09 July 2011, Airport pick up for 8 divers arrived from Singapore, check in at Taman Agung Hotel - Sanur, stay overnight.
Day One - 10 July 2011
Departure day, 5.30 a.m heading to the airport sending the first group 7 divers fly to Labuhan Bajo with TransNusa air. ETD 7.10 a.m
Good news at 8.30 a.m got a call, first group arrived Labuhan Bajo safely with all the baggage and dive gear.
9.00 a.m second group heading to the airport. My car arrived at domestic departure area, second car with 8 divers and the luggage just disappear, not arrived after 20 minutes my car arrived. I tried to call the second car driver to make sure everything is okay, he said no problem everything is fine. Wait another 15 minutes second group not arrived yet. Call the driver again to ask what actually happened, he said he drop the 8 divers and all the dive gear at the International airport, and they already walk to domestic departure area for about 30 minutes. Bloody stupid driver, he's the one that pick up the guests last night.
This is a disaster, I run to the international airport, try to find them along the way and can't find anybody, then back to domestic airport check in and hope to find them in there. As I arrived they already done with the check in and paid for excess baggage, now my turn to do the check in, load my gear bag to the scale it's 27 kg, so about 7 kg exceed the baggage allowance only 20 kg it's clearly printed on my ticket, but the check in counter staff said your exceed baggage is 12 kg, I said what, how it become 12 kg, she said started from 1st July 2011 baggage allowance is 15 kg. And this airline also very popular, leaving passenger baggage if the plane is full.
Really worried they will leave my group dive gear which mean another disaster to our Liveaboard trips.
Stop. think then Act, I decide to collect all the luggage tag and write the luggage number, and then hand it to one of the baggage handling staff along with my mantra.
The we go up stair to the waiting room. ETD 11.30, delay for 25 minutes arrived safely at 14.30 at Labuhan Bajo along with all the baggage and dive gear. The Mantra works good.
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| Labuhan Bajo Airport |
After boarding Cheng Ho boat crew show us our room, the we have hour lunch while Cheng ho sail to the first dive site for check dive. Bidadari island which is about an hour from Labuhan Bajo port, not so interesting dive site, visibility at around 5-7 meters. After check dive we moved to Gili Lawa Darat, dinner and stay over night.
Day 02 - 11 July 2011
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| S 95, Speed 100, F 6.3, Iso 100 |
Very beautiful dive site for wide angle photography, with slide current, a lots of soft coral and seafan. And at the end of this dive we passed an area with a passage full of fish.
When we get into the boat the remove all the gear, the dinghy captain shout to us manta-manta, we grab our fins and mask and jump into the water saw 2 manta before it disappear.
After our breakfast at 10.00 we discussing the second dive, dive guide said we will do the same site as the first one, this is the chance to inspect the passage the dive guide told me it's at around 18m depth.
Second Dive: Shot Gun again.
At last I find the passage, seems like all the fish hiding from the current packed into the passage, a large group of red snapper, jacks, giant trevally and more, spend no less than 15 minutes at this passage taking pictures, until the other group came, cause a traffic jam in the passage and I decide to ascend and end the dive.
"The Passage"...a beautiful nickname for this site, and generally in life we only reserve nicknames for those we really adore.
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| Canon S 95, Speed 100, F 6.3, Iso 100 |
Crystal rock is a coral pinnacle that rise to the surface, which mean current, another beautiful dive site for wide angle photo with colourful soft coral, seafan, gorgonian and sponge, unfortunately we went down when the current still quiet strong, so a little bit difficult to explore the whole pinnacle without get drifted to the blue water.
Luckily we can swim back and finish the dive right behind the current at the south site of the pinnacle.
Day 3 - 12 July 2011
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| Canon S 95, Speed 250. F 8.0, Iso 100 |
After a light breakfast we dive karang makassar, this dive site is special for mantaray, depth is in between 8 - 14 meters, almost nothing on the bottom except coral rubble.
Unfortunately there's no current when we get there, got the chance to see 3 or 4 passing manta every 8 to 10 minutes.
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| S 95, Speed 125, F 8.0, Iso 100 |
Our second dive is at Deadman Island, visibility was not really good at the beginning of our dive.
Deadman island a scary name with a reason I guess, we got caught with the down current from 14 meters it drag us down to 23 meters, hang in there for 3 to 5 minutes and see the bubbles flows down below us, and when I feel the current getting weaker, I swim fast round the corner where the down current become very weak and then disappear.
The rest of the dive at 8 - 10 meters is really beautiful with no current at all, seafans and soft coral everywhere.
