What Scuba Diving Nusa Penida ACTUALLY Looks Like

In July 2026, I spent a week based on Nusa Lembongan, diving Nusa Penida with Scuba Center Asia.

I dove four sites with two being on Nusa Penida's West Coast (Crystal Bay & Manta Point) and two on Nusa Penida's Northern Coast being (Sental and Sekolah Dessar.)

Each one of these dives were some of the best of my life, and all for different reasons.

From someone with 400+ dives across 5 continents, that's a big statement!

The Dive Sites

I'll now jump into each dive site, explaining where it's located, what I saw, and more, so you can get a better idea of what to expect diving here!

Crystal Bay

Crystal Bay sits on the east side of Nusa Penida, is  30-minute boat ride from Lembongan. This site is famous for the potential to dive with mola mola (sunfish). On my dive, I saw two of them at around 30m (100ft), right around the thermocline where the water drops sharply.

Manta Point

Manta Point could be Nusa Penida's most famous dive site, and is a 45 minute boat ride from Lembongan against Nusa Penida's limestone cliffs.

This is a cleaning station, mantas hold swim through here while cleaner wrasse pick parasites off them, since mantas can't stop swimming due to negative buoyancy.

I had six mantas swimming together in formation on my dive.

SD Point (Sekolah Dasar)

Sekolah Desar may have been my favorite dive of the trip.

Located on the North shore, it's named after a nearby elementary school (Sekolah Dasar is Indonesian for elementary school).

It's done as a drift dive, as the the North side of the island is prone to strong currents.

Sental

Sental is done as a drift dive, and I dove it on the same day as Sekolah Desar on the North shores of Nusa Penida.

I really enjoyed this site too. On my dive there wasn't as much action as SD, but it shares the same reef!

Sites I Didn't Dive

Nusa Penida has over 20 named sites, and I obviously didn't dive all of them! But the four included here are some of the most popular and best dives on the island. If you dive here, you'll likely do a combination of the ones mentioned above.

I'll now jump into two sites/regions that are woth discussing, but a bit more of niche sites.

Mangrove

Divers who've done it describe it as a drift dive along Nusa Lembongan's north side, near the mangrove forest, with moderate current pulling you along a reef of hard and soft coral, sea fans, and anemones.

Divers claimed to see turtles, reef sharks, schools of fusiliers, snappers, trevallies, batfish, and moray eels show up regularly.

For the macro divers watch for nudibranchs and ghost pipefish.

Eastern Nusa Penida

Eastern Nusa Penida is the least visited part of Nusa Penia, due to it's great distances, unpredictable conditions, and limited infrastructure. Diving here does happen, and popular sites seem to be Sampalan and Batu Nunggul, but I haven't visited, so it's hard for me to say more!

Next time I go to Nusa Penida, I will try and dive these sites and share the footage with you all.

When to Dive

Manta Point runs mantas year-round, with peak sightings from March through June.

Mola mola activity at Crystal Bay is seasonal and tied to the thermocline, your operator will know if they're currently showing but April - October seems to be the season.

Sental and SD Point are current and tide-dependent rather than seasonal, current direction can change mid-dive depending on tide, so timing your dive around tide charts matters more than time of year.

Where to Base Yourself: Lembongan or Penida

I stayed in Mushroom Bay in Nusa Lembongan for the week and we did a boat trip over to Nusa Penida's dive sites, all 30 to 45 minutes away by boat.

Lembongan is smaller, has more infrastructure and a calmer harbor to leave from each morning, so it made more sense to stay here.

Some divers instead base themselves directly on Nusa Penida, closer to sites like Crystal Bay or Manta Point, which cuts the boat ride down. I didn't stay on Penida myself, so I can't speak firsthand to what that trade-off feels like day to day.

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