Both Bali and Lombok’s northern Gili Islands have become famous for scuba diving, with beautiful reefs, azure waters, amazing biodiversity and perfect diving conditions. Much less well-known is that the southern coasts of Lombok are also wonderful for diving, with a wide range of available diving experiences from beginner to advanced.
There are four main areas where you can go scuba diving in South Lombok: around Kuta, the surf capital of Lombok, Sekotong and the Southern Gili Islands on the northern coast of Lombok’s western peninsula, Belongas Bay on the south coast of Lombok’s western peninsula, and in the east around Ekas Bay and Pink Beach.
Kuta, Belongas and Ekas Bay all face the Indian Ocean, with its big swells that make surfing so good here, and so many of the dive sites are for advanced divers only, especially the ones further out of the bays where you are essentially diving small islands in the ocean.
South-west Lombok sits at the meeting=point of two big oceanic currents, the Indonesian Throughflow, from the West Pacific through South-East Asia and the Lombok Strait into the Indian Ocean, and the South Equatorial Current that flows all along the northern coast of Australia and along the southern coasts of the East Sunda Islands, before meeting the Indonesian Throughflow at south-west Lombok.
This leads to dynamic conditions that in some places can be quite challenging. But there are also great spots for beginner divers, particularly in Sekotong Bay and at Pink Beach in the east, and all of the dive site areas now have dive schools available where you can take PADI and SSI courses, including beginner certifications.
The two best places to stay are Sekotong, from where you can explore both the northern and southern coasts of the western peninsula, and Kuta, from where you can dive the southern and south-eastern dive sites.
Dive sites in South Lombok include rock formations, canyons and caves as well as coral reefs. Unlike the northern Gili Islands, South Lombok is famous for pelagics, including both great and scalloped hammerheads and schooling mobula rays. You will also see turtles, reef sharks, marble rays, eagle rays, trevally, tuna, barracuda, mackerel, frogfish, scorpionfish, octopus and cuttlefish, nudibranchs and sea snakes.
Belongas Bay
Found on the remote south-west coast of Lombok, Belongas Bay is an extremely scenic place, with rolling forested hills tumbling down to unspoilt beaches. The bay is deep and sheltered, but the big swell coming in from the Indian Ocean can create huge waves that crash onto the shore, especially on the southernmost points of the bay, and when heading out to the furthest dive sites you really are in the great rolling waves of the ocean, with no land for thousands of miles.
The bay is only accessible via a rough road over the hills through traditional rural villages whose way of life hasn’t changed for hundreds of years. The drive from Kuta takes about two hours, because of the poor quality of the roads. The remoteness of the location means limited phone and internet reception, but there is one resort on the beach, Belongas Bay Lodge, where toilets and refreshments are available. (The food isn’t great, so you may want to bring your own snacks.)
There are several coral reefs in the sheltered parts of the bay where you can go snorkeling to see tropical fish. Further out tuna, barracuda, mackerel and wahoo are fished, and chartered fishing boats are available for tourists. But for divers, the biggest draw is the fact that this is where to find schools of hammerhead sharks, as well as mobula rays, white-spotted eagle and huge banded sea snakes. Barracuda schools can number up to 150 at a time.
There are several dive spots in and outside Belongas bay, the best-known being Wollis Pinnacle, Gili Wayang, Surf Corner, Coral Garden, Gili Sarang, Cannibal Rock, Blue Hole, The Magnet and The Cathedral. Of these the two advanced dive sites The Magnet and The Cathedral are the big attractions.
Belongas Bay is not suitable for beginner divers. For the more advanced dives out in the bay and the ocean, dive schools require a minimum qualification of the Advanced Open Water certificate and either 50 or 100 logged dives depending on the season and the conditions. Bringing your own surface marker buoy is usually mandatory, while gloves and a reef hook are recommended. A full 3 mm or 5 mm wetsuit is needed, not least to avoid cuts and scratches when diving in big swells. Divers need to be prepared for negative buoyancy water entries, upcurrents and downcurrents.
Diving conditions
Conditions at Lombok’s south-west coast are variable, and the seas can be rough. The best times to dive Belongas Bay are from April to mid-June and in October and November, when the water conditions are at their calmest (which isn’t very calm). The bay itself is sheltered, but the best dive sites are at or further out to sea than the bay’s mouth by the island of Gili Wayang, and the sea is then always rough with a strong swell.
In the dry season from May to November the trade winds blow from the south-east and in the rainy season from December to April from the south-west. The water temperature usually hovers between 25° – 26°C but can drop lower.
