Wicked Diving Offers several unique trips and courses throughout the year. In Komodo, the park is blessed with many amazing species - and one of the most famous (aside from the dragons) are the year-round presence of Manta Rays! For this reason we are in the unique position of having nearly daily sightings. Wicked Diving Komodo takes these opportunities to conduct research! By documenting all our encounters, photographing the ones we can and collating all this data we are able to better help Manta Trust (and other NGO's) track population changes, migratory patterns and even breeding areas. After the New Moon of each month (when sightings are most common) we run unique 5 day Manta Ray research trips where we dive the sites with most frequent encounters to document these moments. The data we collected through 2012 was used to help support the CITES listing of Manta Rays as a protected species!
This year has seen the creation of the world's largest Manta Ray and Shark protection zone in Raja Ampat (created, in part, by Manta Trust). Together We hope to create a similar protection area in our part of Indonesia! You can learn more about our Manta Ray Research in Komodo
For this Manta Ray Research trip - Sara, Jonathan and Andrew liked the previous Jaya trip so much that they joined us again! Than we had Georg joining us and doing a advanced course at the same time. And Matt, Julie and Thomas. Mel, a friend of Wicked and very accomplished chef who resides in Bali was joining us on this trip to help our cook, Ahmed to make the food even better than it already is, and to squeeze a few dives in too? Guides on the trip were Carl, Jo and Mickey. We left Labaun Bajo for five days and five nights of fun on the Jaya; diving in search of Manta Rays in Komodo, learning more about Manta Rays, lots of great diving and just loads of fun.
First day we had a sunset dive at Bidadari. It's a great site to see some cool critters and everyone was happy to get wet again. In the evening time we travelled to Sabayor for sleep.
The next morning we woke up with a small breakfast and the first dive was made here. We had a little drift at Sabayor which was great to get ready for some stronger drifts later in the trip. Everybody saw loads of juvenile fish. Juvenile parrotfish, clownfish and the cute harlequin sweet lips. They can't really swim yet, they just flap around. And Sara even found a few nudis herself this dive. Good on you Sara!
Tatawa Kecil was next dive, always and dive with interesting current, and because of that really "fishy" and beautiful. After that it was time for some Manta education and stories. Jo taught us all about Manta Ray biology and after that it was time to try to find some :)
And find them we did! We had nearly all the dive with them! Some were doing a little dance for us. Others were feeding or being cleaned. We even thought that two were about to mate but it didn't happen. Oh and not just Manta Rays - but we saw a spotted eagle ray as well.
We all had to recover from that great dive and chilled out till it was time for the night dive. It was also the adventure deep dive for Georg and Julie's first night dive. We dived with some nudis, a squid and loads of crustaceans, not bad at all. The amount of phosherescence in the water was incredible. Sara, in particular, enjoyed playing around with it for at least half the dive. In the evening some rummicub was played and some chatting about the stars. The stars were incredible. So many and so clear!
Next morning we went to Komodo to see the dragons. The rangers told us all about the flora and fauna. We found 2 dragons, a deer, a wild pig loads of different kind of birds and as a surprise we had about 5 dragons hanging around close to the cafe. Some were hissing and it looked like they were up for a fight. It didn't happen but still they were really active.
After that we had a real big good breakfast then we dived Pink beach, very beautiful, easy dive where we drifted along spotting turtles and and a big school of jacks as we went.
And we didn't have enough of this sort of diving so Mawan was the next one, a nice easy going dive. And as a nice surprise we had Manta Rays on this dive! They just came to say hi but it was great to see that they were around. And after the dive we were honored to see some Manta's breaching the surface too which was a treat for everyone and answered the question, "do Manta Rays jump?". Next stop was Siaba Kecil for a little beach time. At this beautiful pink sand beach we saw baby sharks while snorkeling and other people just enjoyed the beach. We then made a night dive before dinner and games.
Next day we headed to central Komodo, Batu Bolong was the first dive. Great dive to much to see. People asked for nudis, they were found. People asked for Napoleon wrasse and they were found too. Last but not least Jo's group saw a Manta at the end of the dive passing by.
Next two dives were at Karang Makassar after another Manta story. A total of 43 Manta Rays seen in two dives by two groups! that is correct - 43 rays!!! So we don't need to explain how great this was! And to finish of the day everybody saw a white-tip shark on the dive and Mickey's group a turtle as well.
The last whole day was there already.... Diving up north. Unfortunately the had some waves so we had to change plans. But diving in the Cauldren is never bad and this was no exception. The visibility was beautiful and The current was mild enough that we could explore the dive site in it's entirity!
Then Georg had to do another dive to show Mickey his navigation skills and the we all dived Crystal Bommie. Very good dive, loads to see from baby white tip sharks sleeping under table coral and fighting octopus in holes. Castle Rock was the last dive of the day, the vis was good and it was so fishy there wasn't a place to look without one school or another swimming past and above us all. We also saw some sharks, turtles and Napoleon wrasse to finish the dive off.
For sunset we went to the viewpoint and did a beach clean up. Thank you to all who joined in. After another delicious meal, Jo did the final Manta Education and we finished off with a documentary from Andrea Marshall "Queen of the Manta's".
We woke early the next morning on The final Day and heared to Lighouse. The drift was strong, but some divers still managed to see The giant frogfish who resides there. For The last dive, Mickey really pulled it out The bang and showed her Group a pod of dolphins who stayed with them for a while. there was not really much more we could do to top this, but stopped for a snorkel at kanawa, before we returned to Labaun Bajo.
As our parting gift to all our guests we organize a celebration of the local future in Flores. Together with a troupe of local dancers keeping alive the the traditional local dances - we have a small farewell ceremony and sunsets drinks on the beach. Very few visitors to Labuan Bajo enjoy the richness and complexity of the local culture, so we thought we'd make that extra effort and share our passion for the region!
Thanks so much for joining us guys and we look forward to seeing you again soon.
The Manta Trust is a UK based charity, which works globally to help protect manta rays by completing research, raising awareness with local public and community stakeholders, campaigning governments and decision makers and providing education around conservation issues. One very important part of this process is data collection which is time consuming and costly, yet crucial in providing an accurate picture of manta ray behaviour, territory, population numbers and reproduction.
You can learn more about our Manta Ray Research in Komodo
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