Komodo Liveaboard: Day 6

  Today was the last day of our six day scuba liveaboard in the Komodo Islands. The crew of the Amalia and the boat itself took very good care of us. Usually on the last day of the liveaboard you just chug towards harbor to unload, but I was pleasantly surprised that we were going to have two more dive before lunch and then head back to Labuan Bajo to disembark. Cristina and Nelwan asked us what we would like to see and if we had a preference of dive sites and we all agreed...more mantas!

Rhinopias!

First Dive Site: Mauan

This turned into a really fun sandy muck dive with nudibranchs, mantis shrimps and a very rare rhinopias scorpionfish. These scorpionfish take camouflage to a whole new level, with wild filaments adorning their entire body. They are considered to be the 'holy grail' of fish for aquarium specialist as well as underwater photographers. Nelwan had gotten word that there was one in the area so we were quite pleased when we were able to find it.

Peacock Mantis Shrimp

  The water here was impressively clear thanks to the currents ripping by on either side. All of the soft coral provided a great background for the nudibranchs and mantis shrimp pictures. It almost has a feeling of surrounding the animals in a magical forest like in the movie Avatar.

Heidi and her Mantas

  Second Dive Site: Makkassar

Our last dive of the boat trip turned out to be one of the most memorable dives of the entire year. I switched back to my big wide angle lens to hopefully capture the manta ray action of Makkassar. We saw mantas here a few days ago but without the current we missed a bit of the show.

   This time when we dropped down we could immediately tell this dive would be different. The current was ripping. We saw multiple manta rays at the first cleaning station so we settled down on he ground, gripping the rocks below to avoid drifting off with the current. The manta rays on the other hand made stay in place look effortless. They hovered above the coral bommie letting the little cleaner fish shower them with affectionate nibbles.

Black Morpho Manta Ray

   Then it happened. I had hoped we would be lucky enough to have a good encounter with a black morpho manta ray. We dove with one four years ago at this same spot without really knowing the rarity of the all black manta. So you can imagine how excited I was when the black morpho slowly appeared out of the blue to hover just on my other side. I left the coral bommie, totally fixated on the black morpho. I managed to snag a couple of pics while it hovered with me. It almost felt like it was checking me out as well. Then, ever so easily, it swam back up current into the blue.