Komodo Liveaboard Trip Report - April 23rd, 2013

Being located in our remote corner of Indonesia, we get accustomed to inconveniences and challenges. The departure for this Komodo Liveaboard trip was no exception! One of the flights from Bali was delayed twice - totaling 4 hours in delay for the trip departure! Fortunately we are all adaptable and our guests were super understanding! Once you get on the boat, in this harbor full of pirate ships and fishing boats...time seems to operate a bit differently. We call it Jaya time!

With this delay we had to skip our first dive - but hey,  we make up for that later :)  Dive Staff on this trip is; Diego, Massimo, Marcel and Mickey. And we were lucky enough to have  Rene, Florian, Patrick, Nicolle, Daniel, Howard, Debbie, Louis, Simon, Fanny, cybel and Samuel join us on this trip. For those that have joined our trips in the past - you know our nights are filled with our unique way of enjoying the South Seas...games!  The first night we had plenty of time to play UNO! Great fun for all...except maybe for Daniel who always needed pick up.

Our first full day of diving was a big - with four dives planned. We chose to do all our dives in the northern dives sites. And we were rewarded with  some amazing marine life!

The currents were not too strong so the dives were easy going. Passage reef was just completely full of fish!! Talk about a "fishy" dive!  After that came The Lighthouse, and it was even crazier! Fish everywhere around The pinnacle! No matter which direction you were looking, there were fish, fish and more fish. Big schools of bannerfish, clouds of fuseliers and a shark stopped by to check out the funny divers as well. In spite of all the action and so many distractions - Marcel found his guest a frogfish. Really beautiful one.

The 3rd dive of the day was Crystal Bommie. Normally this site has some of the strongest currents and can be quite challenging and dived at very specific times. But because of the mild current we were lucky enough to go to several places we normally have to skip and The corals were just beautiful. Cyb and Sam found Two baby nurse sharks sleeping underneath a table coral. Just plain Wicked! To finish off a stunning day the night dive was a relaxed explore around the Passage Reef.

After a day like that - it was an easy going night with some delicious pastiss that Patrick brought with him from France?!

Next morning brought us to Batu Bolong. As good as always - this dive site simply never seems to fail. Sometimes it was hard to find the rock, as there were just too many fish around it to see anything at all! We had such a blast that we dived it again - and then it was full of turtles!! Gentle drifts and seeing 4 turtles on a dive isn't a bad at all ;)  And on this super "fishy" day, that was just one small part of an amazing day!

We chose Siaba Besar for our night dive. This is Massimo's favorite night dive site and for very good reasons!. Upsidedown jellyfish, spearing mantis shrimp, flatworms and a baby seacucumber. Followed by another delicious meal it was already time for a sleep.
In these few days it seemed like so much had already gone on - but on the last morning we dived Karang Makassar we encountered a manta that was super close to the surface and some blacktip sharks. Not bad for a last dive, not bad at all!. And then it was already time to head back to LBJ for some land time, unfortunately we had to say goodbye to Nicolle, Simon and Fanny who are leaving us.

-Wicked Diving komodo