Diving Komodo



The dragon

 Komodo is one of my favorite dive destination, and this was very memorable trip for me! It was for the first time we arranged our live-aboard trip. We booked MV Tarata for only Rp84mio for 8d/7n trip. MV Tarata is a decent boat with 6 aircon cabin for 12 persons, each cabin has ensuite bathrooms complete with hot shower. Yup, Grand Komodo give us a very special rate during Deep Indonesia on March 08. We dove to Komodo on mid of June 08.

  

Manta ray


We thought it was easy for us to find 12 divers for this trip, but until 2 weeks before the trip we still tried hard to find another 2 divers. And there was a bad news, 5 experience divers missed while diving in Komodo due to strong current. But well, they found alive in the south of Rinca island 48 hours later. We're lucky though, one week before the trip 2 of our friends confirmed to join the trip.

8d/7n definitely was not enough to dive around Komodo National Park, so many dive sites to cover. At that time we only dove in north area. Weather was not allowed us to sail to the south area, but we dove at Manta Alley before the captain decided to sail back to the north area.

The dive sites were GREAT! You can find both pelagic (mantas, sharks, bumpheads, jacks, tunas) and macro stuff (pygmy sehorse, lots of nudibranch, etc). Yup Komodo has everything! Castle rock and Pink Beach, both were my favorite site!

Castle rock was awesome! We descended to the 20m and just stayed there for about 10 or 15 minutes to watch the shark playing around in front of us. Think its about 10 sharks. What an experienced! Safety stop also was wonderful with school of surgeon, jack fish , pyramid butterfly and also colorful anthias.

Pink Beach. Am not a fan of night dive, but at this trip, as my guide told me, don’t missed the night dive at Pink Beach or you will regret! Yup, I had twice night dive in this site and its so cool! Lots of stuff but the special one was watching the spanish dancer, so cool!! Wait till I post the video :-)

Above water also beautiful. The beach, the savanna, the trekking in Rinca island where we can see komodo the dragon and of course the sunset (I always missed the sunrise :-))

The easiest way to go to Komodo is flying to Labuan Bajo from Denpasar. Merpati, Indonesia Air Transport and Trans Nusa Airlines fly from Denpasar to Labuan Bajo every day. And the best way to explore komodo is by live-aboard, well that’s my opinion :-)


Here are some pictures from the trip;

View from Rinca Island



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Fish Fish Fish



Shark napping below the table coral





Colorful anthias at the safety stop