The black moon passed us in Labuan Bajo and it was time for us to set out again on the Jaya for a liveaboard trip to the National Park of Komodo, a UNESCO World Heritage site.
We were joined by guests from all over the world, to add to our multinational boat team. Melanie and Nic from Canada, Leslie and Alyssa from California, Penny from Australia, Kasia and Marcin from Poland, Stew from UK, Hugo and Kerry from UK, Mike and Joyette from Dubai, Uwe from Denmark and Craig from the UK. Dive crew complemented this mix with Diego from Mexico, Vintty and Marisa from Indonesia and Jo from the UK.
Our boat crew were supported by a couple of additional members for the first 3 day trip, as Marwan, Heri and Sulaiman were all in Bali completing a safety course in Bali in preparation for our upcoming expeditions. Cap’n Ahmed, Dullah, Joss and Ardy, Yanto and Tayed, who hail from the farthest reaches of Indonesia, were on hand for everything from delicious meals, tank filling and manta spotting.
The trip started in typical relaxed style with introductions, a boat tour and some dive safety information. During one of the briefings, leaping tuna and a melee of tiny fish on the surface gave a tiny indication to what guests could look forward to over the trip. We headed out to Sabayor for our check dive and arrived to make a beautiful wall dive just before sunset.
After a calm, star filled night and a beautiful red moon, everyone awoke early to make the first dive of the day at Tatawa Besar. Covered in stunning soft, orange broccoli corals, as the current whips across the reef the corals come to life and the reef is filled with their vibrant colours. This is a great dive to spot turtles and dive groups were happy with the 4-5 turtles they spotted on this dive. In addition fusiliers, red tooth triggers and bannerfish schooled in hundreds prompting Penny to comment that diving here was like ‘an aquariam on steroids’!
After an introduction to Komodo’s drift sites, it was time to head to Karang Makassar. The tide was beginning to rise and everyone was amped up as we spotted numerous mantas on the surface. Buddy checks done, we jumped in and some groups managed to catch a glimpse of mantas swimming in the depths below. We descended onto the moon-like landscape and it wasn’t long before we got eye to eye with these graceful beasts. Close encounters of a third kind – the curious aliens were in the mood for playing and approached divers so closely that they were almost stroking our faces with their wing tips. After the dives numbers of sightings were bounced around – 7, 8, 12?! Everyone was in very high spirits, especially as these were the first manta sightings for many of our guests.
After a couple of drift dives, we chose a sheltered reef for the final dive of the day and spotted leaf fish, sponge snails, garden eels, many schools of fusilier coming and going in large numbers and many other curious reef creatures.
The next day was a 4 dive day, so this meant an early start for our guests, no of who minded when they discovered the first site of the day was the Cauldron. A firm favourite of our guides, this site never disappoints. With so many attributes – a deep and healthy reef curving round into what looks like a well preened bonsai garden. As we stroll up the pretty pathway, we are greeted by the cauldron, an underwater amphitheatre around 30m by 30m and over 20m deep. The Cauldron has soft coral covered walls, notches and grooves where fish gather in large numbers and a rollercoaster ride of an exit as we drift out into calm reef to finish the dive. Divers spotted mantas, reef sharks, turtles, giant trevally, huge snapper and grouper, scorpion fish and nudibranchs. Not a bad start to the day!
After that we headed to Crystal Bommie for pygmy seahorse spotting and schools of fish milling around us and the pinnacle. The third dive of this day was Witch’s Hat, which is a pinnacle site right outside the entrance to the Cauldron. Due to its proximity to this channel where the water and nutrients flow freely, we can see lots of activity here and this was the case on this dive. Giant trevallys schooled high in the water column, patrolling the perimeters, much to the dismay of the fusiliers who did all in their power not to become victims to these big silver hunting machines. In contrast divers also got pretty close to a lone eagle ray who was hanging in a relaxed manner just off the pinnacle.
The diving day finished with a night dive at Karang Bintang where divers saw squat lobsters, decorator crabs, spider crabs, hunting lionfish, basket stars, flatworms and many of the diurnal reef creatures catching some Zs.
