Greetings from Indonesia! After hopping briefly through Jakarta and Bali, we made it to a small town called Labuan Bajo on the island of Flores in Indonesia. From there, we took a boat for a couple hours to a small diving resort called Scuba Junkie, right on the edge of Komodo National Park (which is a fairly large group of islands and surrounding waters).
We spent the last week there, usually out on a dive boat in the park from ~6a to ~6p, doing 3 long dives each day. The resort and islands in the park were beautiful - a fantastic setting to get away and be in nature for awhile.
We spent the last week there, usually out on a dive boat in the park from ~6a to ~6p, doing 3 long dives each day. The resort and islands in the park were beautiful - a fantastic setting to get away and be in nature for awhile.
We didn't know all that much about Komodo before we arrived, although we had heard it has some of the best, most diverse diving in the world. The stat we heard was that marine biologists can typically identify more species of fish in a single dive than exist in all of the Caribbean.
What we DIDN"T know, was that a big reason for all that diversity is the extremely strong daily currents that are caused by having a very warm sea to the north and a cold one to the south. Neither of us had really done much diving like this before, and it definitely kept things interesting.
Currents in the park can get up to 7 knots (which is ~8mph, or about as fast as most sailboats travel), and many of the dive sites had names like "the shotgun," which gives you a sense for the experience.
On one hand, it was quite fun to be able to drop down and have the current carry you across huge swaths of reef without having to paddle or really do much of anything. On the other hand, when you had to fight currents or get across them, it was a lot of work and could be more than a little stressful.
What we DIDN"T know, was that a big reason for all that diversity is the extremely strong daily currents that are caused by having a very warm sea to the north and a cold one to the south. Neither of us had really done much diving like this before, and it definitely kept things interesting.
Currents in the park can get up to 7 knots (which is ~8mph, or about as fast as most sailboats travel), and many of the dive sites had names like "the shotgun," which gives you a sense for the experience.
On one hand, it was quite fun to be able to drop down and have the current carry you across huge swaths of reef without having to paddle or really do much of anything. On the other hand, when you had to fight currents or get across them, it was a lot of work and could be more than a little stressful.
From a diversity of life perspective, the park more than lived up to its reputation. We saw huge manta rays, multiple types of sea turtle, dolphins, several types of sharks, and literally hundreds of species of fish, coral, and other life. A few of our favorite shots are below:
On our way out of the park, we did a little hiking on land as well to find the famed Komodo Dragons. On the islands, there were deer, buffalo, monkeys, and TONS of Komodo Dragons:
That's all for now. Hope everyone out there is doing well. More to come from Indonesia soon!
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