Buyuk

Overview

Buyuk is a dive site on the north coast of Nusa Penida, one of a chain of drift sites along that coast. nusapenida.org, a Nusa Penida dive guide, describes it in its guide to the neighbouring site Ped: it says Buyuk continues on from Sental and lies just before Tugu, which the same page places close to the Sampalan ferry port and calls the eastern end of the north-coast dives. Scuba Junkie Penida, a Nusa Penida dive operator, lists Buyuk as a separate north-coast site alongside Sekolah Dasar, Ped, Sental and Pura Mas Gading, and Dive Concepts, a Bali dive operator with a centre on Nusa Lembongan, has its own page for it. Sental has no record here yet; Ped, Pura Mas Gading, Sekolah Dasar and Tugu have their own records.

No source this record uses gives a map point for the site, so this record has no map point.

How the site is dived

nusapenida.org says a dive at Buyuk starts close to the beach, with an entry point just above a very shallow plateau. Coral formations stand out from white sand, and divers descend along a gentle slope and drift with the current, among sponges, sea fans, corals and anemones. It does not say whether divers enter from a boat or from the shore, and no source this record uses states it, so the entry type is not set.

Scuba Junkie Penida describes the whole north coast of Nusa Penida as essentially one long sloping reef, where the site names refer to reference points on land that mark the start of each dive. nusapenida.org likewise says that, depending on conditions and current, a single dive can sometimes cross several of the north-coast sites. A Buyuk dive may therefore run into its neighbours.

Depth

No source this record uses gives a depth range for Buyuk itself, so no minimum or maximum depth is set. Dive Concepts calls the site superb between 5 and 20 metres and says experienced divers can go to 30 to 40 metres to look for mola mola, but the same operator's Pura Mas Gading page uses the same depth sentence and the same coral sentences (corals on rocks in the 12-metre zone, colours from 18 metres up), so those figures read as describing the north-coast slope in general. Scuba Junkie Penida says the north-coast reef slopes gently to around 12 to 15 metres and then drops more steeply to 40 metres and beyond; that is a statement about the whole coast. nusapenida.org passes on, from other dive instructors, a report of a thresher shark cleaning station at Buyuk at 50 metres, and says the author has never seen it.

Level

Dive Concepts says the site is for every diver and that it takes its Open Water students there as well as experienced divers. No other source this record uses states a level, so no difficulty or certification is set.

Current

nusapenida.org describes Buyuk as a drift dive, and its guest account below mentions a small current on a calm day. Dive Concepts says the current at Buyuk is generally very weak whatever the tide and calls it a site for exploring; on its Pura Mas Gading page the same operator instead says it prefers a rising tide to keep the current down for beginners. Scuba Junkie Penida says north-coast currents vary from none to a fast drift, usually running east or west, sometimes pushing towards or away from the reef, and that divers sometimes drift past more than one site. No current strength is set.

Marine life

nusapenida.org describes looking for orangutan crabs, nudibranchs and Thor shrimps, and an image caption on the page adds pygmy seahorses. It says divers keep an eye on the blue because mola mola or thresher sharks can appear, and more rarely a whale shark. The page quotes a guest, Stéphanie, who describes seeing a whale shark less than two metres away while diving Buyuk on 31 December 2019, when she and her buddy were the only divers there; that is one dated account, not something a diver should expect. Dive Concepts says mola mola and eagle rays can be seen at Buyuk, names angelfish, scorpionfish, boxfish, clownfish, batfish, nudibranchs and mantis shrimp, and says turtles and whitetip sharks have been seen from time to time; that list is shared with its Pura Mas Gading page. Scuba Junkie Penida says mola mola are often spotted along the north coast in the right season and that there are several whale shark sightings each year along the coast. No source gives a measured sighting rate or a season for any animal at Buyuk.

Conditions

No source this record uses gives visibility, water temperature or a season for Buyuk, so none is set. Scuba Junkie Penida gives usual north-coast visibility as 15 to 30 metres.

Sources and lineage

nusapenida.org is written by Blaise Jaeger, whom the page describes as a PADI Master Scuba Diver based in Nusa Penida; the page promotes an instructor of the Dune Penida dive centre and was updated on 1 July 2026. Its Buyuk text is a section of its Ped guide, not a page of its own. Scuba Junkie Penida describes the north coast as a whole. Dive Concepts' Buyuk page shares most of its wording with the same operator's Pura Mas Gading page; only its mola mola and eagle ray sentence and its current sentence are specific to Buyuk. Nobody has verified this record in person; it was researched and written by an automated process from the sources named here.