Which dive sites you can visit on any particular day will depend strongly on the weather, and also on the tides, which can also affect conditions and visibility.
Dive sites in Belongas Bay
Wollis pinnacle
This is the first dive site you will meet coming from the beach out into the bay. It’s a large rock rising from the 20-metre-deep sandy bottom up to 5 metres below sea level. Here you will see frogfish, ribbon eels and nudibranchs.
Coral Garden
This is a sheltered dive site away from the big waves that’s suitable for relative beginners, consisting of a chain of small soft-coral-covered pinnacles starting at a depth of 12 metres going down to 25 metres. All of the pinnacles are completely covered with orange, yellow and purple corals including whip corals and gorgonian fans, and also colourful anemones. You will see lots of small tropical fish, moray eels, and the occasional eagle ray and cownose ray.
Boulder city
As the name suggests, Boulder City is a huge pile of rocks, with a 30-metre vertical wall. There are dozens of swim-throughs in the rocks. You will see sweetlips, napoleon wrasse, angelfish and reef sharks here.
This site is found near the small island of the same name, at the outer edge of the bay facing the open ocean. It’s a large collection of boulders and pinnacles starting at a depth of 35 metres covered with big expanses of beautiful soft corals. The big attraction of Gili Sarang is that it is a great place to see mobula rays (devil rays). They swim in pairs or groups of three, and are happy to hang out with divers, creating wonderful photo-opportunities.
These mobula rays school in large groups in August and September, and divers can sometimes be surrounded by dozens of them. You will also see eagle rays, black tip and grey reef sharks, giant trevalies, mackerel, surgeonfish, sweetlips, orangutan crabs, harlequin shrimp, seahorses and nudibranchs.
Blue Hole
This is an underwater cave found just beyond the eastern tip of the bay in the open ocean, where the swells are big, starting at 17 metres and going down to 35 metres. The strong, surging current makes this a site for advanced divers only, and when the surge is too strong your guide will not allow you to enter, as you may not be able to swim out again.
The entrance to the cave is wide, and the cave itself opens out into a dome. You will need to bring a flashlight to be able to see anything, but with the light you will sweetlips, surgeonfish and napoleon wrasses among the gorgonian fans, and schools of glass fishes can be found outside the cave mouth.
The Cathedral
Heading further out into the open ocean from Blue Hole you come across The Cathedral. Its name is derived from its shape, a large pinnacle with two peaks rising up from the 50-metre-deep sea floor to fifteen metres below sea level. The area is exposed to the trade winds and the strong westerly South Equatorial Current, with big ocean swells.
The Cathedral features many sea mounts, canyons, a cave 40 metres deep, and rocky ledges where reef sharks rest. It is an amazing place for underwater photography and video. You will see large schools of eagle rays, mackerel, tuna and barracuda. One of the big attractions of The Cathedral is the abundance of huge banded sea snakes – you will most likely see as many as a dozen of them on your dive. The pinnacle itself is covered with soft corals, home to schooling reef fish and sea cucumbers.
Found in the open ocean to the south-west of Belongas Bay, The Magnet is the divers’ name for the underwater slopes of an above-surface rock with a lighthouse called Batu Kapal, which is the tip of a seamount that rises 80 metres from the sea floor. The site is a 30-minute boat ride from the bay. Conditions here are really challenging, with a strong surge down to fifteen metres depth, and big waves crashing on the rock. Divers enter the water negatively buoyant and must descend quickly to 15 metres to be out of the current. The water temperature drops to 21-24 degrees, so a 5 mm wetsuit is required.
Here you will see tuna, schooling barracuda, white tip and and black tip reef sharks, and sea snakes. But if you come at the right time of year, you will see what The Magnet is famous for: huge schools of hammerhead sharks. It’s what gives this dive site its name: the Batu Kapal seamount attracts hammerheads. Unfortunately, the seas are at their roughest in the hammerhead season, which is June to October; outside of it the seas are often much calmer.
There are two types of hammerheads that come to The Magnet. Great Hammerheads are apex predators that can reach six metres in length and weigh 450 kg. Scalloped Hammerheads are smaller than Great Hammerheads, reaching four meters, but they school in greater numbers than their Great cousins. The Magnet is one of only three locations globally where divers can encounter both of these sharks in numbers, with the Philippines and Costa Rica being the other two.
Hammerhead sharks are not aggressive and usually pose no danger to humans, however knowledge and care are needed when swimming with them, so an experienced professional guide should be with you at all times, one who knows about hammerhead shark behavior, and has expert understanding of the currents, surges, trade winds and the Batu Kapal seamount.
