The Amed pyramids: depth, wildlife and what a dive costs

Concrete on sand, twenty-odd years under water

You go in from the beach, or from a boat a few minutes out. A sand slope under your fins. Then a coral garden, thick with life. Past it the shapes begin: squat concrete pyramids, grouped in threes, sitting on open seabed and furred over with feather stars, soft corals and gorgonians. ^{4, 11, 9}

One diver's log from spring 2024 puts the structures between 18 and 22 meters, with turtles common on the way down and on the way back up. Amed Jepun Divers works the same reef to the right, where it climbs into a wall from 26 meters and the big animals turn up on lucky days. ^{9, 3}

This page covers that one site: the artificial reef operators call the Pyramids, or Pyramids Point, off Amed and Bunutan in Karangasem on Bali's east coast. Depth, wildlife, origin, price. Six dive shops and an encyclopedia footnote describe it, and they disagree about almost every number. All of them are here. ^{3, 8, 4, 7, 11, 5}

Where are the Amed pyramids?

Two named sites, under a kilometer apart, and one word that covers both.

The dive site everyone means sits off Amed beach, toward Bunutan. Wikipedia's article on Amed places it less than a kilometer from Jemeluk Bay, the next bay along. Jemeluk Bay has its own small pyramids and mermaid sculptures on one side, in far shallower water, with the Jemeluk Wall dropping away to the right. Same word, two dives. ^{1, 2}

Other names float around this coast. One Bali diving blog lists Submerged Stupas of Amed and a Jemeluk Bay Underwater Gallery. No operator page gives either a depth or a date, so if a shop offers you one of those names, ask which site it means and how deep it runs. The USAT Liberty, the wreck most divers come east for, lies 12 kilometers north-west at Tulamben: a separate trip on a separate day. ^{12, 1}

How deep is the Amed pyramids dive?

Pick a depth and some shop on this coast disagrees with it. Amed Jepun Divers' page for the site gives a maximum of 30 meters and an average of 14. Dive Concepts calls it a calm drift from 5 to 35. Bali Fab Dive reads the dive at 6 to 20, with the structures resting on sand at 20. Evolution Diver lists 5 to 40. ^{3, 8, 11, 5}

The working answer: the concrete runs from about 4 meters down to about 30, and most of the blocks sit in the middle of that. Shallow enough for an Open Water card at one end, deep enough at the other that the shop will ask what you hold. Amed Jepun Divers names the Secret Wall from 26 meters, off to the right of the reef. ^{4, 11, 3}

What lives on the pyramids?

Structure on bare sand builds an address, and the tenants moved in decades ago. Soft corals, feather stars and gorgonians hold the concrete now. The same residents come up again and again across four operator pages, a diver's log and Wikipedia's footnote, which is the best signal a diver gets that a sighting is routine. ^{9, 8, 4}

• Sand dwellers. Garden eels stand in colonies out on the flats, and blue-spotted stingrays work the open ground between the blocks. ^{3, 8, 4}
• Turtles. Green and hawksbill turtles show up on the descent and the ascent, and the shallows beside the site are known locally as Turtle Point. ^{4, 7, 9}
• Macro. Leaf scorpionfish, nudibranchs, ghost pipefish and pygmy seahorses live in the growth on the structures. ^{4, 8}
• The block dwellers. Moray eels, trunk fish, puffer fish and cuttlefish use the gaps, with tropical fish shoaling over the top. ^{1, 8}

Sharks come up in the accounts too, as the exception. A diver logging the site through spring 2024 saw the occasional baby white-tip reef shark, most often in March and April. Amed Jepun Divers puts pelagics at the Secret Wall from 26 meters, on lucky days. Book the dive for the eels and the turtles. Treat a shark as a bonus. ^{9, 3}

Who built them, and when?

Local fishermen or local diving associations, sometime between the early 1990s and about 2000. The sources part company from there.

Amed's own fishermen and diving associations put the concrete on the seabed. Bali Dive Cove names local fishermen in the early 1990s, working to enhance the reef. Two Fish Divers, writing in January 2020, credits local diving associations 25 years earlier. Wikipedia's footnote, citing five operator pages, says around the year 2000. ^{7, 4, 1}

No government or conservation program claims this reef. Every named source describes the same thing: people who fish and dive this water deciding to give the sand some structure, and then leaving it to grow. That is worth knowing before you book, because the reef predates the rules that now cover the water above it. ^{7, 4, 8}

Those rules arrived in July 2023, when Indonesia's Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries declared the Karangasem Marine Protected Area under Ministerial Decree No. 123/2023: more than 5,478 hectares from Tulamben to Padangbai, in five zones. The Amed and Seraya zone runs past 2,200 hectares and holds a 179 hectare core closed to diving and fishing. ¹³

Ask your shop which zone the boat enters and what the day's fee covers. MMT's marine park and conservation fees page has the questions that get a straight answer at the counter.

What does a dive on the pyramids cost?

USD 80 buys two dives at Bunutan/Pyramids with Ecodive Bali, a long-established dive shop in Jemeluk. Two dives at Jemeluk Beach cost USD 75. Two at Gili Selang or the Japanese Wreck cost USD 85. The site you pick moves the day by USD 5 either way. ⁶

Two dives at USD 80 works out at USD 40 a dive, and the arithmetic changes once you stay a while. MMT prices a longer base in Amed for a diving month, and the Amed guide covers rooms, food and transfers around the diving. ⁶

When should you dive it?

April to November is the dry season, and July to October gives the clearest water. That is PADI's read on Amed as a whole. At the site itself Bali Fab Dive logs visibility of 15 to 30 meters and current running from none to moderate, which is about as easy as a drift dive gets. ^{15, 11}

Amed sits on the far east coast, a long drive from the airport and a longer one from the south. MMT's getting to Amed page has the fares and the drive times, and the Indonesia guide covers arrival, the visa and the tourist levy.

Your first day on the site

Book the site by name, match the depth to your card, and know where the turtles hang out.

Say Pyramids or Bunutan when you book. Shops here run several sites in a morning and the price list moves with the choice. Ask whether the entry is from shore or from a boat, and ask for the planned maximum depth while you have someone on the phone. ^{6, 4}

1. 01

   Bring the card

   Bali Dive Cove usually reserves the site for certified divers, and sometimes runs Advanced Open Water training dives there. Have the certification you actually hold, in the wallet or the app. ⁷

2. 02

   Match the plan to the level

   Amed Jepun Divers rates the site for all levels as a drift and shore dive. Dive Concepts agrees on all levels, then asks for a deep specialty to reach the coral garden at its deepest point. Bali Fab Dive lists Open Water. ^{3, 8, 11}

3. 03

   Check what the insurance wants

   SafetyWing's Nomad Insurance asks for a valid license for scuba diving, naming PADI, NAUI, SSI and BSAC, and excludes charges from an accident where that license was missing. MMT compares cover in scuba insurance costs. ¹⁰

4. 04

   Take the coral garden first

   The garden comes before the concrete on the way out. The shallowest blocks sit at 4 to 5 meters, the deepest past 25, and the Secret Wall starts at 26 off to the right. ^{9, 4, 3}

5. 05

   Find the turtles

   A diver logging this coast in 2024 puts the turtle hotspot in front of Warung Bobo, 10 to 15 minutes by scooter from central Amed. Snorkelers work the same shallows, priced in MMT's Amed snorkeling page. ⁹