Melasti

Overview

Melasti is a shore-entered muck dive off Melasti Beach on the Amed coast of north-east Bali: a shallow slope of sand with scattered rocks and no coral reef to speak of, dived for small and unusual animals rather than for scenery. Amed Jepun Divers, which lists it as Melasti Amed, calls it a quintessential muck diving site whose seemingly barren landscape hides some of Bali's most fascinating critters, and says it is a favourite of underwater photographers and critter hunters, especially at night. SSI's dive site guide on scubago describes a shore and shallow dive over a sandy bottom with rocks that is a great choice for night dives and macro lovers. Bali Fab Dive says Melasti is its home dive spot, about 500 metres from its dive centre at the end of the street, and stresses that the site has no reef.

SSI gives the position -8.3277, 115.636, which is the point used here. It lies about 40 metres offshore of the OpenStreetMap coastline, about 1 kilometre north-west of the Ghost Bay record and about 1.9 kilometres west of the Pyramids record. bali.live, which lists the Amed sites from north-west to south-east, puts Melasti Beach first and Ghost Bay second, which agrees with that order. Another dive site directory places a point it calls Melasti about 100 metres from the Ghost Bay record, at the centre of Amed village as OpenStreetMap marks it; that point is not used. SSI's older address for this entry carried the words Amed Pyramids in its name, but the entry itself is called Melasti and its point is nowhere near the Pyramids site; this record is the muck site off Melasti Beach and does not include Pyramids.

How the site is dived

All four sources describe it as a shore dive. Amed Jepun Divers says entry is easy from the beach and that calm conditions make it accessible to all divers, and advises diving slowly, because every patch of sand can hold something. Bali Fab Dive says the shallow topography keeps air consumption remarkably low, which suits long dives. Amed Jepun Divers and SSI both single it out as a night dive.

Depth

The sources give different ranges for the site. Amed Jepun Divers gives a maximum of 20 metres and an average of 6 metres, Bali Fab Dive 3 to 18 metres and bali.live 4 to 30 metres. This record uses 20 metres as the maximum, from Amed Jepun Divers, and marks it as disputed. It sets no minimum depth, because the two minimums given (3 and 4 metres) come from ranges that disagree at their other end. All the sources agree that most of the dive is shallow.

Marine life

Amed Jepun Divers names Rhinopias, frogfish, ghost pipefish, a Costasiella it calls the Shaun the sheep nudibranch, harlequin shrimp and mimic octopus, and at night wonderpus octopus, bobtail squid and cockatoo waspfish, with nudibranchs on the sand and sea moths and juvenile lionfish in the debris. Bali Fab Dive names harlequin shrimp, frogfish, seahorses, many nudibranchs and moray eels. bali.live names harlequin shrimp, frogfish, tiger shrimp, eels, nudibranchs, octopuses and sea snakes foraging in the sand. These are operator and community statements, not survey results, and none of them says how often any animal is seen.

Conditions and level

Amed Jepun Divers rates it for all levels, Bali Fab Dive names Open Water (level 1) as the minimum and calls it a site for divers of all levels, and bali.live calls it suitable for beginners; this record rates it for beginners on that basis. bali.live describes the currents as calm to very weak, and Bali Fab Dive lists the current as none to moderate, visibility of 15 to 30 metres and a water temperature of 26 to 30 degrees; bali.live gives visibility of 10 to 25 metres. This record does not use those figures as values. None of the sources gives a season.