Today I awoke in one of my favourite locations in Komodo National Park. Nusa Kode, at the southernmost tip of Rinca Island, is a horseshoe shaped bay fringed with dense tropical forest tumbling down the towering cliffs to the waters edge. Today’s inhabitants of this spectacular scenery included eagles soaring overhead, Komodo dragons prowling the beach, and pods of dolphins, their glistening backs rhythmically slicing through the surface of the water across the bay. Sometimes too, manta rays come to feed in the nutrient rich upwellings, and both oceanic and reef mantas have been recorded here.

MantaWatch Interns 2013

Yesterday’s swell had calmed overnight, and our first dive was on the exposed southern coastline of Nusa Kode. It was in environments very similar to this that I recorded our first oceanic manta in Komodo back in 2011. Today unfortunately, the mantas were elusive, but the dive provided a good opportunity for our team to practice team work and underwater communication, and gain more experience diving in currents.

Next we went to Cannibal Rock, a vibrant kaleidoscope of colours, with organisms growing on top of organisms on every available inch of space on this seamount. This was a training dive, and a chance to practice deep diving skills.

After a very cold dive, it was time to head north to warmer waters. On the way past Padar Kecil we searched for mantas from the surface. By this time the strong swell had returned with the afternoon winds, and one solitary manta was all that we found. We decided to survey the more sheltered Pumpkin’s Patch. Oriental sweetlips were swarming the soft corals, turning them into a mat of writhing yellow. But again the mantas were nowhere to be found.

To warm up after the dive we headed to Padar’s Pink Beach to practice navigation and compass work, and to watch the burning sunset descend on another action packed day. Tomorrow we head back to Karang Makassar, I hope the mantas will be waiting for us.

Vidlia practices compass work