In August 2006 I dived four locations around Bali, including Puri Jati (otherwise known as PJ) as part of a Divequest underwater photography group trip to Bali led by Alex Mustard.

We spent two days staying at the ZEN for Energy Lifestyle Resort in the Lovina region of North Bali. Puri Jati lies close to the ZEN Resort and is an excellent dive site for seeing small and rare species including in particular the Mimic Octopus. This site had only been discovered a few years earlier and with no local dive centre Divequest had arranged for Graham Abbot of “Diving 4 Images” to provide tanks and weights and dive guides for four superb dives at this wonderful location.

Fellow BSoUP member Paul Morgan was my buddy on all four dives, our Dive Guide being Anton Kusmayanto. Some of our group saw a Blue Ringed Octopus but unfortunately Paul and I did not. However we were lucky enough to see the rare Mimic Octopus as well as Ambon Scorpionfish, Veined Octopus and Mantis Shrimps.

During our brief stay at this resort, my IBM Thinkpad laptop malfunctioned and did not work again for the rest of this dive trip. Luckily for me Paul generously volunteered to spend every evening for the rest of the trip carefully downloading and backing up all my images for me. I know how time-consuming this is and really appreciated his help.

Some underwater photography trips can be arduous with very basic accommodation. This was certainly not the case at ZEN Resort! If it were not for the logistical complications of arranging dives at Puri Jati, this would be a wonderful location for an underwater photographer to take a non-diving partner. As can be seen in my photograph entitled “Malcolm’s ZEN bedroom” I had a large bed with a huge mosquito net to protect me… and no bedside light. Imagine my confusion when in the middle of one night the mosquito net suddenly collapsed on me and I could not even reach for a bedside light to discover what had happened!