Daily Diving - Photos now loaded (Mar. 15-17, 2015)

Mar. 15-17, 2015

The past three days, I have gone diving with Bajo Diving Shop, Sara, and the two German guys. There were only four of us for the first two days, then just Sara and me for the third day. The last day, yesterday, there was Sara, me and one other French guy. It was great to have such small groups and long dives. A real treat and super relaxing. As a result of the smaller groups and dive company we got to spend one of our Surface Interval times at a lovely little beach where we swam and chilled out at the shore for an hour or so. It was super great.

We had a really sweet Dive Master, Tim, a German guy who was 18 years old. He was very mature for his age, and had lots of energy to do many dives, so that was fantastic. Sara and I are both really good on air, so all of our dives were over an hour. We visited many dive sites in Komodo National Park, and had some amazing views of the many oceanic creatures and plant life that you could ever imagine. 

One memorable dive was at Batu Balong, a lovely site where the current gets split by two huge rocks and there is a steep reef along the back of this split. I think I told you about it already. I dived there again and saw many other things that I hadn’t seen before. There were a lot of lobsters hidden in amongst the rocks. You can’t see them at first because all you see are these long antennae sticking out from the rock, and then you look closer, and see that the antennae belong to several owners underneath the rock. I think the antennae are at least as long if not longer than the animal itself. These guys were really interesting and once I knew what to look for, there were quite a few hidden in various places. I'll have to show you the video's when I'm home. They don't load on Blogger.

Another really great dive was at Mawan Dive site where we spent most of the dive examining a beautiful coral reef, with both soft and hard coral. There were so many colours that it was hard to decide where to look to see the most lovely specimens. Then the reef kind of disappears and gives way to a sandy bottom. There is a Manta cleaning station there, and hundreds of little cleaner fish are buzzing around a couple of large boulders on the ocean floor, in the sand. Tim had said that it is possible, but not super likely to see Manta there, but we checked anyway. It was the last dive of the day, and near the end of our dive time, but we wanted to take a look. We saw nothing, were ready to move on to see some other areas, when two of the biggest Mantas came gliding by. One was over 5 metres in breadth with a black and white spotted tummy. The other was a bit smaller, with a clean, unmarked white tummy. We all sank to the bottom, held onto some rocks so as not to blow away with the current, and just stayed there, watching these two, do circles around us, just above our heads. They’re kind of shy, so if you don’t get to the bottom and remain still, they get scared off and won’t stick around. Well, these guys circled for about 20 minutes while we watched. In fact, we had been down for the maximum amount of time we could be down for, and still they circled. Tim had to call the dive before the Mantas were ready to leave. We slowly ascended, then did our Safety Stop at 5 meters, and were able to watch them from there, above their area, for the last part of the dive. When Tim indicated that we needed to break the surface, I didn’t want to stop watching them, but did, for safety. It was a truly spectacular dive with such a variety of coral, fish, and then the Manta’s. Great Manta videos for later as well.

One day, Sara had told Tim that she wanted to see turtles, sharks and Mantas. Well, it happened two days before we had to fly back to Denpasar. We were diving at Crystal Rock, and spotted a turtle digging at something in the side of the reef. We stopped to see what it was doing, and it was trying to get at some vegetation that was stuck inside a rocky area. I then spotted a large Scorpion Fish, in its way, and worried that it would get stung by the Scorpion Fish. They are poisonous so I thought the turtle would be injured. In fact, the turtle was set on getting at the food, kept scratching away, and moving all the objects in his way, including the Scorpion Fish. This SF was really big, purple in colour and looked exactly like the rocks the turtle was getting at. The fish was a bit disgruntled, but ended up getting scooped up by the turtle’s big fin, and thrown a little ways away, with all the other debris. He was not happy, but moved off to find another home. The turtle clearly must have thick skin on its fins because he didn’t seem to be badly off at all, after touching the SF. Really interesting to watch. I have a great turtle video to share that is so cute.

In our diving gear

Tim, Sara and me

Boat crew, Tim, Sara, and me

Finally it was our last day to dive. We decided to do three dives that day as we would be finished in enough time to safely fly the next day. The dives were all great. Two with some current which meant Drift Dives, and one with less current where we saw lots of coral and pretty plants. I didn’t want the dives to end, and neither did Sara. We were both so happy diving every day and looking at the ocean while we chugged along in the boat to each dive site. They were all good dives and we saw lots of life. Sharks, turltes and one last Manta went by to send us on our way. None of them hung around long, but they were there to say goodbye which was really cool.

Oh, I forgot to tell you that for the last three days, after diving, I went up to the local town hospital. John, the young Swedish guy I told you about, from the boat tour, was also staying in the hostel I was in. He hadn’t been feeling too well for the last few days, with fever on and off, chills, and just generally unwell. I told him if he didn’t feel better, he should go for a blood test for Malaria or something. He agreed, and went one morning to the hospital to get it checked out. It turned out that he had Dengue Fever. I went to visit him the first evening, after diving and he already looked better. The next evening, I brought him his backpack and things so that he’d have them with him. When I went back the second day, he was no longer alone in his room, but had two other young Swedish guys in the room, one with Dengue and the other with Typhoid. How weird that all three were Swedish, and that all of them had something similar. Anyway, I felt badly for him to have to be in that hospital, which was super old, very dated equipment, and not particularly clean. They were lovely though, and I think that the care was really good. I was there when the doctor from another town came to take his blood for testing. The doctor looked about twelve, was in jean shorts and a T-shirt, and flip flops. He was really nice though and super caring.

I was so happy that I had gotten my Typhoid shot, and that I am crazy about the repellant and long sleeves and pants. It is not a particularly high risk area, but there seems to have been a little outbreak. It is not clear where these guys picked up their bugs, because all of them had been traveling before coming to Labuan Bajo.