(Sorry! Back to limited spectrum on the WiFi so no pix yet. Just words!)
The small islands of Komodo National Park rise up from the sea in midday colors exactly that of tawny lions. At least now, in the midst of dry season, they are almost entirely coated in pelts of tall buff grass, with only outcrops of rock casting shadows of grey and the very occasional tree plus the scattered skirts of mangrove adding the slap and dash of color. Only on the two large islands of Komodo and Rinca (pronounced Rin-cha) (and two smaller ones in the south) is there enough fresh water available to support a food chain substantial enough for the famous Komodo Dragons, which bring the area its fame and its protected park status.
The sea surrounding these islands is very blue and clear, and we were attracted as much for the diving as to see the dragons. In truth, more attracted by the diving. We'd made a booking with a Labuan Bajo dive operator -- Bajo Dive Club (www.komododiver.com) -- to pick us up for a day of diving. Although we had imagined when bringing our own gear for this trip that we would be in circumstances we would be able to dive on our own, the fact is that the strait's strong tidal currents make local knowledge in choosing sites and times as well as an independent skipper to follow the your drift not just desirable but prudent. Plus, Tom and Bette Lee carry neither their own tanks nor scuba equipment.
Unfortunately, as affordable (cheap) as most things and services are in Indonesia, diving is not. The going price comes out to about $80 plus park fees for a two-tank trip. The best deal around is the multi-day safaris on the pirate ships. Most of these are geared to backpacker expectations of comfort and service, but some for sure are fancier. Here you really get value for your rupiah.
Bajo Dive recommended an anchorage on the west side of Siaba Besar island with a mooring where they would meet us in the morning. However when we got there, the wind was piping a brisk 20+ knots, the tidal current was cranking, and the mooring, tucked between the curve of the larger island and it's smaller partner Siaba Kecil (besar means big; kecil means little) appeared hemmed about by shallow reefs. Not liking the look of it, Tom did an about face, and we put the hook down around the corner for lunch and a chance to review our options, the chief of a change being how would the dive boat find us if we weren't anchored where we'd said we'd be? (No VHF and out of cell range.)
We might have given the planned mooring another shot as the wind died down, but one of the pirate-like wooden liveaboards came in shortly afterwards and picked it up for the night! There's rubbing it in your face.
Fortunately for us, a young fisherman with decent English came by and offered to lead us to a better spot than we'd picked. It involved a bit of back-tracking, but this mooring -- on the west side Sebayur Besar Island was well out in a large encircling bay with picturesque islets and rocks all around. We offered to reimburse him for the fuel he expended leading us here and then, inevitably, bought some of the souvenir carvings that no self-respecting Komodo islander is at large without! We were a tad smug when just past sunset another live-aboard schooner came in to find the mooring taken. Fortunately, there was no complaint; they just dropped their anchor despite the 80' depths!
Amazingly, Bajo Dive found us the next morning before we'd even begun to worry. Also before we'd begun to get ready. In fact, we were still at the breakfast table! They rafted alongside and we scurried to move our gear aboard.
The boat was a slightly larger version of Thomas's Alor Dive boat. These are all wooden ships built, we are told, in Sulawesi for about a tenth of what a American-style fiberglass boat would cost. The small ones serve as dive boats and day excursion boats, with a platform for sitting, a canopy for shade, a toilet, and a galley sufficient for producing the included nasi goreng-type lunches. The big ones are for multi-day dive excursions and can sleep probably six to twelve. They are very atmospheric-looking.
Over the next two days, we made four excellent dives with Bajo Dive. On the first day we were aboard the small dive boat with four other divers (including our intrepid lady travelers Carilee and Jan). On the second day Bajo brought their "big boat", the one set up for overnight "safaris" (their word for charters.) Each vessel had a captain, two divemasters -- Augustus and Steffi the first day and Steffi and Chris the second (Steffi and Chris both from Germany) -- and several willing deckhands. These young guys have been shown a few things about readying scuba divers for the water, and they are very keen to be helpful. In principle, I approved even while actually wishing to be left to do things myself.
The dives themselves were truly impressive. Better than almost anything we saw across the Pacific (with the exception of the south pass of Fakarava, Tuamotus, or the beautiful corals of Fiji's Somo Somo Strait)). Honestly, they rank as some of the best, most interesting dives I've ever done, right up there with the Red Sea and Palau. The corals are vibrant, colorful and very varied, and every site we went to had lots of fish life. Ever since my Red Sea trip in the early '80s, I've been a sucker for the clouds of colorful anthias (anthiases?) -- small orange to pinkish "goldfish"-scale fish -- that hover along Indo-Pacific reef crests nipping plankton from the currents. There is so much going on, so much color, so many species, it is hard to take it all in. I could do the dives over and over....if I didn't have to be paying for them!
The first dive, Batu Bolong, was distinguished above water by a rock with a round hole in it. Unfortunately there was a crowd of other dive boats hanging around it which initially put me off. But by some bit of luck, we dropped below the other divers and circled around behind the rock, and by the time we ascended to shallower levels, most had cleared out. However, like most crowded sites, there is a reason for it. The corals were beautiful and the fish life prolific and varied, including larger pelagics hanging out in the blue.
Our second dive was a drift dive over a fascinating bank of vigorous hard corals punctuated by eye-catching orangey-yellow soft corals. Although the current was more than some of us liked, this dive will stand in my memory for a record seven turtles popping up out of vast stands of staghorn corals.
The next day we dove first on a less-visited site -- dubbed Lonely Tree for the one Charlie Brown straggler topping a very small islet. Below was a hulking mound of a dive site where we spent most of our bottom time on the lee side avoiding the tidal current. The colors here were bright and busy with clouds of tropicals at all levels, and our dive master Chris hunted and poked finding small stuff as well as large.
The second dive brought us to another isolated rock-let, this one with a sheer wall on the lee side. Although the drift current was less, I felt there was some vertical currents to cope with, and we ended up deeper than intended. Shortly after entering the water we saw a white tip shark in the deep, and later Chris found a small white tip napping under the table corals. He also found several interesting nudibranchs and slugs, a cowrie relative looking like a blob of black sponge, and a nice moray. Cruising the top of the rock during my safety stop I glimpsed a snake eel winding among the fire corals.
Gwen Hamlin
Cafe Getaway
Sent from my iPad
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