In the capable hands of Scott, Vintty and Amanda, the Jaya set out for the nearby island of Sabolan to make our first dive. The visibility was a little less than we might usually expect at the beginning of the dive, but the amount of plankton in the water made the fish go crazy, huge schools of fusiliers chasing & feeding all around us. Loads of red toothed triggerfish and a big school of snapper, good check dive!
Making our way into the National Park we split the groups, with half diving at the Witch's Hat, and the others diving the Cauldron. Loads of cool stuff to be seen at both sites, including mating white tip sharks, manta, mobula and eagle rays, squat lobsters, groupers, giant trevallies and a big school of barracudas cruising around searching for some food. Castle rock next, and there was a strong current on the split, sharks everywhere, schools of bannerfish and surgeonfish and trevallies hunting.
The lee side, or the protected side of the pinnacle, was equally as fishy but a bit more of a mellow dive for some , with moray eels, giant trevallies, many different kinds of lion fish, a turtle and some cute baby sharks hiding under the table corals.
Sunset dive at the Passage after some beach time at Gili Lawa Darat, we had a really lovely drift, loads of garden eels at the beginning of the dive, sea pens hiding in between, then a school of bump head parrotfish hanging out with the sweetlips on the shoulder of the reef.
Next morning we were wanting to dive Crystal Bommie, but needed to wait for the tide to change, so we thought may as well pop an extra dive in beforehand! Quick show of hands from the guests, and the unanimous decision was to head back to The Cauldron and the Witch's Hat - think we have a forerunner for the most popular dive site of the season!! Spanish mackerel swimming past, eagle rays, bait balls of fusiliers, 5 lined snapper - loads to see!
By then the water movements were ok for us to dive Crystal - very productive dive, there were pygmy seahorses for those that wanted, an oceanic manta at the beginning of the dive for those staying shallower, big napoleon wrasse, and more baby sharks being guarded by a giant moray eel underneath a table coral.
Down into the middle of the national park and we dropped into Karang Makassar on the end of the rising tide, a mellow drift, with sightings of juvenile ribbon eels, a snake eel, massive unicorn fish and we had, as Per put it, a 'religious experience with mantas', a mating train of 5 manta rays playing for us, as well as a couple barrel rolling over our heads, a very good end to the dive!
Down to Kabba to watch the bats leaving their roosts and heading to the mainland to feed for the night, then back across nearer to the island of Rinca for a night dive at Wainilu. Juvenile Rosacea frogfish, halimeda & ornate ghost pipefish, flying gurnards, baby thorny boxfish, scorpionfish everywhere, and all sizes of cuttlefish - Wainilu just keeps giving us incredibly cool marine life! Rummikub, banangrams and (very serious!) backgammon competitions filled up the rest of the evening, then off to bed.
Early the next morning made our way across to Tengah Kecil for our last dive of the trip, a falling tide enabled us to dive the southern side of the island, a cool wall with loads of cracks, crevasses, overhangs and boulders. Funky nembrotha nudibranchs, sponge snails, and then a gorgeous staghorn coral reef covered in anthias, damselfish and anemone fish to safety stop over.
Last excursion was to Rinca to search for the Komodo dragons, and we were lucky enough to find plenty, including some smaller ones. Bit of action as well, a female wandered along searching for eggs, another female was guarding the nest, a bit of a fight. Plus a water buffalo cooling off in a waterhole, plenty of photo opportunities!
As if we hadn't seen enough, a pod of dolphins and a few pilot whales swam alongside us on the way back to land, just another fantastic 3 days on the Jaya!
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