Gili Selang

Overview

Gili Selang is the dive off the small island of the same name at the eastern tip of Bali, reached from the Amed coast and dived for its coral, its reef fish and the chance of sharks and other large animals carried in by strong currents. PADI's dive site guide, written with information from the PADI dive centre AquaMarine Diving - Bali, says the island lies on Bali's eastern tip and that its more exposed areas can have up, down and swirling currents. bali.live describes a small bay closed off by Gili Selang island, forming the easternmost point of Bali, with corals and reef fish of incredible density. Bali.com calls it a challenging spot only for advanced divers, where the strong current between Bali and Lombok hits the north-east flank of the island, and says the site is also called The Express. Dive Concepts, a dive centre in Amed, calls it a unique oceanic dive, and Amed Dive Center describes huge underwater rocks covered with colourful soft coral, and fierce currents that make the site tricky.

PADI gives the position -8.39887, 115.7118, which is the point used here. It lies in the sea about 100 metres north of the islet as OpenStreetMap maps it and about 130 metres off the Bali coastline, which agrees with PADI's description of a sand slope to the north of the island. It is about 4 kilometres south-east of the Japanese Shipwreck record, the nearest published Amed site. Bali.com's own map pin lies about 2 kilometres south-west of the island and is not used. PADI, bali.live, Dive Concepts and Amed Dive Center all list Gili Selang among the dive sites of Amed.

How the site is dived

bali.live gives it as a boat dive, Amed Dive Center says it approaches the island by boat, and Diveplanit, a dive travel company that dived it with AquaMarine, reached it in about 30 minutes by fast boat from Padang Bai and says it can also be reached by road. Bali.com's fact box lists the access as shore; this record sets boat entry and marks it as disputed. PADI says AquaMarine chooses where to dive using local knowledge, tide charts and the conditions, that divers must follow the briefing and stay close to the guide in case conditions change, and that the dive generally starts on a black sand slope that becomes a sheltered reef from about 4 metres. Dive Concepts says it enters the bay facing the rock, which gives some shelter from the powerful currents, and keeps closer to the rock face the stronger the current is. Amed Dive Center says it checks the tide and conditions carefully before diving the site.

Depth

The sources give different ranges. bali.live gives 5 to 30 metres and Bali.com 10 to 40 metres. This record uses 30 metres as the maximum, from bali.live, and marks it as disputed; it sets no minimum, because the two minimums come from ranges that disagree at their other end. Dive Concepts gives 5 to 20 metres for its entry to the bay, and Diveplanit's account of one dive gives 5 metres at the top, 15 metres at the bottom and a median of 12 metres; those are the depths of particular dives, not of the whole site.

Currents and level

Every source warns about the current. bali.live calls the currents strong and unpredictable and says they are especially strong around the island itself; Bali.com says they can be strong; Dive Concepts says strong currents are not rare; Amed Dive Center calls them fierce. The site's sheltered parts are described too: PADI says the deeper parts of the northern slope are more protected, and Diveplanit says the island shelters the site from the current running down the coast and that some areas are a little exposed. This record rates the site as advanced. Bali.com rates it advanced; bali.live recommends it only for experienced divers with a guide and says divers with more than 25 dives may visit it, while its fact box asks for Advanced Open Water with more than 50 dives; Dive Concepts takes only divers with more than 25 dives who have dived at least twice with its guides. Because the sources disagree, the record sets no certification requirement.

Marine life and reef

PADI names nudibranchs and gobies on the black sand, a reef of many coloured soft and hard corals, yellow-margin morays, schooling bigeye trevally, cuttlefish and pygmy seahorses on the gorgonian sea fans, and on the northern slope stands of branching hard coral, bommies, sea fans, soft corals, barrel sponges and coral bushes. Diveplanit describes big coral bommies, meadows of low staghorn coral, sponges, soft corals, sea fans and feather stars, with damsels, anthias, butterflyfish, anemonefish, fusiliers, fire dartfish, a stingray and a scorpionfish. bali.live names blacktip and whitetip reef sharks, barracudas and large schools of fish, sea snakes, and occasionally hammerhead, grey reef, whale and tiger sharks, with manta rays, dolphins, turtles, tuna and mackerel near the island. Bali.com names bumphead parrotfish, hammerhead, whitetip and grey reef sharks, mackerel, morays, jacks, turtles, barracuda, rays and frogfish, and says the strong current keeps much sea life from taking root. Dive Concepts names Napoleon fish, turtles and reef and oceanic sharks. These are operator and community statements, not survey results; none of them says how often any animal is seen.

Conditions

PADI expects visibility of 20 to 25 metres and says thermoclines can bring the water temperature anywhere between 20 and 30 degrees. bali.live gives visibility of 15 to 25 metres, and Bali.com an average of 16 metres and water of 26 to 29 degrees on average. This record does not use those figures as values. None of the sources gives a season.