When it’s winter in Europe and North America or summer in Australia and New Zealand, it’s rainy season in Bali. And whilst it does cool down a bit, it doesn’t stop us from rainy season tech diving.
If you have not yet experienced a rainy season in Indonesia, let us reassure you: it doesn’t rain all day every day. But for a few weeks at least it does rain at some point pretty much every day. What does it mean for tech diving? It means that we choose our dive sites accordingly.
Choosing the right place
A lot of rain on the hills surrounding Amed and Tulamben means that the rivers running down from these hills swell. Some of that water runs into the sea, limiting visibility. When we pick our dive site(s) for the day after a rainy night, we choose those that are further away from these rivers. Luckily, we have quite a selection. Simple logistics mean changes are relatively easily made, even at short notice.
In any other year, we would have also said that coming to dive in rainy season means avoiding the crowds. For better or worse, anyone lucky enough to be in or able to travel to Indonesia (bearing in mind pandemic-related restrictions) at this time, has the opportunity to have pretty much all of the dive sites to themselves.
In the end, even with the most careful planning, some of the dives will look and feel a bit darker. In Bali, that is almost a novelty for tech diving to 60 m or thereabouts. However, in most other places in the world, that is what you would expect from most dives.
More practice and experience
Looking at it from a teaching and practice point of view, it means having to rely on torch signals more than we do at other times and getting to practice those. In that respect, limited visibility actually helps make our courses and practice or experience dives more realistic. For teaching TDI courses especially, I believe this adds to the overall course experience. Most students are likely to dive in different, darker waters at some point in their tech diving life.
Is tech diving worth it in rainy season? Of course, it is. Experiencing different conditions, adding to the planning of logistics and reconsidering dive site selection all contribute to the learning experience. This holds true for tech diving students and widens the horizon of tech divers joining us for accompanied dives. And it does help if you see the odd Mola Alexandrini!