Nusa Ceningan can be reached by boat from Desa Lembongan or by simply walking out to it across the narrow, shallow 200-meter wide channel at low tide. The sea between the two islands is filled with seaweed gardens, so take a guide so you don’t cause damage.

The four-by-one-km island, with a limestone and chalky landscape and a 100-meter-high hill in the center, only has one village and no places to stay. It does offer great surfing, sandy beaches, and lazuli and cobalt-blue coral pools filled with starfish.

Immaculate snorkeling and scuba diving, with superior visibility and infinite small sealife, is possible in the calm, warm, crystal-clear channel between the two islands. Off the temple is a surf break, which can jump in size quickly, as the waves come straight in from deep water onto a shallow ledge. The best way to get out to the breaks and around the indefinite channel between the two islands is to hire an outrigger.

The Balinese spear fish here, using homemade wooden spears. They even spear two-inch fish. Watch the sharks in this area. A Balinese was killed off Nusa Ceningan in 1988. He’d speared a sea turtle and was dragging it bleeding through the water when he was attacked. His headless corpse was found two days later. A dangerous sport.

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