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Dive Damai - Dragons
and Molas!
MSY Damai
Mola-molas,
or ocean sunfish, visit the reefs of
Bali only for a few months every
year. The rest of the time they have
a pelagic existence in the open sea.
We depart at the end of their season
and should be able to glimpse the
molas. They like deep dropoffs and
upwellings and can be found anywhere
from 40 to 130 feet. The come in to
get cleaned by bannerfish and
angelfish as well as assorted
wrasses.
Komodo will be at
its peak in the north with excellent
visibility and the famous critters
arriving in big numbers. Dive will
be done in the region from Sangeang
and Rinca.
The Komodo National Park has been a
huge success and is one of the best
model programs the country has to
offer in terms of preservation and
conservation. This is why we believe
Komodo park diving is still at the
top of the diving scale in
Indonesia. The state of the hard
corals in the north is outstanding,
the fish numbers have increased and
the critter life is abundant.
To top it off, regular encounter
with pelagic creatures like mantas
and even sharks is on the rise.
This itinerary will be run either
from Bali to Laboan Bajo or vice
versa.
Day 1 - Embark in
Laboanbajo and depart to
Tatawa, already in the Komodo
national Park. Tatawa Kecil offers a
great chance of seeing mantas. Batu
Balong is a small island in the
middle of a current-rich area that
attracts plenty of sharks and
provides excellent visibility. The
drift in Tatawa Besar is a classic
in Komodo. The site is covered with
orange soft corals, schooling
batfish and a beautiful shallow hard
coral garden.
Day 2 - Early morning walk to
see the famous dragons. Very close
to the station we find Pantai
Merah, a nice, small and very
fishy reef with plenty of life. Look
for painted frogfish and lots of
nudis. We then move the boat a few
miles to Padar to
dive W reef, a submerged
reef made out of 3 mini sea
mountains. Great for nudis!!!
Day 3 - Horseshoe Bay in
Rinca, the home to the
famous Cannibal Rock,
Yellow Wall and Torpedo Alley.
Waters will be colder than before
and the visibility a bit less, but
there is such an abundance of all
kind of life that divers are too
busy looking at the reef to notice.
All kind of critters can be spotted
here including giant frogfish and
rhinopias, whitetip reef sharks and
turtles, resident unique nudies and
a blue octopus.
Yellow Wall, as its
name indicates, is covered with soft
corals. The unique lady bug, the sea
apple, the fire urchins with Coleman
shrimps and zebra crabs are
particularly easy to spot in this
area. Torpedo alley is
another of the legendary night dives
in Indonesia, apart from the rays
there are frogfish, sea pens,
numerous crabs and Bobbitt worms
Day 4 - Langkoi:Mantas,
mantas and mantas and sometimes
MolaMola as well. We will have many
opportunities to cavort with mantas
here.
Day 5 - Gilli Lawa Laut:
This has the biggest
concentration of life in Komodo.
Schools of surgeonfish, barracudas,
jacks, passing sharks, sweetlips,
Napoleon fish and sea turtles are
common. Lately we have had dolphins
fishing right in front of us.
Unbelievable dives!!! Worth the
whole trip!!
Day 6 - Gili Lawa Laut
and the passages in
Gilli Lawa Darat:
This is another day of adrenaline
and incredible fish life!!!
Day 7 - Banta:
We will be targeting one of the most
beautiful reefs in Indonesia:
GPS. Expect good, manageable
currents that bring in pelagic
action.
We can see grey reef sharks,
barracudas, green and hawksbill
turtles and the rare oceanic trigger
fish. On the northwest corner
Stairway to Heaven is a very
healthy wall full of varied action.
Mantas may pass by. K2 and
Star Wars are nice
alternatives as less demanding
dives. They have nice reef with low
current and big cuttlefish, leaf
fish, Pegasus sea moths and green
turtles.
Itīs a Small World is one
of the best night dives of the trip.
Ther is potential to see everything
from hunting lionfish to bobbit
worms, stonefish, stargazers and
bobtail squid.
Day 8 - Sangeang:
The Volcanic slopes give way to a
black sand bottom. At Bubble
Reef one can experience the
sensation of warm gases percolating
through the sand. The mixture of
coral reef and black sand is
fascinating and all divers like to
search for leaf fish, blue and
juvenile ribbon eels and big schools
of snappers. The dive site Black
magic has some nice black coral
formation on the sand and there is a
chance to see ornate ghost pipefish
and tozeuma shrimps. Both night
dives, either there or in Bontho
are fantastic. One almost sure bet
is seeing the outstanding boxer
crab.
Day 9 - Moyo
and Satonda. Moyo
has absolutely great macro dive
including the wonderpuss octopus as
its most notable inhabitant. Satonda
has a nice reef that is quite
colorful. There's also a white sand
slope where we can find some bommies
with plenty to see like stonefish,
pipefish, inimicus and pygmy
seahorses among them. The island
also has a marine lake and a colony
of thousands of flying foxes that
appear at night for an eerie show.
Day 10 and 11 - Nusa
Lembongan and Nusa
Penida. Mola search. The
Molas will be found in can be found
anywhere from 40 to 130 feet. The
come in to get cleaned by bannerfish
and angelfish as well as assorted
wrasses.. The low impact size of our
dive groups enhances our chances of
multiple mola encounters. Molas can
reach sizes of 4 tons and be over 15
feet tall.
Day 12 - Arrival at Benoa
harbour in Bali.
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