Both The Cathedral The Magnet are only for advanced divers accompanied by experienced guides.
Accommodation in and near Belongas Bay
There is one resort actually in the bay, the aforementioned Belongas Bay Lodge. It only has a small number of rooms. There are some basic homestays available in the surrounding villages; to find them you will need to hire the services of a guide from Sekotong. If you choose this option be aware that there is usually electricity only for a few hours a day, and rarely hot water. The area of Sekotong on the northern coast of the peninsula is the best place to stay, with a range of accommodation options from homestays to expensive bungalow resorts.
Sekotong and the South Gilis
The northern coast of Lombok’s south-western Batugendeng peninsula is part of a wide bay that curves from Senggigi in the north round to Cape Bangko-Bangko at the peninsula’s western tip. The coastal waters are protected from the strong Indonesian Throughflow that surges through the Lombok Strait.
The south-eastern corner of the bay is home to the town of Sekotong, around which most of the hotels and restaurants in the area can be found. West of Sekotong are the South Gili Islands, far less developed than the northern Gili Islands and more mountainous, but like them encircled by beautiful white sand beaches and coral reefs.
Unlike the northern Gili Islands, the local fishermen have never practiced dynamite and cyanide fishing, so the reefs here are unspoilt and perfect. And the remoteness and lack of major development of the area mean that the place as a whole is far less crowded than the northern Gili Islands or Bali. Your tour may well have the dive sites to itself.
The sheltered nature of the waters here means that it’s a great place to learn to dive or to go from beginner to intermediate by taking a PADI or SSI certificate. There are a small number of dive schools in the area, but the more established dive schools in Kuta also offer diving trips to the region.
Here you will see healthy soft corals and hard corals, huge numbers of reef fish, nudibranchs, shrimps and crabs, in a variety of site types including coral gardens, reef slopes, walls, plateaus and caves.
Diving conditions are generally easy, safe and relaxed around Sekotong and the South Gili Islands, but as you head further west the Indonesian Throughflow begins to kick in and conditions become more challenging. At Bangko-Bangko point itself the current is very strong and the waves can be huge.
As usual in this part of the world the best months to dive are during the dry season from April to November, when visibility can be as good as 25 metres, but diving is possible all year round. The water temperature hovers around 25-26°C, and a 3 mm wetsuit is recommended.
Dive sites in the Sekotong and South Gilis area
Below is a selection of the most popular dive spots in the area, starting in the east and heading out west to Bangko-Bangko.
Hadiah Reef
In the Eastern South Gilis, just off Gili Nanggu, this is a beginner’s dive site that showcases a beautiful reef with colourful corals and fish. The reef gently slopes down to a depth of 26 metres, and the current is also gentle. The water temperature varies from 25 to 27°C. Expect to see sergeantfish, lionfish and multi-coloured nudibranchs. It’s an excellent place to go night diving, when you will see a wide variety of crustaceans.
Gili Kura Kura
Another sheltered site with a mild current suitable for all levels of ability, this spot features a coral wall dropping down for 16 metres, where you will see a variety of crustaceans and fish, including juveniles. It is also a goot place for night diving.
‘Batu Putih’ means ‘White Rock’. Here you will see schools of glassfish, ghost pipefish and a variety of crustaceans among the hard and soft coral species. It’s perfect for underwater photography.
Sunken Island
This submerged island to the east of Gili Anyaran in the western South Gili Islands features a wide shallow plateau covered with beautiful coral formations. This then slopes gently down in terraced formations to another plateau at 24 metres deep. The current is mild and visibility is generally 15 metres.
On the shallow plateau you will find grazing Green Turtles and Hawksbill Turtles. As you descend you will see giant anemones, humped parrotfish, crocodilefish, soldierfish, copper sweepers, cuttlefish and octopus. Go deeper and you will see white tip reef sharks, with giant trevally and schooling barracudas in the surrounding sea.
The small island of Gili Rengit is home to several dive sites, all of which are very photogenic, and suitable for all levels of diving ability. The east side of the island features soft corals, with hard corals to the west. Here you will see ghost pipefish, shrimp, crabs and feather stars in the soft coral, with spotted stingrays and cuttlefish as you go deeper.
Gili Rengit Barat
On the west side of Gili Rengit, this easy beginner dive site is a slope made from huge table corals and other corals both hard and soft filled with reef fish, shrimp and nudibranchs. At certain times of the year the site is covered with yellow sea cucumbers.