After second dive we have lunch and continue with trekking to see the Komodo Dragon at Rinca island.
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| Canon S 95, Speed 500, F 8.0, Iso 80 |
This dive is a night dive, first night dive for my three advanced students. And also got my first Miamira Magnifica, a super size miamira it's about 8 or 9 cm..
Day 4 - 13 July 2011
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| S 95, Speed 100, F 6.3, Iso 100 |
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| Speed 100, F 6.3, Iso 100 |
Now we strat the dive from the north site heading to the west and we find the alley, where the manta flying but stay at the same place moving up and down because of the current.
Cannot taking pic at this dive since on hand need to hold on to the rock at the bottom.
It seems like the manta just ignoring us while they feeding so we can come quiet close.
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| Canon S 95, Speed 500, F 8.0, Iso 80 |
It takes 5 hours to get to pink beach, with speed at 2.4 knot only because of the current.
Actually this can be avoided, with a captain and Divemaster that sail these waters for more than 3 years, they should know in advance about the distance and current condition.
Should be 4 dives, but because of this we can do only 3 dives, the last dive is a night dive.
Day 5 - 14 July 2011
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| Canon G 9, Speed 160, F 7.1, Iso 100 |
First Dive: Batu Bolong is a pinnacle that raise to the surface in the middle of the strait, the scaries dive site in Komodo National Park if the current at it's peak, can twist a 46 meters phinisi boat from it's heading.
Luckily the twist and shout current not appear today, after few days here seems like Komodo region tide one to two hours earlier that the tide table of the Bima port.
A dive guide should know better about this.
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| G 9, Speed 80, F 6.3, Iso 100 |
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| Canon S 95, Speed 100, F 6.3, Iso 100 |
A submerge pinnacle with shallowest part at 5 to 8 meters from the surface, a good place to see reef shark and all the pelagic, our dive guide enter the water from the wrong point, no reference buoy and line, luckily the current not so strong so we need to kick like hell to reach the pinnacle, and heading to up current of the pinnacle.
Third Dive: Castle Rock,
No camera this time the dive guide suggest me, this third dive is better preparation with buoy and line at the top of the pinnacle, with correct entry point moderate current, more experience dive guide make this dive more interesting we circling the whole pinnacle and watching the show with 7 to 8 shark, 12 to 15 giant trevally, and a 1.2 m dog tooth tuna. End the dive at the right point of the pinnacle so safety stop still possible. Seems like stronger the current it's more fish at this kind of pinnacle.
Fourth Dive : Gili Lawa Laut
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| Canon G 9, Speed 500, F 8.0, Iso 100 |
Day 6 - 15 July 2011
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| G 9, Speed 60, F 5.6, Iso 80 |
Because of so many request for Batu Bolong we return to this dive site again, condition as good as the previous day, just need to wait about an hour for the best tide.
Start the dive with same entry point like before, but heading to the east of the pinnacle, to find the submerge pinnacle.
An awesome dive site for wide angle and macro photography.
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| Canon G 9, Speed 500, F 8.0, Iso 100 |
This is a special request dive site for my advanced student to do the advanced navigation dive.
No current with nice white sandy bottom.
I still have a chance to shot this cute Nembrotha Kubaryana.
My last dive in this journey.
Happy to see all my advanced student has a great improvement with their buoyancy skill and air consumption rate, some photographer has a lots improvement with the pictures compare to their very first day shot.
Day 7 - 16 July 2011
Back for lunch, after lunch it's time to say goodbye to everyone than we heading to the airport,
our flight delay for more than 1 hour, luckily the connecting flight to Singapore is at 20.00 hours.
Again the mantra works good, all baggage arrive safely at Ngurah Rai airport Bali.
Time to say goodbye to my Singapore and Hong Kong group, they heading direct to the International airport. End of the trip.
Note:
This is a trip report and my personal opinion, there is no intention to offend or flatterer any party.
The underwater photography equipment and set up that I used in this trip was my own choice
I didn't get it free, nor received any financial advantage from the brand I used.
But the effect is clear enough, some of the divers who participated in this trip, after seeing my underwater camera set up and pictures, they're very interested to get the same camera type and brand which I used in this Liveaboard trip.
And I know few compact camera like Oly and Pany, will be very promising for underwater photography,
I'm pretty confident the result will be equal to or even better than the current set up that I used on this trips.
It will be great if the Oly or Pany distributor for Indonesia will lend their compact camera for me to try on my next liveaboard trip.
My upcoming Liveaboard trip is mid January 2012 to Raja Ampat and early August 2012 to Komodo National Park.
Cheers,
Andy Chan
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