Crystal Bay

Which sunfish do you see at Crystal Bay?

The Nusa Penida sunfish isn't the Mola mola of the field guides but Mola alexandrini, the bump-head sunfish, recognizable by the bump on its forehead and chin and by its rounded clavus, the fin that serves as its tail. It is the heaviest bony fish in the world: a specimen measuring 3.25 m and weighing 2,744 kg was weighed in the Azores in 2021. It lives offshore and in deep water, at 17 to 25°C, and it's the cold water of the southern winter that brings it close to the Nusa Penida reefs, where it rises to be cleaned by bannerfish and then sometimes warms itself at the surface, lying on its side. Indonesia's marine ministry has placed it under a protection plan, and the Nusa Penida marine area has set a code of conduct that dive centers enforce.

What is a sunfish encounter like at Crystal Bay?

The guide leads the group down the wall to the station, between 18 and 30 m, and has everyone settle low against the reef, away from the boulders. The mola comes up from the deep, slowly, and positions itself above the station; the bannerfish rise to clean it. The rule is to wait until it has been steady for a minute before approaching, to stay 3 m away, never to block its way down or pass above it, and to keep your flash off. If it comes closer, you don't move; if it leaves, you don't follow. An encounter lasts a few minutes, sometimes a quarter of an hour when no one disturbs it, and at that depth the cold ends up deciding when the dive is over.

How do you combine Crystal Bay with Manta Point and Lembongan?

The classic day from Bali pairs Crystal Bay with Manta Point, at the southwest tip of Nusa Penida, a cleaning station on a sandy bottom where reef mantas circle year-round, shallower than 15 m, sometimes seven or eight at a time, with turtles, nurse sharks and stingrays; the sea there is sometimes too rough, and dive centers then switch to Manta Bay, more sheltered, at 12 m maximum. The third dive is on Nusa Lembongan or the north coast of Penida, at Toyapakeh, Pura Ped or Buyuk, warmer, calmer coral slopes where a mola or a ray still passes now and then.