We left on Saturday the 28 of September. A little bit of a special trip because it’s the last one of this Komodo season. After this trip our lovely Jaya goes to Raja Ampat to do some exploration over there. On board we welcomed Frederik from Finland, Mizio from Italy, Spanish Tomas and Dutch Linsey, James from Australia, Barry from Ireland and Sarah from Singapore, Jayney from Ireland, Dutchies Floris and Lucy, Christine and Patrick from Germany, Abudallah from Bahrein. Jesse from the USA rejoined us after having some good fun on the previous 3 days. Dive crew were Steve, Marsel, Jo and Pit. Nass our captain, Ahmed and Dede the chefs, Rambo and Heri our dinghy drivers and Suliman and Herman took care of tanks and maintenance.The first dive we went to Kanawa. It’s an easy dive to start the trip, get sorted with weights and equipment and enjoy the Komodo waters. Some groups saw some massive bumphead parrotfish others had turtles and our more common reef species were present as well; lionfish, scorpionfish, blue spotted stingrays, yellow back fusiliers and beside that beautiful sea fans. In the evening everybody happily chatted away and we had a little surprise for all as well. The last trip of the season was planned as a 9 dive trip, but we decided to not only do 9 dives but also visit the dragons on the last day, whoop whoop!
We parked the boat on the mooring line at Sabayor and did the first dive the next morning at the stunningly beautiful Tatawa Besar. We had a slight current which makes it even better to enjoy all the orange soft coral, massive barrel sponges, hydroids, whip corals, table corals and staghorn coral. On top of that one group saw a manta passing by. Two other groups had a beautiful eagle ray hanging out for a long time. Beside that massive pufferfishes, ribbon eels and turtles were found.What a start of the day! The next dive was Batu Bolong. One of the big four dive sites in the Komodo National Park. And rightfully so! The fish soup of anthias, sergeant majors and damselfish is amazing and gives the reef so much colour. Beside that there is not a single spot on there that is not covered in corals. A truly massive giant trevally came in to get a clean, a white tip reef shark passed by, rave nudi’s (nembrotha purpureolineata) were found and hawksbill turtles came to say hello too. Blue fin trevally’s together with a longnose emperor were hunting the reef for a snack. It’s so pretty you don’t know where to look.
For the third dive of the day it was time to head up North and have a look at the Golden Passage. A relatively fast drift presented us with white tip reef sharks, black tip reef sharks, giant sweetlips, batfish, barracuda, turtles and puffer fish. What an awesome days diving today!Jo and Marsel went to the beach with everybody. The teams for our extreme beach clean- up were as follow: Marsel and the girls against the boys. The boys team was bigger but the girls did have the fastest beach cleaner of Flores in their team;-). Despite this fact, the men won! But far more importantly a great effort was put in by everybody and the beach looks a lot better now! A well deserved drink and a beautiful sunset was the reward! Time for dinner, chatting and a good night sleep to be ready for a 4 dive day!
We started the early morning of the 30thof September at the famous Castle Rock. Castle is another one of the top 4 dive sites in the park. A relatively strong rising current made us work hard on the dives (and burn a bit of air;-)) but with an awesome result. Three possibly 4 grey reefs kept on coming into the reef whilst in the meantime we were surrounded by white tip reef sharks all the time. Little brave white tip reef sharks, some of them smaller than the giant trevallys, showing off with the bigger sharks. But also bigger white tip males and females with mating scars on their backs. Now beside the shark parade going on in front of us there was a big school sailfin snapper, schooling banner fish everywhere, lots of red tooth triggerfish and surgeonfish. At one point you could hear all the fish move bat once, one of those amazing sounds that makes you aware that something big is trying to catch some food.
It was time to move South again and challenge our luck on Karang Makassar. Some sharks were seen, lots of rubble, nudibranchs and plenty of fish but no mantas unfortunately. We did the night dive at Wainilu. Always a pleasure, since there’s so many weird stuff that can be found there. Frogfish, Spanish dancers, flatwurms, moray eels, cuttlefish, octopus, scorpionfish, decorated crabs, shrimps and so much more. A wonderful night dive indeed!
The last dive of the Komodo season we went to Tengah. With a mild current we saw lots of turtles, baby sharks, nudibranchs, juvenile batfish but also a big school of long nose emperors, batfish and rainbow runners. A worthy Komodo National Park last dive of the trip, with the beautiful colours of the hard and soft corals and lots of fish combined.
Jo and the guests went to the dragons after that. I think she got a bit carried away when she pinned Jesse to the floor with the rangers stick;-). Time to sail off home. Not only has it been a truly fantastic season here, thanks to all the Wicked guests that came to visit us. It also was a super fun and fantastic last trip. We hope to see you all back either here next season or in Raja Ampat in the mean time!A BIG Thank you to all of you who joined this trip!
An a very big thank you to all the guests who joined the Jaya in 2013 making this a great year indeed! So much fun, so many amazing experiences and so much gained! You have helped us teach several Interns from Komodo Village who are now employed, you have helped us collect data on Manta Rays and our efforts helped create a 7000sq KM Manta Ray, Shark and Turtle sanctuary around Flores and Komodo and much more!!! Thank you for choosing Wicked Diving and we hope to see you again real soon!!!
-Wicked Diving Komodo
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