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Dive Review of Villa Markisa in
Indonesia/Bali

Villa Markisa, Jun, 2013,

by David E Reubush, VA, US (Top Contributor Top Contributor 66 reports with 33 Helpful votes). Report 7157 has 1 Helpful vote.

No photos available at this time

Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Accommodations 4 stars Food 3 stars
Service and Attitude 4 stars Environmental Sensitivity 3 stars
Dive Operation 4 stars Shore Diving 4 stars
Snorkeling N/A
Value for $$ 4 stars
Beginners 4 stars
Advanced 4 stars
Comments Villa Markisa is a small dive resort set in beautiful grounds on the east coast of Bali next-door to Scuba Seraya. I met a couple on two different live-aboard trips in Indonesia who just raved about Villa Markisa so, when I signed up for a trip to Lembeh with Burt Jones and Maurine Shimlock I decided to spend some time at Villa Markisa to make the ordeal of flying to Indonesia more worth the effort. It was a good decision. Within a 15 minute boat ride of Villa Markisa to the north you can find the Liberty wreck and white sand and coral gardens. Within 15 minutes to the south you can find Japanese wrecks and coral gardens. However, the real highlight of Villa Markisa is the black sand muck diving right off the beach and short distances to the north and south. If you are a "nudi nut" this is the place to go. Christiane, one of the owners, is a real nudi nut and claims to have found almost 1000 different species of nudibranchs there, and I got shots of at least one more that she had never seen there before. The divemasters are all locals who Christiane and her business partner, Pedro, have trained. They are all good (and some are amazing) at finding small nudibranchs and other creatures which may be as small as only 2 or 3 mm long. June is their slack month so there were many dives that I did that it was just me and one or two other divers and a divemaster, Christiane and me and a divemaster, or just me and a divemaster. The divemasters often found stuff to photograph so quickly that I could hardly keep up. To help with that problem they typically carried bamboo skewers from the restaurant to mark the nudibranchs they had found so I could find them while they moved on to find more. Night dives were particularly wonderful with frogfish of all sizes, ghost pipefish, octopi, etc. etc. The first dive every day was a 6:30 am trip to the Liberty wreck to get there before the crowds. I did this once and enjoyed it, but slept in the rest of my stay. The weather was extremely variable while I was there. The first couple of days it rained almost all the time (Supposed to be the dry season.). In addition to the rain the wind blew and stirred up the water so the visibility was really low. As the week progressed the rain and wind lessened and the sea calmed down and the visibility improved considerably. I was the only American at the resort. Other guests were Europeans from a variety of countries, Australians, and east Asians (Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia). Christiane had never heard of Undercurrent, but relies on good reviews on TripAdvisor for many of her guests. Traveling alone I had a small room which was in the main building, and perfectly adequate for my needs. The rest of the rooms were much larger, with some in private villas detached from the main building. The dining room was open-air, but under a roof with views of the beautiful grounds. Breakfast was good with a variety of choices. Lunch was the best meal of the day with a choice of several entrees. Dinner was a buffet, which was set out at 7:00. This worked fine unless you did the night dive which resulted in your eating about 8:00 with the food having been sitting for an hour. This is really my only complaint and will definitely not keep me from going back.
Websites Villa Markisa   

Reporter and Travel

Dive Experience Over 1000 dives
Where else diving Australia, Belize, Bimini, Bonaire, Caymans, Curacao, Galapagos, Indonesia (Wakatobi, Raja Ampat, Komodo, Lembeh), Philippines, Red Sea, Southern Bahamas, St. Thomas, Turks & Caicos
Closest Airport Getting There

Dive Conditions

Weather rainy, cloudy Seas calm, choppy, surge, currents, no currents
Water Temp 83-85°F / 28-29°C Wetsuit Thickness
Water Visibility 5-60 Ft/ 2-18 M

Dive Policy

Dive own profile yes
Enforced diving restrictions Don't do anything dumb
Liveaboard? no Nitrox Available? yes

What I Saw

Sharks 1 or 2 Mantas None
Dolphins None Whale Sharks None
Turtles 1 or 2 Whales None
Corals N/A Tropical Fish 4 stars
Small Critters 5 stars Large Fish 2 stars
Large Pelagics N/A

Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Subject Matter 4 stars Boat Facilities 1 stars
Overall rating for UWP's 4 stars Shore Facilities 4 stars
UW Photo Comments The resort has 2 small boats which have no rinse tanks, but that is really not a problem as you return to the resort after most dives and there is a big rinse tank for cameras at the resort. There is also a good camera area in the main building where it is easy to spread out and work on your camera/housing.
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Note: The information here was reported by the author above, but has NOT been reviewed nor edited by Undercurrent prior to posting on our website. Please report any major problems by writing to us and referencing the report number above.

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