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CORALREPUBLIC Komodo,
Indonesia 2011
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View also Paul’s Video from this trip in Vimeo |
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Trip
dates: |
20 August – 3 September 2011 |
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Boat
/ resort: |
S/Y Mandarin Siren (Siren Fleet, but booked with Worldwide Dive and
Sail – This boat burned and sank one
month after our trip, see below). One night inbound spent at Alam KulKul in Kuta, Bali, and two nights outbound spent at Bali Spirit Hotel in Ubud, Bali. |
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Dive
centre: |
Siren Fleet |
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Photo-friendly?: |
Yes, since
guests on board are usually keen photographers. The crew is used to cater for
photographers requests, but the space on board to deal with the kit may be
very limited if the boat is full (not our case, see below). |
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Number
of dives: |
27 over 9 days of diving. But we could have done 4 a day if we
wanted. A few times, we passed on the night dives and just relaxed and
enjoyed the evening with a drink on deck. |
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Diving
conditions: |
Clear weather throughout the 10-day cruise, no rain. Water
temperature 29°C in the northern area of Komodo, 25°C around Rinca Island (good, since we expected much cooler).
Windy, choppy seas in the southern part of the itinerary meant we could not
cross over to Manta alley. Strong currents in the central part of the Park,
especially shotgun. But the crew took great pains to organise the itinerary
and time of dives according to the tides and we always had fair visibility.
Yet, I would not recommend this trip to novice divers. |
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Comments: |
UPDATE A few weeks after the end of our cruise, S/Y Mandarin Siren sank after catching fire during
a trip to Raja Ampat. Fortunately, nobody on board
suffered any harm. I regret the loss of the lovely ship and wish the best in overcoming
this sad event to the crew and managers. ORIGINAL REPORT We arrived in Bali from Amsterdam via Kuala Lumpur one day
before the cruise, had a resting overnight in Kuta
at Alam Kulkul. I liked
this hotel since my stopover on my way to Wakatobi a couple of years ago. It
has been slightly changed, with new reception facilities, but the rooms,
restaurant, pools are pretty much the same. Good quality in good location,
conveniently close to the Airport. So, it was a breeze to connect on the
following day with our domestic flight with Lion Air to Labuan Bajo. They do
charge excess luggage, even if you carry diving equipment. We had to pay
about 20 USD for our extra 10 Kg between the two of us. This was not too
much, so no complaints. Worldwide Dive and Sail warns you of this and offers
dive equipment on board free of charge, but we still preferred to take our
own full kit. The flight to Labuan Bajo takes about one hour and a half.
Labuan Bajo has limited capacity for resupplying ships, so many boats cruising
Komodo leave from Bima in Sumbawa Island. This
means a full day of cruising is spent sailing towards Komodo. While dives are
offered in good sites on the way, the time spent in Komodo is reduced and
that limits the time spent diving in the southern part of the Park. We did
not have that constraint. Amazingly, we found on arrival that we were the only guests on
board! It felt like a private charter, with 7 crew
dedicated to our every need. The crew acknowledged this was good for them,
more relaxed. But we did not feel they were sparing any attention to us. We
felt very privileged! They were all adorable, professional, and spoiled us
rotten throughout the trip. There were a fair number of boats in the area, most of them
full. A lot of comings and goings between boats each evening made for a funny
social life afloat. We had people coming over for drinks and met divemasters and crew with fun and interesting stories to
tell about the diving and the life on board. It was great. About the boat: Mandarin is meant to accommodate max 6 guests,
in 4 cabins. We had all the space for ourselves. I don’t quite know how it
would have been with a full boat. I had all my photo kit spread in the saloon
(almost never used) inside. Had there been 6 big cameras in use, the only
solution would have been to deal with it in the cabin. Apart from this,
diving from this boat was very comfortable and safe. We would kit up on the
boat, take three little steps to the platform and board the rib for a short
transfer to the dive site, and a backroll entry.
The food on board was indecently good, and available
at all times. Soft drinks and beer were freely available, other alcohol
extra. The cabins were not luxurious, but more than OK. Those PCs in the room
are a nice detail, but frankly, we did not use them. The Siren fleet offers free nitrox, but Mandarin’s equipment had
broken down during the rough crossing from Raja Ampat
and there was no place where to get a new membrane from. Kassandra Wu, our
cruise manager, saw to it with considerable work (herself and DM Wayan) to fetch nitrox tanks from the other boats in the
area. She spent many an evening doing this, poor thing. Her professionalism
and kindness is commendable and I hope she reads this and know that we are
still remembering her very fondly. She made our trip one of the best diving
experiences ever. About Komodo diving: WOW! It is such a “traditional” destination
that you don’t read much about it, especially recently, with all the hype
about Lembeh, Raja Ampat,
etc. I was absolutely unprepared for the experience. It is rugged, savage,
wild, and so very beautiful both above and below the surface that I cannot
hope to do the place justice with words. We did not mind missing the manta
dives, as we have dived with mantas many times before. We had three wonderful
nights in Horseshoe Bay between Rinca and Kode Islands. At dusk, the dragons would come to the
beach, along with deer, wild boar and monkeys. We would watch them from the
boat, while also watching sea eagles fishing a few meters away. Surreal. We
also had our visit to the Park and did a little trek around, which was nice.
But seeing the animals in their own pristine wilderness in Rinca was far more exciting. As to favourite dive sites, Cannibal Rock was a highlight and
deserves its reputation as a world-class site. Same goes for Batu Bolong, even if in this
case, we had one dive which was really overcrowded, and with a few rude
divers as well, pushing others around and all. I did more or less 50/50 macro
and wide angle. At times, I felt it difficult to shoot with the currents, but
it was not much of a problem all in all. I’m very happy with the images I
brought back. We finished the trip with two nights in Ubud,
in Bali, before heading home. It was good to chill out in the hills, but we
found Ubud too much of a tourist trap and I’m not
sure we will repeat that programme. Anytime we do Komodo again, we’ll try to
finish off with a couple of dives in Tulamben, I
think. The bottom line is: Komodo is an extraordinary place to dive.
Don’t miss it! And our thanks to the Mandarin Crew. They are the best! You
can see an album of above water shots here. |
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