Capturing the Moment

Ghost Pipefish  Day four of our liveaboard found us in beautiful south Rinca. We were the only boat in sight and during breakfast we could see a large school of mobular rays breaching out of the water. The visibility of the water here in the south was a bit worse than up in North Komodo, but better than the forecast we were receiving from the days leading up to today. But it wasn't going to affect our primary goals for being down here which were macro critters, adventure, and dragons...and we got all three. Orange Cup Coral on the Yellow Wall    We had a four dive day including a night dive. Our dive sights included Cannibal Rock, Jimmy's Rock, Yellow Wall, and a night day at Torpedo Bay. We found a ton of wild and crazy nudibranchs that Heidi is hard at work identifying. Beautiful shrimp and crabs abounded, but what really shocked me was the color and coverage of soft coral. Yellow Wall definitely lived up to it's name but every site was packed with live c...

Geared up and ready to go   Dive 1: Batu Balong     This is one of the premier dives in Komodo. If you only have a couple days in the park then this site should make the list. It is an exposed rock pinnacle that tumbles down into the depths. The walls are covered with soft coral of greens and pinks and fish of every color swim nearby. Big pelagic fish come in for closer looks here all the time. We had some dogtooth tuna, a massive napolean wrasse, a white tip reef shark, and lots of big jacks swimming along the wall here. Then angelfish and anthias swarm closer to the reef making the whole wall look alive. Juvenile Angelfish  We had seen several adult angelfish on our dives here and Bali, but this was the first place of the trip where we found juvenile angelfish. Besides looking nothing like the adults, these juveniles may just be the wildest and most beautiful of any fish on the reef. Their irridescent blues and psychodelic patterns put them in a class...

Dive 1:Crystal Rock  It was an exciting morning aboard Amalia today as we listen to Nelwan give our dive briefing for our first spot, the famous Crystal Rock. The excitement comes from this spot being a high current, high intensity, big fish kind of dive. Heidi and Cristina would group together to do the deep dive part of her advanced diver certification course, while Tim, Mr. Han, and I would group with Nelwan. Tim holding on for dear life   We geared up, jumped in the small boat and prepared for a negative entry, which means we let all the air out of our jackets, and immediately descended once we rolled backwards off the boat. The entrance went well and we could feel the current rushing against us so we booked it down to the bottom. Once there we all grouped up, grabbed onto a big rock and enjoyed the fish show. There were big schools of jacks, tons of little colorful reef fish, and even a white tip reef shark swimming in front and above us. The current was so stro...