In case your flight to Bali necessitated you to transfer at Singapore’s Changi airport and you admired the various beautiful marine aquariums there, finding yourself submerged at ‘Coral Garden’ will feel like a déjà vu. So much perfection, you will think, had to be done by a creator, intent on showcasing within the confines of a miniature reef (it starts a mere 10m or less offshore, is perhaps 50m wide and 200m long, dropping into a sandy slope at all but 12m depth) everything reefs of the south-western pacific had on offer. The interaction of healthy soft and hard corals form a stunningly colorful backdrop to all sorts of marine life: hovering small groups of Eye-patch Butterfly fish, Angel fish in all their varieties, Snappers, Coral trout, Lion fish, Puffer- and Anemone fish and Sea perch are just a few to name; look up and you may see a vicious looking but harmless Giant Trevally cruise bye, look closer into niches and crannies, and you may find yourself gazing into a pair of Octopus eyes, and to top it all off, chances that one of several resident Black tip reef shark (totally harmless) shows up to check you out are very real. I often use this site as a ‘last minute’ destination for photographers whose collection is incomplete because they did not find that Ribbon eel. They normally hang out at the outer edge of the reef; the chances that they won’t go home without a close up of a beady-eyed, branch-snouted, gaping portrait of a ‘scream’ are, well, since nothings absolute, 90%!

Diveable : Year round
Maximum depth : 15m
Visibility : 10 – 25m
Current : Low
Level of experience : All (open water certification)