Twin Island Dive’s New Dive Centre in Lembongan

Over the last 6 months, Twin Island Dive has been building a new dive centre in Lembongan. Starting in April, the ground was broken for the foundations of our new dive centre in Lembongan and the chance for us to expand. Conveniently located on Jalan Seaweed, right across the road from where we launch our boat.

We have always had plans of opening another dive centre in Lembongan, that would be closer to the main road and our launch site, to help service walk in guests and as an additional office to that in Twin Island Villa’s dive centre in Lembongan.

As of now, the downstairs office area is open. The upstairs area, will soon be transformed into a ‘speakeasy’ style bar for our divers to relax in after diving and into the evening.

To help us celebrate the opening of our new dive centre in Lembongan, we joined up with World Diving Lembongan for a special dive day and BBQ for Breast Cancer Awareness month. After our amazing dive on World Diving’s Big Boat, everyone was invited to our new dive centre in Lembongan for drinks and food.

How Did We Get Here:

Let’s take a look back at the building process that get us to our amazing new spot:

Finding the right place:

From the end of 2017, Kipp had been quietly looking around Lembongan for a plot of land that would become our new dive centre in Lembongan .

There were a few requirements:

• The dive centre in Lembongan needed to be in a more visual area to help boost foot traffic and bring more people underwater to experience the beautiful diving around Lembongan.  Don’t get us wrong, we love the amazing location that is Twin Island Villas and the stunning views that this office provides us! That is why we will still be running diving from Twin Island Villas as well as our new office.
• We also wanted to be close to where we launch the dive boat, to help with logistics.
• The land also needed to be big enough to fit a office, equipment room, washing area, bathroom, bar and parking.

There were a few other plots that we had looked at, but were not the perfect fit or things just didn’t work out.

Never Ask, Never Know…

There are a few services on Lembongan for when it comes to looking for land. There are 2 real estate agents on the island and then there are private sales. Normally when it comes to private sales, there is a sign on the land with a contact number.

For us, the plot of land was always right there when we got back from diving and we joked how perfect that land would be, but as far as we were aware, the land wasn’t for sale. But if you never ask, you will never know. One day, Kipp and Jenny (Owner of Twin Island Villas) went to the business next door to the empty plot to find out if it was for sale. A few months later and Kipp had signed the land lease.

The Design:

Now that we had a plot, we had to design our new building to make the most of the space that we have.

Kipp designed the building himself and the working drawings were created by an architect in Bali.

The plot was divided in to parts; Office and equipment area (which would be modeled off the Twin Island Villas Office, that Kipp also designed), bathroom and relaxing area. We will also need to build a 2nd level, in order to fit in the all important bar area.

With all of this tucked in the the space that we had, we were left with no space for our water well, water tower and a place for parking. To solve this problem, Kipp meet again with the land owner to negotiate a little bit more land.

It Begins:

Once the ideas had been put on paper and the plans were made, the building process could start.

This is a lot easier said then done. Almost all the building supplies, builders and equipment, needed to be sourced from mainland Bali or Java. This adds to the ‘adventure’ of building in Indonesia and on Lembongan island. This issue also delayed the building a few times along the way.

Some of you may know that during our build, Lembongan was hit by the biggest waves in 50 years. This meant that a lot of cargo boats were not coming over from Java, resulting in our building supplies not being able to get to the island.

But we got there in the end!

Kipp was on site most days to check on the progress (If the builders showed up). Kipp was also on site to point out corrections and where maybe a languages barrier caused some ‘miss understandings’

Although there were some days where things did not go to plan and there were some compromises, we are very happy with the outcome and to have the doors open!

To Finish off:

We are now open! If you find ourselves in Lembongan, we would love for you to pop in and say hi, book some diving or join us for a cold beer.

We would also like to thank everyone who came out to our opening, helped with our charity event and to all of you that have dived with us and supported us over the last 2 years! You are the ones that helped this dream come true!