This trip wasn’t even under my radar until I met Jim (whom we knew through my last lembeh trip) for lunch a week ago. I told him I wanted to go on a dive trip this week but have not booked anything yet because layang layang was full, gorontalo was off season. So it was down to Cebu and raja ampat (which cost quite a bomb). Then he mentioned Komodo and I vaguely remembered rave reviews from divers I’ve met on trips previously. The only dates I was available was on the black manta, which took us out on a 5 day liveaboard around the island of Komodo. I was offered a deal to share the bunk with another diver, which greatly reduced the cost of the trip. That’s actually one of the main reasons for picking this over a land based trip to Cebu. Within 3 days, I was on my flight to bali which I stayed for a night before taking another flight to labuan Bajo.
Labuan Bajo is a sleepy fishing village that is not touristy at all. Instead of taking a day tour to the waterfalls and caves, i opted for a self exploratory trip down the town and the village. By dusk, i was lying beside the pool enjoying the first of many awesome Komodo sunset. The next day, a taxi took me to black manta’s rendezvous point from golo hilltop resort. After a short boat transfer, i was onboard the pretty impressive mv black manta. It was way bigger and better than my expectations. From the dive deck all the way to the cabin, everything was very well thought out. My first impression was, this boat was ‘designed by divers, for divers’. Thanks to its steel hull, its incredibly stable too.
Cedric, the trip director, gave us a very detailed briefing before we set off to our very first dive site. Check out dive #1, we jumped in and landed on a turtle (it was a few meters below) and the first critter we saw, two lembeh sea dragons! A very good way begin the trip even though I didn’t fire a single shot because I brought an empty housing for the check dive. Overall the dives were pretty good with a mix of macro and pelagics. The marine life is very healthy with alot of reef fishes and corals on every dive. The more memorable dives were in crystal rock, castle rock, manta alley, pink beach (night dive) and shotgun.
Before we began our trip, I asked Cedric what was there to see at Castle Rock and Crystal Rock (both being the first two real dives of the trip). He said, crystal rock is like heaven with beautiful corals and colorful reef fishes. Castle Rock on the other hand, is like hell, where all the feeding action was. However, Crystal rock was memorable for the wrong reasons as we got caught in massive current after missing a narrow sweet spot upon entry. There were times you know you can swim really hard against the current and there were times where you know you don’t event stand a chance fighting. This was one of them and our first taste of the notorious currents in Komodo. We were battered so badly and eventually seeked refuge at a small plateau looking at reef fishes instead of the supposedly pelagic actions. That said, one of the groups managed to get to the end of the rock and had a visual feast on some shark action.
From our lesson learned at crystal rock, we handled castle Rock alot better. With a quick negative entry, we were able to get to where the action was. White tip sharks patrol the reef outcrop with plenty of marine life. It was definitely an eye feast. The reef hook was deployed and it worked really well under those conditions, freeing up my hands for the camera. After the dive, I told Cedric, I very much prefer hell:D Shotgun was supposed to sort of a drift dive through a rocky formation, unfortunately or fortunately, the currents were not really strong on that dive. But the rocky formations were really pretty. It felt like we were swimming through some underwater castle and expecting to hit the “shotgun” spot anytime. I’m sure Cedric’s awesome pre-dive briefing has got something to do with it.
Our first step into Komodo island was on pink beach. On that small sandy stretch of sand, one could see a pinkish hue under the late afternoon sun. Thanks to the small pink particles that were washed from the sea. The night dive at pink beach was spectacular. It’s a white sand muck dive site with extremely rich marine life. Among usual shrimps and crabs, we also found juvenile hairy frog fishes as well as some variation of the hairy shrimp.
I’m not sure if they deliberately put manta alley on the last day. If they did, the mantas must’ve heard their prayers. Sea was calm with manageable currents (by Komodo’s standards). The manta’s were out to party with no lesser than 12-15 of them. Some were really huge with wing spans easily exceeding 6m. I propped myself against a bare rocky outcrop and watched them circle right in front of me, sometimes coming within touching distances. As we explored the Site, mantas tend to appear from nowhere, sometimes slowing down to check us out. Manta alley impressed us enough to warrant another dive on the same site. It was as amazing as the first. Can’t ask for more for the final dive of the trip. There were manta sightings at almost every depth that we were on.
Finally, we wrapped up the trip with a visit to the Komodo national park where we did some trekking and ‘dragon hunting ‘. They were shy on this day as we only saw 2 of them. we saw more wooden ones than real ones at the souvenir shop. Did our final night at the Harbour of labuan Bajo and we reluctantly accepted the fact that this trip had came to an end. For me, this trip opened up new opportunities for further adventures around this region.
While I did not take as many images as I thought I would, I think it’s not a bad thing. Slowing down allows me to think and if the subject does not present a good opportunity for me to get a good picture, I pass. Maybe it has something to do with age.
Some lessons learned over the trip.
– pack as light as you can. It’s not everyday that you can convince airport staff that 16kg carry ons are OK for small domestic planes.
– buy equipments earlier so you can zhng them nicely before getting into the water. It’s not funny when you can’t find a place to hook up your accessories on your new bcd.
– maybe lighter fins and strobes will be helpful if I intend to do such trips more often.
As for surfing in Bali. I’m too old for nothing, I just need more practice than the younger folks, which means, more trips:) I took up surfing lessons at the Billabong Surf School over my 3 day stop in Bali. It’s great detox time away from home and office. I spent most my time in the hotel room, trying to catch up with news and whatever ‘air time ‘ lost in Komodo. The rest of the time were either spent walking by the beach during sunset or sleeping.
Here are some of the land images from this trip. You can find the underwater images here.
3’s a family and someone’s fuming:D
The pyramids of Kuta
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