Mola mola hunter’s manual – 5 essential thoughts

Mola mola hunter’s manual – 5 essential thoughts

Every year between July and October the waters around Nusa Penida in Bali are getting colder, and that means Mola mola! These oceanic sunfish love cold waters, and it’s this time of the year that you should plan your Mola mola dive safari in Bali. It’s important however that you prepare your trip in advance. Let me give you a bit of advice on how to prepare you Mola mola dive trip in Bali.

1. Choose your dive operator. Make sure your dive operator has a lot of experience in doing Mola mola trips. The currents around Nusa Penida can be strong, so experience always pays off. The same goes for your dive guides: local experienced guides can make your dives so much better, because they know the area better than anybody else!
2. Make sure you dive in small groups. Sunfish are very shy and definitely don’t like bubbles. Diving in small groups makes it easier to approach a Mola once it’s in its cleaning position. Your dive operator should not have more than 4 guests per dive guide.
3. Use a thick wetsuit. In Mola season we experience cold waters and thermoclines, down to 18 degrees Celcius. Most people wear a 5 mm long suit and hood, or use a 3 mm longsuit + 2 mm shorty.
4. Don’t forget your dive computer. Oceanic sunfish are sometimes seen at the surface, but most of the times you will need to dive a bit deeper to see them. It’s not uncommon to do dives deeper than 20 meters so experience in deep diving is a pre!
5. Reserve enough days. Although we can expect to see oceanic sunfish almost every day between July and October, we can’t guarantee it. The best you can do is book enough diving days so that in case you’re unlucky, there’s always a next day. Also, it gives you the opportunity and flexibility to visit other, less crowded dive sites in Bali for a more intimate Mola mola encounter.

Here’s one of our guest’s picture of a mola mola that they saw during their dive trip.

Hope to see you soon on one of our dive boats to Nusa Penida!