As the month of August neared its end and the full moon slowly crept up on us, it was time for the Jaya to head out again for adventures in the Komodo National Park.
This trip welcomed back four guests, Dymphmna, Karine, Pete, Braden, who had already participated in the manta ray education trip. Not content with their 3 days of manta spotting, they decided to stay for another 3 days and 3 nights and were joined by new guests Taj, Dave, Steve, Dawn, Claudia, Edwin, Maddy and Travis.
Onboard to show them the marvels of the national park were dive guides Diego, Vintty, Jo, Erik and Calle. Making their first trip on the boat as part of their DMT programme were Kit and Vinesha. Of course we cannot forget our tireless crew, without who the trips would not happen; Cap’n Sarifudin, Sulaiman, Heri, Joss, Dullah and Ardy.
We started the trip on Monday afternoon and headed out to the national park into uncharacteristically gloomy skies. This still didn’t stop the sun from peeking out and we were treated to a beautiful sunset as people made themselves at home and got to know one another.
When we awoke the next morning, the clouds had lifted and the sun greeted us. It was time for the diving schedule to commence and the first dive, a check dive for some, was made at Sabayor Ridge. Always a delightful dive site, the easy conditions at Sabayor makes it great for checking weights and ensuring the groups are well suited, whilst also introducing divers to the beauty of the reefs here. Lucky divers spotted a whopping 8 cuttlefish, 8 hairy squat lobsters, a 1m long crocodile fish (fishermen’s tales....?), a leaf scorpion and a busy school of bumpheads.
Karang Makassar, or Manta Point to some, was next on the list and again mantas came out to play. In addition to these graceful creatures divers spotted hawksbill and green turtles, the rare tawny nurse shark and even small critters such as juvenile rockmover wrasse.
The diving day finished with a pleasant and peaceful dive at Gili Lawa West and, after dinner, games commenced in the form of Jaya favourite, ‘Spuno’.
After a warm-up 3 dive day, guides decided it was time to up the ante with 4 dives planned for the following day. Dive sites on the schedule were The Passage, Castle Rock, The Cauldron and a night dive at Wainilu. So much was seen over the course of a day from big to small; white sharks – adult and juvenile, nurse sharks, green and hawksbill turtles, schools of barracudas, hunting giant trevally and tuna, schools of fusilier, large napoleon wrasse, schools of longfin bannerfish, schools of neon fuslier, pygmy seahorses, decorator crabs, Papuan and broadclub cuttlefish, common octopus, nudis, many many pluerobranchs, squat lobsters, dwarf scorpionfish, Indian ocean walkman, ornate ghost pipefish, spider crabs, sleeping juvenile barramundi cod, banded pipefish, crocodile fish...the list goes on.
During this day, Vinesha informed us that it would be her 100th dive. In true Wicked style we had to help her commemorate this. Vinesha dressed up as a swashbuckling pirate and gave a dive site briefing to the guests. As a relatively new divemaster trainee, Vinesha had not given a briefing before and had never even dived the site, so in her comedy costume she proceeded to give us an excellent account of the dive site, including the presence of Komodo dragons and the need for all guests to form a protective ring around the DMTs on the dive should we encounter these beasts.
She had us all in stitches and was a great sport. It was one dive that Vinesha will undoubtedly remember for a long time.
If all this wasn’t enough for one day, we also celebrated a birthday. Maddy’s birthday treat for her 25th birthday was a Komodo liveaboard with her boyfriend Travis. After dinner, Joss whipped up a delicious cake in his tiny oven and we sang happy birthday while Maddy tried to blow out her candles before the wind did it for her!
Unfortunately all good things must come to an end, and the last day of the trip was upon us. However, there was still time for more action and this started with an early morning dive at Tengah Kecil where we saw whitetip sharks, an eagle ray, sponge snails, 2 day octopus, hawksbill turtles feeding, peacock mantis shrimp and an orang-utan crab.
Dragon trekking followed and the team headed to Rinca, led by Calle and Erik, to see if they could spot these infamous beasts. Not only did they see the dragons, guests also witnessed them fighting, which is a very rare sight to see. Luckily, the guide had a long forked stick and kept them all safe. We then headed back to Labuan Bajo with people packing their things, filling in the last of their logbooks and enjoying a spot of lunch before we got back to town.
A final congratulation goes to Taj, who completed his Advanced Adventurer course during the trip.
Taj made 5 course dives to achieve the certification. He completed many tasks such as testing at depth for nitrogen narcosis, successfully leading instructor Jo and rest of group back to a designated point on reef, deploying SMB in current, practicing current diving techniques and night diving for the first time. Well done Taj!
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