Komodo Divemaster Course

I’ve been in Labuan Bajo for a couple of weeks now. It’s small, dusty and hot. But it’s quite cozy and it’s got some character.  The people are a blend of Muslims and Catholics living side by side. The view from the hills over to the little harbor and the neighboring islands is beautiful and the sunsets are some of the best I’ve ever seen.  Six weeks here to do my Divemasters with Wicked Diving. Bring it on!

I’m now a little over a week into my program. Of course the first thing I thought of when I got here was when do I get to go diving? We did some snorkeling when we went out to find places for confined open water sessions, and even just snorkeling was a wowing experience. Just outside of Labuan Bajo you have reefs with beautifully colored corals. Just a couple of meters deep you get to see pretty much all the usual suspects and then some; butterfly fish, angelfish, batfish, triggerfish, blue spotted stingray… Let’s go diving already!

The day boat was getting some final touches done for it; it had been painted, the roof got a new rain cover, I ran around town to get a first aid kit assembled and for a moment we thought we were good to go. All we needed was an oxygen tank. That turned out to be a task to get. None of the other dive shops had one to rent out. An auto mechanics shop had oxygen tanks to sell but they were all way too big for the day boat.

We decided to make a day trip to Ruteng, the next bigger town in Flores, to find one. It’s only some 120 kilometers from Labuan Bajo, but it took us a good four hours to get there along the narrow windy roads up and down the hills. Once we got to Ruteng we found a potential looking shop. They didn’t have one so they directed us to another shop, where we got directions to another shop, where we got directions to go to a restaurant. Yes, to a restaurant to buy an oxygen tank. Or did he mean that the shop we’re looking for is next to a restaurant? First we went to the wrong restaurant. Apparently there’s two with the same name. So we get to the other restaurant and ask about oxygen tanks. They take us to the back and there they are. Oxygen tanks in the back of a restaurant. A man in his boxers and a jacket gets a regulator and shows us that one of them is full and we got ourselves an oxygen tank. And a bag of peanuts. And we still had enough time to trek a volcano. Well not enough time to go all the way up, but we got to see some pretty awesome views.

 We came to Labuan Bajo to a nearly empty Wicked Diving shop. Most of the furniture, diving equipments and other bits and pieces for the shop were on their way to Labuan Bajo on the Jaya. Jaya got loaded and left Thailand on the first week of May. It picked up guests in Batam for a three week (awesome!!!) expedition through Indonesia, and it got down to the Komodo national park yesterday. We took the day boat out to meet them next to Sebayor island. We got food and water for the boat and brought back what we could for the shop. We did do some snorkeling while we were out there and again, awesome!!!! A school of barracudas, batfish, boxfish, an octopus… Pretty cool.

Today we’ve worked hard to get organized and get everything we brought from the boat in it’s place. Shop’s looking a bit more like a shop. Equipment room is nearly finished and now we’ve got some equipment to put in it. While waiting to get the oxygen tank I’ve had good time to read the Dive Masters manual, so a lot of the academics, boring stuff ;) is out of the way now. Let’s go diving already!

Find out more about our Komodo Divemaster course