Gili Rengit Timur
On the east side of Gili Rengit is another coral slope suitable for all experience levels. As well as glass fish and ghost pipefish, cuttlefish, shrimp and feather stars, here you will also see moray eels, blue-spotted rays and white-tip reef sharks.
On the western tip of the Batugendeng peninsula are three more advanced dive sites. The currents and swells are stronger here, so experience is needed.
Stairs to Medang
As the ‘stairs’ in the name suggest, this is a terraced slope resembling a wide stairway that heads down from 14 metres to 34 metres in depth. The underwater landscape is beautiful throughout, with grazing turtles, reef fish and lobsters on the higher steps, and sharks and manta rays deeper down.
Lighthouse
In the middle of the Bangko-Bangko area, Lighthouse is a drift dive starting on a plateau that slowly descends 14 metres into a deep valley full of corals. In the shallower parts you will see sweetlips, emperor angelfish, surgeonfish and large groupers, while further down you will encounter schooling mackerel and white tip reef sharks.
Batu Gendang and Batu Mandi
This is the most westerly and most challenging of all the dive sites in the region, with strong currents, waves and swells. It consists of two massive stone blocks 25 metres deep, Batu Gendang meaning ‘drum stone’ and Batu Mandi meaning ‘wash stone’. Here you will find sweetlips, napoleon wrasse, white tip reef sharks, tuna and schools of trevally and barracuda.
Kuta
Famous as the surf capital of the area, Kuta and its surrounding region have great waves, which means that diving in the area might seem to be challenging. But there are some excellent sheltered dive sites both to the west and east of Kuta town itself which are calm and safe and very suitable for beginners.
In the first half of the dry season April to July the sea is relatively calm compared to later in the year, and this is the best time to go. Visibility is generally around 15 metres.
Dive sites around Kuta
Scorpion Point
Scorpion Point is one of the closest dive sites to Kuta Beach itself. It is partly an artificial reef made of concrete pyramids, covered in hard coral and surrounded by seagrass. It slopes from four to twelve metres deep down to a sandy bottom. Here you will see scorpionfish, sweetlips, anemonefish, lionfish and batfish.
Pelawangan
Found on the south-west tip of Kuta Bay, Pelawangan is a gentle slope consisting of hard coral and rocks with a sandy bottom. Where you can see lionfish, batfish, snappers, lobsters, octopus, porcelain crabs, flat worms and nudibranchs. As you continue out to sea the slope deepens to 25 metres, showcasing some spectacular rock formations.
Gerupuk Slope
Gerupuk Slope is a hard coral wall that reaches down 30 metres. The wall is full of niches and crevices where you will see sweetlips, parrotfish, emperor fish, lobsters, crabs and stingrays, with tuna and trevallies swimming by.
Mawun Inside
This site is actually two sheltered reef diving slopes which are just right for beginners. The right-hand reef is shallow, starting at two metres and sloping down a hard coral formation to a white sand bottom at a depth of nine metres. The left-hand reef is a soft coral slope going down to a depth of 12 metres. As well as reef fish you will also see stingrays and octopuses.
JJR
This site consists of two steep pinnacles very close to each other, forming a labyrinth that’s covered by soft corals and huge sea fans. Here you will see fairy baslets, napoleon fish, shrimp and nudibranchs, with schooling barracuda swimming by. From this spot looking out into the deep blue divers have seen manta rays and even hammerhead sharks passing by.
Tanjung Pokki
Tanjung Pokki is a dive site right underneath a rugged cliff on the south coast in a shallow bay. Underwater the cliff face has collapsed and contains many places for marine life to hide. The dive goes down to a depth of 20 metres, where there is a rocky bottom covered in small soft corals..
Gili Batu
Meaning ‘rock island’, Gili Batu is a rock sticking out of the water off the coast to the east of Kuta, near Ekas Bay, two and a half kilometres out to sea. The rock is the top of a wide underwater hill 80 metres deep. The exposed oceanic location means that there are strong currents and swells, so it’s a site for advanced divers only. You will see reef sharks, tuna and schooling mobula rays.
Mantahari
This site is wonderful for both snorkeling and scuba diving, and its name comes from the fact that it is a seasonal manta ray cleaning station. The site consists of two small islands joined by a reef covered in beautiful soft and hard corals. The islands themselves are home to fish eagles, while the reef is full of colourful fish including sweetlips and angelfish. The area has swim-throughs and overhangs where you will see reef sharks and possibly mobula rays. In season you may see four or more manta rays being cleaned.
