A Wicked Diving Expedition Across the Forgotten Islands: Part 2 in which we search for Headhunters, Seasnakes and MC Hammer(head)
If you missed the earlier entry, please catch up on our expedition through remote Indonesia – part 1.
We are also please to announce the departure date for the Raja Ampat to Komodo trip – April 22nd, 2016. Spaces are very limited, so please contact us immediately to learn more!!!
Our tale resumes in a far, far away place…
Day 8 – ALOR
Alor is actually a small archipelago of islands, which is inhabited by more than a hundred different tribes, some of which were headhunters up until as recent as the 1950s. On Day 8, we swapped our fins and booties for sandals and shoes, as we were taken to a small Abui tribe village for some tribal dancing and, well, shopping.
Anne showed the local girls how to use a digital camera, and was thoroughly amused when one of them asked her to bluetooth one of the pictures to her. Dan and Sarip were curious about the tribesmen’s bows and arrows, and soon discovered that they weren’t shy at all when it came to demonstrating their marksmanship with them. What began with a single person shooting arrows into the ground became a mini competition between a few of the tribesmen to see who could shoot an arrow through a bottle target from 10 metres away. Dan and Sarip also tried chewing some betel leaves, but found that the appreciation of its pleasures was, well, not something you developed right away.
We had lunch on the beach, enjoying the view of the waves rolling in, under the shade of coconut trees, before we left Alor for our next destination.
Day 9 – WETAR
On Day 9 we arrived in Pulau Wetar. This island represents the western-most part of the Forgotten Islands, and it was around here, that the landscape began to take on a dramatic change. We were now beginning to sail across the open sea, and the only land we could see are these isolated islands – often vivid green with vegetation, with limestone cliff-faces and sometimes small and deserted sandy beaches, some of which we visited on lazy afternoons or to enjoy a Bintang over sunset views. One could begin to understand why these islands may have had little contact with the rest of Indonesia in the past.
The underwater landscape began to take a different look as well, and predominantly hard corals began to gave way to the soft variety, as well as sponges. At two dive sites we dived two more walls to find whitetip reef sharks, octopus, scorpionfish, varieties of surgeonfish, redtooth triggerfish, harlequin sweetlips, several rock groupers and a rather psychedelic-looking candycane sea cucumber.
Day 10 – Remote Islands
Both the islands today were very colourful dives, as they are surrounded by very healthy reef, well stocked with soft leather corals, black coral bushes and various colourful hard corals and sponges. After spotting nudibranchs like blue dragons, our divers watched as the menacingly large dogtooth tuna made life very difficult for the schools of blustreak and yellowtail fusiliers. The second site, we dived a vertical wall which is very healthy, with a wealth of corals and sponges, as well as black coral bushes. It had many small overhangs, which look like potential resting places for small sharks. Andrei, Niclas and Mauro found a marbled ray parked in one of them, whereas some of us went spotting orangutan crab, squat shrimps and nudibranchs like Anna’s chromodoris and Mushroom coral reticulidia.
Day 11 – Remoter Islands!
Today was all wall dives. The reef was very vibrant with lots of hard and soft corals at site #!, and it was very busy with lots of small fish, especially in the staghorns in the shallower part, where you could see the grey damselfish schools rise and fall like mini puppets on a string. The second island is a vibrant green, looks completely isolated and it has limestone cliff faces, out of which stick out ridges which drop down to become walls. The shallow part was stocked to the brim with various colourful soft corals and sponges. The main part of the dive was a lively vertical wall with many small overhangs (which had sand on their bottoms) and both hard and soft coral. Here we came across massive napoleon wrasse, schools of surgeons and fusiliers being terrorized by a barracuda, morays as well as smaller finds such as orangutan crabs, Mushroom coral reticuladia and Crested nembrotha.
Some excitement had been building during the past few days, especially among the dive guides. “Tomorrow is the day,” we kept thinking to ourselves. Tomorrow we will arrive at furthest islands – which are large coral reefs surrounded by open sea. If we are lucky, it will be the first time some of us will see a rather unusual-looking animal…
Sounds fun? You can join the next expedition, departing April 22nd, 2016. Spaces are very limited, so please contact us immediately to learn more!!!
Day 12 – Remotest islands
I remember when, as a child, I would browse through volumes of the Encyclopedia Brittanica and look at illustrations of marine animals. One page in particular, awash with illustrations in deep blues and greens, would fascinate me. It depicted several sharks, but they didn’t look like the ones I had seen on the television or in movies. A line on the page also read “turn the book sideways and you will see how this animal gets its name.” Hammerhead sharks. We did not see any during our diving expedition from Raja Ampat to Komodo earlier this year, and therefore, needless to say, our hopes were high.
