The final leg of the 3 week dive expedition begins with a visit to Maumere. After diving a couple of fantastic walls there (especially full of nudibranchs, some black tip reef sharks and a pygmy seahorse Denise), we were ready to explore the Eastern part of Flores.
The Maumere area is famous for the beautiful weaving techniques and stunning resulting bags, scarf’s and sarongs. At the beach they showed us the several steps that the process involves, all being used with natural ingredients. One plucks the wool, one smoothens it out, one makes it into strings, one makes the patterns in it, one dyes the cotton, one starts to smoothen the strings and then one weaves the final threats into beautiful products. It’s amazing! So we did some shopping ;-). We also had a fantastic lunch and some relaxing time on the beach. After that we visited massive statue of Maria on the hill with a fabulous view over Maumere. Another ice-cream later we arrived back on Jaya and started sailing off to the West.
Of course the Maumere Cup started in the Worm Bowl. So far the in the Worm Bowl, the holder of the Lava Glove of Banda is Sly Steve C, Dastardly Dorothy is the holder of the Dress of Doom (Alor Cup winner) and the Maumere cup was won by Pit the Peril, she holds the Headband of Hades. The items for the winners by the way were all found on our dives. Sneaky Steve W. got the wild card in a worm off with Sterling the Stern and Angry Andy. In the final some intense worm gaming was played and the ladies did well. Pit the Peril became third, Ann the Agressor second and the winner of the first ever Worm Bowl is Alex the Avenger!
The next day we dived along the North Coast of Flores, roughly every 2,5 hours we did a dive and then moved on. So some good exploration, with some very pleasant surprises. Especially the amount of nudibranchs that we found was insane. Some black tip reef sharks cruised by and we even found a little frogfish!
At night we travelled to Komodo National Park. We started the day at the beautiful and famous Castle Rock. The current was not too strong, schooling fish everywhere and a lot of white tip reef sharks. We flew along the passage and through the shotgun of the cauldron. Jenkens stingray, some devil rays, bumphead parrot fish, black and white tip reef sharks and lots of schooling reef fish. We settled the day with a surreal sun set on Gili Lawa Darat. The hills are so green at the moment, the water and the sky extreme blue and a pink sky to go with it. And a well deserved bintang;-).
The last diving day had come, and men were we in for a surprise. Batu Bolong was crazy with fish life, white tip reef sharks, massive giant trevally’s, napoleons, turtles and fish action everywhere. Some even saw a manta passing by! The next dive on Manta point we saw some manta’s (and some brown banded bamboo sharks!) but not that many so we gave it another shot after lunch. And that’s when it became insane, individual sightings of cleaning mantas (several at the same cleaning station), mantas swimming by and two thirds into the dive we saw fantastic mating behavior. At least two females were trying to make the males impress them by copying her behavior. And they came at such high speed and so close and at least 9 mantas at the same time. It was immense! We ended this trip with a dive at Wainilu where a tremendous amount of creatures live. Amongst them were a bobtail squid, cuttlefish, moray eels, flatworms, snake eel, nudibranchs, peacock flounder, frogfish, crocodilefish, scorpionfish, little lionfish, octopus and lots and lots of shrimps and crabs of course. The last activity before sailing home was visiting the dragons, monkeys and water buffalo’s at Rinca in the morning, sweet!
So there we are, home sweet home in Labuan Bajo. We started with the fantastic coral reefs in Misool, explored 26 islands sometimes in the middle of nowhere, traveled nearly 3000 km, did 47 dives, tasted nutmeg jam in Banda, visited dive sites with holes in walls, looking like a nudibranch or a ship, and didn’t despair, had some amazing wall dives around Alor (and a rhinopia!), saw and dived next to an erupting volcano, visited the beautiful Abui tribe and nearly found Ricky a wife, saw a Sperm whale breach and snorkeled with one, saw the impressive weaving techniques in Maumere and ended with currents, sharks, mantas and dragons in Komodo. We have come to the end of an epic expedition.
A lot of thanks to Uwe, Sterling and Andy for providing the photo’s with the blogs and to Uwe, Steve and Sterling for providing Manta ID-shots.
And a big thank you to Mad Mike, Sterling the Stern, Uwe the Undertaker, Dastardly Dorothy, Alex the Avenger, Jean the Genie, Juan the Man, Angry Andy, Reckless Rauno, Sly Steve C, Ann the Agressor and Steve the Worm Wrestler for joining us. Without you guys we could not do these amazing trips.
It’s time for pizza ;-).
And a huge thank you from the rest of the team to Pit and Jo for putting together this amazing blog!!!!