Dive sites on the eastern peninsula
The far south-east of Lombok is very isolated and remote, with few roads. But the coast has some wonderful dive sites that have only recently been discovered, and some of the dive schools in Kuta have started doing trips out east to explore them. Here are a few you can ask to be taken to.
Jimmy’s Walls
Found just outside the small bay where Jeeva Beloam Beach Camp is located, the dive site features a shallow plateau eight metres deep where you can see reef fish and lobsters in the soft corals, then further out to sea is a reef with two deep walls housing crustaceans and nudibranchs, where you can see schooling parrotfish and catsharks, while eagle rays, mackerel and trevallies swim by.
Coral Garden
Perfect for beginner divers, this is a safe and sheltered dive site protected from the waves and current. It’s a garden of soft corals 10 metres deep where hawksbill turtles graze, on a reef with a gentle slope down to a sandy bottom. Here you will be able to see giant frogfish, and several species of rays including eagle rays, mobula rays and manta rays, with passing spanish mackerel and skipjack tuna.
Halfway House
Advanced divers can head south from Coral Garden down a slope that becomes a wall 65 metres deep covered in whip corals, sponges and gorgonian fans. Here you will see a wide variety of reef fish, octopus and eagle rays, batfish, snappers ad passing dog tooth tuna.
The very tip of Lombok’s south-east peninsula is called Tanjung Ringgit, from where you can see the island of Sumbawa to the east. There is quite a strong current sweeping south through the strait, making this area for advanced divers only. The site features deep walls and a swim-through cave full of marine life, with schooling tunas, groupers and eagle rays, while dolphins play in the waters above.
Around the peninsula to the north, Tanjung Cumi is a point at the southern tip of a small bay where there is a beautiful reef 8 metres deep with hard and soft corals, where you can see frogfish, ribbon and snake eels, lionfish, devilfish and stonefish, cuttlefish, shrimp and crabs, seahorses and nudibranchs.
The famous and beautiful genuinely pink-coloured beach has a dive site nearby that features an underwater cave. This is for experienced cave divers only. If you enter the cave be warned: it is home to venomous sea snakes!
Dive Schools in South Lombok
There are now quite a few dive schools in the area, as diving South Lombok becomes more and more popular. Most are based in Kuta, south Lombok’s surf capital, but there are now scools in Sekatong and the South Gili Islands.
Dive schools in Kuta
The biggest dive company in Indonesia, Blue Marlin has been established in the famous north Gili Islands for years, and now has a school in Kuta. Their dives focus on the south-east coast, including the sites discussed above.
Scuba Froggy is a PADI 5-Star dive centre offering a range of PADI courses and certifications, as well as kids’ dives and beginner fun dives.
Adventure Divers offer beginner divers whole-day fun diving at Pink Beach, but also teach a range of dive courses, including the Advanced Open Water Diver and Rescue Diver certifications.
The Two Fish are a PADI-trained and certified English couple called Tina and Nigel, who offer small-group dives of no more than four at a time, including long dives of up to 75 minutes.
Dive schools in Sekotong and the South Gili Islands
Go Wild Dive are based on Gili Gede in the western South Gilis, and they offer transport to and from the island and accommodation at Marina del Ray hotel. Their PADI dive courses include Discover Scuba Diving, Open Water Diver, Advanced and Rescue Certifications.
Blow Bubbles are a French owned and run dive centre in Sekotong who speak both French and English. The SSI-qualified owners are biologists and have expert knowledge of the flora and fauna of the local bay.
Odyssea is a newly-established dive centre operating out of Cocotinos Resort in Sekotong , in a coconut plantation fronted by a white-sand beach. They take guests to dive sites around all 13 of the South Gili Islands.
And finally: Go Scuba Diving in North-East Lombok
The north-east of the island is far less developed and organized when it comes to scuba diving, in comparison to the Gili Islands and the south coast. But the area is just beginning to open up for diving.
East Lombok Dive Hotel is a new venture established in Sambelia in the north-east of Lombok. They offer diving at more than twenty dive sites in the area, including three from in front of the beach where the hotel is located, and more by boat trip to North-West Sumbawa. The beach sites start with grazing green turtles, and slope down 40 metres. These sites are perfect for beginners, and for night diving as well.
They offer courses ranging from Bubblemaker for Kids up to Divemaster. Bubblemaker is a fun dive for children eight years old and over, diving between two and four metres to see turtles and tropical fish. Discover Diving is a beginner’s dive course for ten years old to adult, with no previous experience necessary, introducing the world of scuba diving.
You can also take the Open Water, Advanced Open Water, Rescue Diver and Speciality Diver courses and certifications.
