Bali - Celukan Bawang

Our first stop on Bali was at Celukan Bawang, on the more rural and less visited north side of the island. Our main goal for the day was to find a decent snorkeling site, ideally one that didn’t involve a long boat ride; a beach snorkel where we could chill on the beach for a while would be ideal. Given those constraints, we wound up selecting Pemuteran Beach, about a 30-minute drive from the port. I reached out to the Taman Sari resort and asked if we could get a day pass to use their facilities and they said sure. The offered a driver for round-trip transport, which we accepted, making the whole thing very easy.

The beach was pretty much exactly what we wanted. Decent shade, calm water, and good snorkeling. Bali has not been immune to the coral bleaching that is happening around the world. We saw dead and broken coral. However, they are taking an interesting approach to fighting this. They have devised something they call a “biorock” that acts as a substrate for coral growth. These are pipes into which a small electric current is fed. This current attracts calcium carbonate from the water and quickly builds up a rocky surface. The coral attaches to this and grows. We saw these and action and they did indeed seem to be providing good coral habitat. We saw nice large soft corals along with good-sized hard corals, plus all the attendant fish and invertebrates. Now I did wonder why these corals would not simply suffer from bleaching like all others, so I looked into it. Here’s what I found: “Corals grown on Biorocks are more resistant to bleaching because of the unique properties of the Biorock technology. This method uses low-voltage electrical currents to stimulate the growth of minerals like calcium carbonate on metal structures, creating an ideal environment for coral growth. The electrical currents also enhance the corals' natural biochemical energy production, making them more resilient to stressors like high temperatures and poor water quality.” The bit about enhancing natural biochemical energy production sounds a little handwavy, but whatever, it seems to be working. This was up there with Maldives as the best snorkeling we’d had in a long time. No pictures, sadly, as we have no underwater camera.Read more