Komodo Liveaboard Trip report - July Manta Education Trip

Every month, Wicked Diving run 5 day 5 night Manta Education trips on board the SY Jaya liveaboard. We plan these trips to coincide with the moon cycles, as new and full moons hold the best chances of diving with these graceful giants. With the new moon approaching, the Jaya set sail for the National Park on the afternoon of 6th July, with a fresh group of guests who had a desire to learn more about manta rays and hopefully dive with them too.

On board for this trip were John and Dave from Scotland and Wales respectively; Anders and Katherine from Denmark; Gill, Rich, Katie and Ryan who all live in Bangkok; Paul and Sylvine from France; Jens from Germany and Joe and Liv from New York City. Martyn was leading the trip, Jo was sharing her manta knowledge and Carl and Steve were backing up the team as dive guides. In addition Fauzi was making his first trip with us as part of his internship on a diving placement from Komodo island. Ensuring all proceedings went smoothly were Cap Achmad, Suleman, Heri, Marwan, Dullah, Nas and super cooking duo Ahmed and Mala.

The first evening saw us get acquainted with the boat and when all equipment was set up and briefings completed we headed over to Sabayor for our check dive. Lobsters, eagle rays and leaf fish were just a few of the lovely reef creatures that we spotted during the dive. Following the dive, we headed directly to the north of the national park and Martyn ran through the trip schedule and Jo gave some information about what kind of manta education would be delivered over the coming days.

The next day was an easy start – a three dive day starting at the Golden Passage. It was the first current dive for some and a great drift to get started with. As we cruised through the labyrinth of rock formations and coral heads, we also spotted black tips, white tips, schooling batfish, barracuda and small schooling parrotfish. Breakfast preceded a wonderful dive at Lighthouse were the first manta of the trip was spotted. In addition, some lucky divers also saw pygmy seahorses, a giant frogfish, called Darryn and a whole host of fish species schooling around the dramatic pinnacles. The final dive of the day was made at the famous, Crystal Rock, where conditions were challenging, but ti still didn’t stop a great dive. We then headed west to a sheltered bay and on the way were treated to a beautiful sight of the sun setting behind twin peaked volcano, Sangeang. In the evening the first section of the manta education programme began – a lecture on manta ray biology and ecology during which guests learned about the different species of manta ray, feeding habits and where you can find them.

After an early wake up, coffee for the bleary eyed few, we started the day with a drift at Batu Moncu. This is a relatively new dive site in the schedule and always a crowd pleaser, with sharks, giant sweetlips and turbo speed turtles coming out to play. Then we headed back towards the north with Castle Rock in our sights. As always it put on quite the show with Steve’s group literally ending up inside a baitball of fusiliers being stalked by countless trevally for a large part of the dive, then 6 white tips skulked in to join the hunt. It really was quite breathtaking. After a well earned lunch we finished up the day dives with a stint at The Cauldron. We were on the hunt for mantas, but they didn’t joi us on this dive, so we made do with looking at spectacular scenery of coral covered walls, Japanese style bonsai coral gardens on the pristine white sand and of course the amphitheatre-like bowl of The Cauldron itself. Then it was time to say goodbye to the north and head to the centre of the National Park to make a night dive at Siaba Besar. The night dive showed us a whole host of critters as usual – hermit crabs and decorator crabs, squid, flatworms, mantis shrimp and even hunting barracuda. During the day today Jo also gave a talk about manta identification, which covered how to tell the difference between species, between sexes and information about different colours in manta rays.

The next day started off with a beautiful morning dive at Batu Bolong, were divers did not know where to look and although they tried hard to peer through the schooling fish to look for small critters, the stunning scenery won over and it’s was easier to gaze at the scene in wide angle. After this it was time to start the hunt for mantas again and we arrived at Karang Makassar just in time for the turn of the tide, from a falling to a rising. We held off the dive to allow time for the currents to build and then jumped. Some lucky groups jumped right on top of a manta. Every group saw between 6 and 9 and spent the majority of their dives with them, which was a relief for the whole dive team as we desperately wanted everyone to get to dive with them. It was a first for many of our guests which was very exciting also. We headed back for another dive there, the tide had changed to a falling again and this led to less mantas, but we also got to see devil rays, eagle rays, mangrove whiprays and black tip sharks, so all in all a great dive and we collected some really useful data for The Manta Trust too.

On our final full day, the schedule was packed. Dives were planned at Tatawa Besar, Mauan, Tengah and Wainilu with a sunset visit to Kaaba added into the schedule too. Divers got lucky today – mantas were spotted at Tatawa and Mauan, in addition to lots more great marine life, and the water wasn’t too cold at Tengah. The flying fox migration from Kaaba everyone’s jaws dropping as they left the mangroves in their thousands to look for food. After this we finished up the dive schedule with our night dive at Wainilu, full of strange critters, we spotted cuttlefish, nudis, decorator crabs and many other odd creatures.

On the final day, we woke early to head to Rinca for dragon trekking. When we arrived at the island, we immediately saw monkeys prowling around the perimeters and not long after that we stumbled upon the dragons lounging around. After a few photos and a nice walk up to the viewpoint to see the Jaya waiting in Loh Buaya bay, we made our way back to the boat. We stopped on the way home for a snorkel and put the sails up for one final hurrah.

This manta trip was hugely successful. Mantas were seen on 5 out of 15 dives and at 4 separate locations within the National Park. We are very grateful to everyone that helped us on the trip to gather important research data, from ID shots to environmental logs. We really hope that we had an impact on everyone who joined and raised awareness of the plight of the manta ray as we all want to be diving with this wonderful species for many decades to come.


 -Wicked Diving in Komodo