Dive Review of Villa Markisa in
Indonesia/Bali

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Villa Markisa, Jun, 2013, by David E Reubush, VA, US ( Top Contributor 68 reports with 35 Helpful votes). Report 7157 has 1 Helpful vote.
No photos available at this time
Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations		Food
Service and Attitude		Environmental Sensitivity
Dive Operation		Shore Diving
Snorkeling	N/A
Overall Rating
Value for $$
Beginners
Advanced
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
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals	N/A	Tropical Fish
Small Critters		Large Fish
Large Pelagics	N/A
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter		Boat Facilities
Overall rating for UWP's		Shore Facilities
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.

Report currently has 1 Helpful vote

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Dive Review of Villa Markisa in Indonesia/Bali

Villa Markisa, Jun, 2013,

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

Overall Rating

Reporter and Travel

Dive Conditions

Dive Policy

What I Saw

Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):

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

Dive Review of Villa Markisa in
Indonesia/Bali