Here be Dragons and Sharks and Manta Rays and ........

Not been able to update the blog recently as we have been away diving in Komodo National Park. Forget all you read in the British Press about the difficulty of dives, it is just beautiful. Yes some dives are somewhat harder than we had ever done, the currents were fast and some upwellings and downwellings encountered but nothing that a diver with a small amount of experience couldn’t handle along with a very good dive master.
In places the coral is non existent due to dynamite fishing in the past by the locals but it is growing back. In other places it is wonderful with a huge diversity of marine life. We have got close, and I mean close to White Tip Reef Sharks, huge Manta Rays, lots of Turtles and a host of other marine creatures. Most of the time they just come right up to you, perhaps a little scary at first but you soon get used to it. On one of the trips back from a dive site in the speed boat to our floating hotel, Mona Lisa, we came across a flight of Giant Manta Rays feeding on the plankton on the surface. We all quickly put back on masks and fins and jumped in. A fantastic experience seeing these huge creatures swim towards you, cavernous mouths wide open pulling in the food. Totally harmless to people as they only feed on the minute sea creatures found in the tropical waters. And all this captured on video.
We have had some exhilarating dives in the current of 4-5 knots sometimes between the islands. On one we started on the reef out of the current, slowly finned into a channel at about 20 metres down then sped along up a narrow gully full of fish to finish clinging on to a rock some 10 metres down in an eddy beneath the current streaming over our heads watching a school of huge tuna sitting in the fast water. On the divemaster’s signal we all let go and just flew backwards in the current to finish in an eddy again further down the reef and our speedboat there to pick us up. Great fun!!
On another dive we were just playing with turtles, both Green and Hawksbill and again so friendly, they don’t move away from you, just swim along sometimes alongside. A really good dive, not hard, no current, just beautiful.
We are now writing this part on the sail from one part of the National Park to another near Rinca and our final dive of the holiday. It has been brilliant, the diving out of this world. Some dives have been technically very difficult for us, especially in the fierce currents around some of the sites.. Often the dive sites in the bays and of the islands are quite easy in a gentle current but move out into the channels between the islands and the current is often around 8 knots with serious up and down currents.
We completed a dive yesterday evening in the sunset with Dolphins playing around us. The main pod were around and could be seen occasionally and he3ard all the time but a mother and baby came and played around and between us. Sadly for me the camera had run out of battery at that time so no pictures or video.
Our last dive is to be on a small rock outcrop in the middle of a channel, hopefully the current will have eased so we can circle it, if not we stay in the lee of the rock and go down to about 20 metres hoping for sharks, manta or even more dolphins. Later we go to see the dragons, all together a great time for us on the Mona Lisa. For 2 days it was just us, one dive master and seven crew. Other times the guests on board have got all the way up to 6. What luxury!!
Now back in Bali and able to catch up with all. We did go walk with dragons and what an experience, loads of them and huge but more about them a little later

Take a look at some pictures of the last week here

http://s193.photobucket.com/albums/z43/Mike-Jan/Komodo/

We now move on again tomorrow to Yogyakarta for further adventures. We also hope to be able to update a little more often

Mike & Jan