The first Komodo Liveaboard trip of the season, yeeehaaa!
Pirateship Jaya was waiting for us with Ahmad our captain, Suliman our engineer, Marwan our dinghy driver, Ahmad and Asdar our cookies and general deckhands Elias and Dula. Dive guides Martyn, Steve, Pit, Fauji and Gafur couldn’t wait to go out. On board we welcomed Indian Seemanti, American Peter and Aubrey, Irish Terry, Australian Jesse and Daniel, Andrea and Louise from the UK, French Alex, Hussam from Sudan and Dutch Danielle.
After an introduction on the boat, a dive safety briefing and of course a dive site briefing we were all nicely settled in and ready to go diving! Sabolan besar is a nice and easy site to get us started. Already we found some beautiful small creatures like a spearing mantis, a ribbon eel, an octopus, and several shield head slugs (the black slugs with the really bright blue stripes and the almost forked tail). Everybody got settled in with their equipment and weights and we sailed off to the North of Komodo.
We woke up in the morning with a brightly rising sun over the island of the Komodo dragons. Some dolphins were hanging around to welcome us. We had a fantastic day ahead of us. After a current briefing we started with Castle Rock, a fantastic submerged pinnacle with amazing fish life. Some groups jumped in on the current side whilst others dived the lee side. Everybody came up with big smiles; grey reef sharks, white tip reef sharks, baby sharks and even black tip reef sharks. But also massive giant trevallys, tunas, friendly napoleons, schooling bannerfish, redtooth triggerfish and fusiliers were everywhere to be seen. And of course lionfish, octopus, peacock mantis shrimp, scorpionfish, fat pufferfish, anthias and gorgeous bommies with beautiful hard and soft corals.
After the big breakfast we were in for a treat at Crystal as well. Another massive pinnacle with fantastic visibility, trevallys hunting fusiliers and beautiful coral reef. We found some more white tip reef sharks, napoleons, moray eels, turtles, scorpionfis, leaf scorpionfish and lots and lots of “fishy fish”. Some lucky people saw a very big eagle ray as well.
The Cauldron was up next. The Cauldron changes so much in topography along the way it’s amazing. It starts like a wall like slope, that changes into a sandy area with coral bommies. Just before the cauldron it becomes a rubble area with the amazing fish bowl on the left side before exiting through the shotgun and finishing on a beautiful soft coral garden. On the way we saw the large garden eels at the sand, some stingrays, moray eels, a black tip reef shark and especially Alex encountered a very curious turtle;-). The fish bowl was spectacular, lots of giant trevallys and snappers hanging in the canyon like opening. With the visibility being stunning we flew through the shotgun before “finning a hard left” to make it to the coral garden. Big stingrays, turtles, beautiful soft coral gardens and some lucky people saw a little manta ray. She was passing by, feeding on the surface and coming back to us in circles playing around. What a day!!!
It was time for some relaxing time and an extreme beach clean-up. Ten minutes of mad running around picking up the rubbish at the beach before we climbed the little hill for a well deserved sunset bintang! In the evening the first games of Worms (“Regenwormen”) were played, before heading for a good night sleep.
The next morning we started at Lighthouse. Especially with the morning light it was a beautiful start of the day. The sloping reef is covered in bommies, gorgonian sea fans and soft corals. Schools of fusiliers passed by, we found some nudibranchs, sorpionfish and enjoyed the easy current. Some groups saw three honeycomb rays as well! Up next was our favourite Tatawa Besar. Probably the most stunning coral reef we have in the National Park. The visibility was crystal clear, there were fish schooling around everywhere and there is a wide variety of soft and hard corals. It is an amazing drift dive and we were lucky that it was a very easy drift, so we got to enjoy the reef fully! Some turtles, nudibranchs, pufferfish, tons of anthias, schooling banner fish and red tooth triggerfish were only some of the animals found. But basically there was fish everywhere
At Karang Makassar we were hoping to find some happy flappys;-). On the surface we saw quite a view feeding already and on the dive there were many more to be founds. We saw mantas cleaning, feeding and even a couple of times a mating train passed by; a female at the front being chased by the male mantas to impress her. Beside mantas we also saw an octopus wondering out and about, a mangrove ray and a porcupine ray. The night dive at Siaba Besar was lovely, bobtail squid, starry night octopus, some cuttlefish and of course tons of shrimps and crabs. Steves “Dive predict” predicted that dive quite well;-). What a fantastic day!
That evening more games of worms were played and of course a congratulation is in order as well; well done Seemanti, Peter and Hussam for becoming Advanced Open Water Divers!
Siabe Kecil in the morning was a very fast drift, as to be expected in Komodo! It was a very exciting flying by beautiful corals and not being able to stop. After 20 minutes the crazy ride was over and we had time to enjoy the hard coral garden. Some groups saw a mandarin fish, others a white tip reef shark, quite a few turtles and Steve’s group even saw 30 devil rays come passed on their safety stop, sweet!
Unfortunately we had to say bye to Seemanti, Peter, Danielle, Hussam and Aubrey. Hope to see you again guys! And Aubrey thank you for sharing your photos.
This looks to be another incredible season in Komodo! Best to arrange your trip early!!!