We arrived at the crack of dawn, at a long seamount which runs roughly from east to west. The top is shallow, and you could observe the waves breaking over its top as you approached the vicinity. On the sides, it drops off to near-vertical walls and the blue beneath your feet goes deep. It’s a very lively dive with plenty of schooling fish – butterflyfish, rainbow runners, surgeonfish. We saw its bigger notable residents as well, including napoleon wrasse, several dogtooth tuna, a pack of barracudas patrolling the shallows, a menacing coral grouper, even a small whitetip reef shark, which got some divers excited when Anne pointed it out, only to discover that it wasn’t really what they were truly looking out for. We swam somewhat anxiously along its dramatic vertical walls, and because visibility was good, we stared into the deep blue below, hoping for something big to pass by…
Up currents. Down currents… I heard muffled sounds through several regulators. And there it was, a large, olive-brown unmistakable shape, swimming silent and strong from behind. As powerful a marine beast as it looked, it appeared to be rather shy, as it swam past us quickly the moment we tried to keep up with it in order to get a better look, disappearing from our field of vision in a matter of seconds. I’d never seen one before, and I couldn’t believe my eyes. Fauji’s and Dan’s groups scored the trophy of the day, with sightings of at least two hammerheads.
We then headed to another large reef with no land around it in sight, known to the liveaboards which ply these waters as the ‘home of the hammerheads’. Our encounter earlier offered some hope that hammerheads were indeed swimming around somewhere beneath us nearby. And true enough, we found another two here. They swam restlessly in and out, seeming to change directions until our encounter with them became a sort of cat-and-mouse game. The visibility reduced all of a sudden, and we swam to find a spot where it was better. Four monstrous dogtooth tuna came in close to set some nerves ticking. Eventually it cleared up again, and to my surprise, I spotted the hammerhead shark less than 10 metres above us, and it was swimming calmly in the same direction, suspended in the water and in no hurry to get anywhere, giving us the opportunity to get a good long look at it.
Oh, yes… SUCCESS!
Day 13 – GILIMANUK
The next island was as lively as can be, with hundreds of seabirds including frigets and boobies taking to the air around the lush, volcanic island.
During the dive site briefing, Michael spotted something breaching the surface of the water. And then again right before we emptied our BCDs, Rachel’s and my group saw a devil ray leapt up into the air doing forceful barrel rolls, like a BMX rider high on big air acrobatics – in plain sight. The visibility was poorer than what I recalled, so we were pretty lucky to have spotted one in the shallows and had a pretty good look at it as it was swimming above us, silhouetted against the sky, shortly after we’d descended. Seasnakes started appearing one by one, and at one point there were at least six swimming around us – we were highly entertained by their behaviour. They were curious creatures, swimming really close to us, many times nonchalantly swiping us in the face with their tails, or swimming right next to our faces. I felt a strange affection for these animals, who seemed to relish being in our company. We could hear Anne laughing and squealing, depending on what was happening with our serpentine friends – or the other divers. Having inquisitive venomous marine serpents casually swim amongst our limbs and our faces isn’t exactly everybody’s idea of ‘cute’ – just ask Fauji ?
Sarip, Andrew and I decided to pull away from the others when we caught sight of another devil ray and followed it. The visibility suddenly improved dramatically, as if a drawn curtain had been lifted. And then another one appeared, then another, and another. It wasn’t long before we realized that we’d discovered a cleaning station! We watched them silently from afar. If this had been a movie, it would be the scene where the pubescent boys became enraptured by the wonder of having stumbled upon maidens washing themselves in a river. But then it got even better, as we caught a glimpse of a familiar-looking silhouette in the distance, and that was when we realized that the bar had just been raised…
…a hammerhead shark. By pure chance. We couldn’t contain our excitement at having stumbled upon such a magnificent find, and out of sheer luck, too. Five mobulas, the odd barracuda, seasnakes and a hammerhead shark, all in one cleaning station, in a single, glorious encounter…
It was bloody awesome.
The third and final entry from our Wicked Diving Expedition – available next week!
You can join the next expedition!!! Raja Ampat to Komodo trip – April 22nd, 2016. Spaces are very limited, so please contact us immediately to learn more!!!
(to be continued in A WICKED JOURNEY ACROSS THE FORGOTTEN ISLANDS – PART 3: A COLOURFUL FINISH IN THE BEST OF RAJA AMPAT)
