With all the heavy rains in Bali and clogged up trash-filled gutters, streets have been flooded on the island, real bad.
But making light of the mega-flooding, north Bali dive instructor Putu Sudarimbawa decided to exploit the the weather conditions and take advantage of the new “dive spot” on Jl. Raya Singaraja-Gilimanuk in Pemuteran.
Photos and video uploaded to Facebook on Wednesday by Sudarimbawa show the man diving in the middle of the brown, flooded road, donning full scuba gear as other people struggle to drive through the water.
Sudarimbawa confirmed to local newspaper Tribun Bali that he is the man “diving” in the photos and says the photos weren’t just to be funny. He says he posted the pics as a form of “protest” for Pemuteran Village. He explained that Pemuteran is such a popular village for tourism in Buleleng, yet it’s always flooded during rainy season.
“Since tourism started, it’s flooded. Before, when there wasn’t yet a lot of tourism, there weren’t a lot of buildings. Now there are a lot of buildings, so water is pooling up with the lack of sewers,” Tribun Bali quoted Sudarimbawa as saying.
Apparently this isn’t Sudarimbawa’s first time making a “statement” about flooding in Pemuteran. He says he’s previously snorkeled and surfed in the flooded road.
He says he hopes this is the last time he’ll have to dive in the road, but if nothing is done to fix the conditions, then each time the road floods, he will continue to take action.
The dive instructor added that such flooding is not popular with foreign guests and usually means foreigners are turned off and don’t want to dive in Pemuteran.
“I’ve already talked to the village head and he said that the funds have already been raised, but the work hasn’t been done, so it’s not certain how many months longer it will be like this.”
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