After a good night’s sleep, no doubt aided by the four dives from the previous day, we headed to Batu Bolong. Always a crowd pleaser, this immensely healthy pinnacle site always surprises us and in addition to the stunning coral cover, napoleon wrasse, turtles and tuna, lucky Penny even spotted a manta out in the distance. After this dive we headed back to Lauban Bajo where we unfortunately had to say goodbye to Nic and Melanie. We made a quick pitstop and were shortly out on our way again, this time accompanied also by new guests, Tom and Duncan.
While Tom and Duncan completed a check dive with Vintty and swam with schools of big eye trevally, the rest of the team spent a little time on the beach, snorkelling, swimming and playing football before we headed up to Gili Lawa Laut.
After dinner that night it was time for a Wicked special - Werewolf! After explaining the rules in his typical comical fashion Diego, the mayor of the village, talked us through this hilarious role play game which saw the population of our town decimated by werewolves. Everyone played a great game, but Craig, Uwe and Hugo conquered and gave us much reason for laughter along the way!
The morning started with a great Komodo wake up call - four to five mantas swimming on the surface just outside the Cauldron. We crossed our fingers and hoped that they stayed around for our dive and we were not disappointed. Every group saw mantas and turtles and sharks to boot.
Breakfast followed and then a short ride over to Castle Rock. On the way a pod of at least 20 dolphins leapt and jumped and put on a real show for us. We checked the current and all round ‘fishiness’ of Castle Rock and decided it would be good for a dive. As we descended the schools of fish came into view. Fusiliers of many variety, longfin bannerfish and redtooth triggerfish looked like an underwater mosaic, a friendly school of batfish swam in to the depths to check us out and make some new friends, Kerry in particular was very popular, and then we saw the sharks prowling around lots of white tips, coming close to the divers and checking us out. All in all, a great dive.
The third dive of the day was at the Passage, where we drifted through at high speed, just like the fast lane of the highway. Giant trevallys, turtles and sharks all separated to let us through until we finished on the sheltered reef.
Then for most it was time for the beach, with view points and a few group photos, but Penny, who was completing her advanced course on the boat finished up with a navigation dive, where she guided Jo on the dive and successfully found her way back to the Jaya.
More Werewolf followed that night, with the whole group taking part. The crazy team even added a new element to the game with those who have been sent to the graveyard resurrecting themselves as ghosts and whispering to the remaining villagers as they slept....’join us, join us’!!
Crystal Bommie was the first site of the morning with ‘shed loads of white tips and grey reef sharks’ quote Kerry, more pygmy seahorses, giant napoleon wrasse, a big school of batfish and even baby sharks.
The next dive saw the Craig join the Wicked crew as an honorary current checker. He was eager to get in a see what was going on down there before the dive had even started, so off he went with Vintty and got a bit of a crash course on how to current check. After this more role changes, as Mike and Joyette dressed up as swash buckling pirates to celebrate their 50thand 100th dive and helped Mariza out with the briefing for the site. The dive was super turtley with sharks spotted and a manta also.
After that divers were wowed with the beauties of Siaba Kecil where we flew through the fish super highway, amazed and awed by the gardens of coral which covered the area for as far as the eye could see.
Then as if we hadn’t been lucky enough, dolphins came to play in our bow waves, and ever accommodating Cap’n Ahmed circled around so everyone got a great view of them. We even had a mother and baby right under the bow of the Jaya – amazing! An always exciting muck dive at Wainilu followed and then a pretty early night for most as we had an early start that day for our last dive.
Tengah was the last dive of the schedule and was a great way for everyone to end the trip with plenty of marine life diversity, easy conditions and a beautiful underwater landscape. After a well earned breakfast, everyone donned shoes, hats and sun cream and headed off for a trek on the island of Rinca to look for dragons, with baby dragons being the highlight for most.
Then it was the final leg, back to Labuan Bajo. Sunbathing, packing, exchanging emails and photos and generally soaking up a little more of the Jaya atmosphere were the parting activities and we all reminisced about what a great trip it had been.
Luckily we didn’t have to say proper goodbyes, except to Penny, as we all decided to have one last farewell meal that evening which was a great way to end a great trip. As always it was sad to say goodbye, but we’re so happy to have welcomed such a great group onto the Jaya and do hope we will see some more of the friendly faces in not too long.
Thanks so much for coming along guys and ‘Join us’ again soon.
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