I love going to these beautiful dive and snorkel sites in the Komodo National park and this is just on “normal” days, so you can imagine how much more exciting I get when I see something special on a dive or when snorkelling. Another thing that I love is to hear guest telling me about the wonderful things they saw specially when I haven’t seen it yet since that adds more excitement to my treasure hunt whilst diving or snorkelling.
Since I have been back I have seen the usual suspects of course like one day Franky (our Indonesian Instructor) and myself brought our guests to Manta Point and Mauan. At Manta Point we had a gentle current and the Mantas where all around us. Dancing around each other and us. Brushing their wings on our head whilst swimming over us. The coral cleaning stations full of life as usual with the Butterfly fishes and wrasses cleaning the Mantas when they stopped dancing for a minute. After this great dive at Manta Point on to Mauan where my group and me went to the sandy slope. On the way we had a stop for about 10 minutes to enjoy 4 Mantas being curious about us and giving us a nice show. Moving on to the sandy slope to find another 4 or 5 Mantas showing of their swimming skills. Coming back a board Indah Franky told me that he and his group enjoyed an hours Manta show exactly where they jumped in with 6 or 7 Mantas showing their skills. Another day we where at Siaba Besar (Turtle City) and as usual the Green Turtles where lazing about and as a really nice surprise a massive Marble Stingray swimming happily around about 2 meters above the sand bed and though I have seen many Marble Stingrays in my diving career, it was a first for me to see them swimming mid water.
That brings me to the special diving and snorkelling moments. Starting with the snorkelling after having been to Rinca to see the famous Komodo Dragons the guests went snorkelling on 2 beautiful dive sites. The first one being Mauan where they had the joy of seeing the Mantas which is not uncommon but the second spot, Siaba Besar, is what provided the special moment. As they where enjoying the Green Turtles lazing about, the Spotted Sweetlips floating over the table corals, the fusiliers gathering forming a nice school, the Cardinals hanging out in the Stag Horn coral like Christmas tree decoration they suddenly saw a shadow shooting by with what looked like the shape of a Dugong. In my opinion seeing a shadow of a Dugong for a couple of seconds, which by the way my first sighting of a Dugong on a dive was the same, doesn’t classify as seeing a Dugong, so to make sure another Dugong decided to make it count as seeing a Dugong by swimming slowly away in full view with as a background a Turtle and a White Tip Reef Shark. It is true they don’t have any photographic evidence but I believe them since the way they described it you would not be able to make up.
For the divers it has been really exciting too. Three lovely guests decided that they wanted to repeat the DSD diving experience they had ones before in their life. After doing the DSD skills, designed to make them comfortable and safe for the maximum dive depth of 12 meters, we went on a dive at Mini Wall, which is a lovely dive for any diver so you can imagine what it is like for someone who only has done one dive before, following the Stag Horn Coral full of fish life to the wall. You could see the joy in there eyes seeing these wonderful sceneries. Nothing special about that you say? I agree except as we were on our way back to the boat just before the end of the dive we looked into the blue and there it was! The special moment! The unexpected moment of 2 Mobula’s dancing around for a good 20 seconds before disappearing back into the blue. As a cherry on the icing when we got back on the boat the 2 Mobula’s made another appearance but this time they brought some friends giving us a little end of day show. Suddenly the Jumping Manta, a few days before, in the channel by Komodo Resort seems to be trivial.
However we still can top that with 2 other dives we had though I would like to tell you that in reversed order. Starting with the night dive at Sebayur Kecil, taking in mind that this is comparatively, we had the pleasure of seeing a Spanish Dancer which is not unheard of though you won’t hear it much, Franky, who I now like to call Eagle Eye Franky, managed to find 2 Bobtail Cuttlefish the size of a babies fingernail and that is not the only treasure he found on our doorstep. That brings me to the “Pièce de Résistance!” of a morning dive at Sebayur Kecil where Franky and his 2 guests were happily making bubbles when Franky spotted some cuttlefish eggs, I will come back to them in a minute, after which they hung around some coral taking pictures, I forget now what they where taking
pictures of, when to there surprise who decided to pop up his head? When they told me I would not believe it until they showed me the picture! Okay, okay I’ll tell you! So as they were taking the pictures suddenly mister Mandarinfish came to say hello. And I am not talking about the seize of the Wanilu Mandarin, no much bigger which I believe means that there must be a lot more of them! More importantly he came to say hello in broad daylight whereas, for those who don’t know, they normally don’t show there face other then during dusk or dawn. Coming back to the Cuttlefish eggs well, Komodo National park, besides me seeing it in person, for me you have your work cut out to top this one. As Karen (one of the guests) was floating there patiently enjoying the feeling of flying getting in touch with her motherly nature one of the eggs hatched with a baby cuttlefish releasing itself into the marine world for a lifetime adventure. And though she is a person who loves photography for some unknown reason did she feel the need of using the video option on her camera recording the wonder of the underwater world giving everyone back at Komodo Resort the pleasure of sharing this amazing experience. Personally would I like to give Karen the tittle of Komodo Resort Midwife.
