Spending a week in Amed (Bali) was not appealing to my non-scuba diver friends. The area is popular for scuba divers and freedivers. It’s a fishing village on Bali’s East coast that hosts numerous scuba diving and freediving schools/centres, bars, restaurants, and small-medium scale resorts.

As I arrived in late 2021, still in the pandemic era with numerous travel restrictions that – thankfully – I could cope with, Amed was stranded. Empty. The restaurants and bars along the street and beach were closed at 9 pm; some even closed earlier. I had been to Amed multiple times before the pandemic, and the village had never been that empty. I was the only guest in the dive resort. It’s a bit weird on the first night especially since all staff left the resort after 9 pm. Leaving me alone in a huge resort!

Dive sites in Amed are popular for freediving as well. Numerous schools to learn freediving are available along the coast. I met three freedivers who stayed in Amed during the pandemic. They claimed the area was comfortable and also beautiful to dive in. The advantage to doing freediving was that we would not depend on dive centres to rent the tanks and not have much hassle with the diving equipment. As curious as I am to do the freediving, in the end, I decided to continue with my scuba 😀 I wanted to stay long underwater!!

While dive sites for scuba diving in Amed offered interesting sights. Mostly tiny little critters such as nudibranch, baby frogfish, and shrimps. The following video is baby frogfish that is less than 2 cm! Thanks to the amazing eyes of my dive guide, Bli Botol!

We also visited a dive site where the stingrays were rested. It was sort of a cleaning station of the rays. At least I saw more than ten stingrays!

If you were in Bali and loved water sports like scuba diving or freediving, Amed is a place to visit!