This was a club trip – our first to this remote part of Indonesia. Six members participated:-
Paul Blackburn
Sheila Blackburn
Goetz von Dresky
Gitta von Dresky
Suzannah Browning
Zita Ong
Planning for this trip began in April when I first met Greg Heighes at the ‘Celebrate the Sea’ Exhibition in Singapore. Greg was marketing dive trips to Komodo. Six months later here we are.
Getting here is not too difficult from Singapore. Fly to Bali and join a local one hour flight to Labuan Bajo on Flores (included in the cost of the dive trip).
Here we board a mini van for a half hour run to the quayside where we climb aboard KM Bidadari.
This is a great liveaboard diving boat with six spacious cabins, each with small ensuite, for 12 divers. On this trip four divers cancelled at the very last minute due to the second round of bombings in and around Kuta just a few days earlier. Consequently we became a group of only seven divers with a nice American guy – Temple Causey who made up the full dive party. We therefore had, more room at the dining table and in the two zodiacs that transfer us to the dive sites there was only ever four divers in each which was a comfortable number once all the gear was on board including cameras etc. If the full compliment of passengers had been on board it would have been a difficult squeeze in the zodiacs especially if many divers were carrying delicate camera equipment.
The KM Bidadari is large and very stable in the water with hardly any sensation of rolling when cruising. On the main deck there is plenty of room for dive gear which is permanently set up with a fresh cylinder – all taken care of by the staff. They transfer dive gear to and from the zodiacs so the divers only needs to be concerned about mask, fins, torch and camera. The crew are very helpful in passing your equipment to you and looking after cameras carefully. On the main foredeck area is where we kit up, have our briefings and can get a quick freshwater shower after dives. A tank is filled with fresh water for cameras. Another tank, or a bigger tank would be needed if all divers had camera equipment. The lounge/dining area is situated on the main deck. It is spacious and cosy with music system, DVD player, and TV plus a selection of movies including not surprisingly “The Blue Planet” series. There is also a well stocked library of dive books and books on local natural history etc. Cabins are down below and each has life jackets in case of emergency. There is a satellite phone and in case it is needed the nearest decompression chamber is at Denpasar in Bali. On the level above the main deck is a sitting area where we also had dinner one evening and on the top level is the sun deck which gets very hot but is a great place to warm up just after some of the colder dives. Power sockets are two pin round. There is ample space for charging appliances.
Mark adds other interest to the dive trip by incorporating a few excursions. On Tuesday morning we entered the Komodo Park where one can enjoy a two hour walk led by a park ranger to see a few docile Komodo Dragons and other wildlife. There is an entry fee of Rp30,000 per person and a levy of Rp100,000 for carrying a video camera. At the end of the walk you encounter the local entrepreneurs who are most keen to get you to purchase their carvings of dragons, cultured pearl necklaces and wooden brightly painted masks.
On two other occasions we visited some beautiful beaches where we walked for miles across the pink sand and eventually watched the sun set over the twin peaks across the bay.
This charter was for a period of six days from a Sunday to Friday. Out of this we did four days of diving ending lunchtime on Thursday, 24 hours prior to departing for Bali. On average we managed four dives per day. The typical day began at 7.00 am with light breakfast followed by the first dive at 0730 hrs. Subsequent dives followed at about 1030 hrs, 1330 hrs and 1600 hrs. Night dives were also available. Most dives were of at least an hour’s duration. Diving in the north generally was better with more fish and some beautiful reefs and water temperatures around 28 degC to 30 degC. In the south the water is much colder at 24 degC and we supplemented our 3mm wetsuit with an upper body ‘Radiator’ with hood and a separate 2mm vest. Even with this extra insulation we felt cold towards the end of a one hour dive.
Komodo and Rinca are known for strong currents and we witnessed some very strong currents at work from the safety of the liveaboard. At one time the boat travelling at 8 knots was unable to make headway! But when diving, our dive leader Mark Heighes was careful to select sites and dive times when conditions were manageable so that we did not have to fight the current too much and we had a very nice drift dive. So you do not need to fear the currents, just respect them and be sensible. Always have a safety sausage in case you are swept away.
There are over 40 possible dive sites that this operator lists. We dived just a few of these but some of the nicer sites are :-
Batu Puti***
Castle Rock****
Crystal Rock****
Golden Passage****
Pantai Mera**
Three Sisters***
Yellow Wall***
Cannibal Rock***
Lembeh Torpedo***
Big Laugh****
Batu Belong****
Write ups of individual sites can be found at the following link :-
www.starfish.ch/dive/komodo.html.
Generally we found the sites in the north of Komodo to be better than those in the south and at Rinca. However all reefs were in pristine condition and teaming with life. All the usual reef fishes were present, often in large numbers and we additionally encountered white tip reef sharks, turtles, giant cuttlefish, napoleon wrasse, bumphead wrasse, giant and blue fin trevally, tuna, barracuda, and many types of moray, lacy scorpion fish and many types of unusual nudibranchs.
Click here to see the Photo Gallery of the above.
Our thanks go to Dive Komodo and especially Mark, Daniel and Walter who served up some great meals and popcorn.
Rating Guide for Videographers
***** Has everything
**** Many photographic subjects
*** Good site, lots to photograph
** Some photographic material
* Little to photograph
Sept 2005
