II, and was subsequently pushed underwater by a volcanic eruption in the 1960s. The wreck is close enough to the shore that no boat is necessary to reach it. Before the first dive, we also placed lunch orders so that our food would be ready to eat in between the two dives.

On our first dive our objective was just to explore the shipwreck. The top of the wreck is only a few meters below the surface of the water and we did not need to swim far to reach it. The entire hull of the ship was covered with coral and there were lots of colorful fish swimming around. We were on the lookout for stonefish, and we found one sleeping and camouflaged amidst some coral. We were careful not to touch it because they are highly venomous. During our pre-dive briefing Chad said we may see some cuttlefish and reef sharks but there were not any around on the first dive. We did spot some barracuda and pufferfish. We swam along the starboard side of the wreck all the way to the aft, then doubled back and entered the main cargo hold, before finally surfacing. We were down for about 45 minutes. This was actually my first dive since receiving my certification last October, and it went pretty well, although I did consume too much air (about 150bar consumed in only 45 minutes), so after the dive Chad shared some helpful tips on how to improve my air consumption (and some less helpful tips like breathing less)

We got out of the water and headed up to the dining tables for lunch. The nasi goreng I had pre-ordered hit the spot. Chad and I had a chance to chat while eating lunch. He shared that he grew up in Turkey, and has been a dive instructor in Turkey, Cambodia, and Indonesia. I shared that I was just in Turkey and Cambodia, and he joked that I've been following him.

After an hour on the surface, we returned to the water for dive number two. For this dive my objective was to improve my air consumption. I ended up doing pretty well, but I put my mask on poorly before descending, and it ended up continuously getting slowly flooded with irritating salt water, forcing me to repeatedly use up a lot of air trying to clear it out. I also ended up having a lot of trouble equalizing my right ear at around 15 meters of depth, while on the first dive I was able to easily get to 20 meters with no problem. The second dive was less interesting than the first, I think partially because the shipwreck isn't huge and we'd already seen it once, and because at this time of the year the wildlife in this area is not as interesting. Near the start of the dive we saw a sea turtle, which was a very welcome surprise.

We were down for 48 minutes in the second dive. After surfacing I rinsed my equipment and changed into dry clothes before getting in the car to head back to Ubud. I was pretty tired by the time I got back to the hotel, so I tried to find some dinner close by. I decided to go to a nearby babi gulung restaurant. Babi gulung is a traditional Balinese roasted pig. I ordered a deluxe combo which came with some very rich soup and a few different types of meat that I couldn't identify. I was not a huge fan of the dish but it was fun to try. While I was eating, the woman who ran the restaurant brought me a pork satay to try, which was very tasty.

I walked back to the hotel from the restaurant, and stopped for some gelato along the way at Gelato Secrets. I got a half "honeycomb" (vanilla with little crispy caramel bits) and half "cheesecake" (with passion fruit flavor). It hit the spot. After the tasty dessert I went back to my room and promptly fell asleep after an exhausting day.