At 07:00 this morning Riza, Ichsan, and I arrived at Divine Diving ready for our second day on the boat. Meanwhile Rani and Vidlia would spend their day in the classroom.
Our boat today was Naring, which means “proud” in Manggarai language. During the journey to the first site we introduced ourselves to the six guests. And today we are vey happy because the weather is calm and the sun is shining!
Onboard Naring with the Divine Diving crew
After 30 minutes we arrive at our first site, Tatawa Besar. Like other sites in Komodo National Park, Tatawa Besar has good visibility and today there isn’t much current so we took a gentle drift dive. I am so excited because Tatawa Besar has many reef fish and coral reef in a good condition, I think it has 100% coral cover! We also found 5 turtles, but I felt disappointed because we didn’t find manta rays.
Next, we went to Karang Makassar. During the journey, Riza and I gave a presentation about manta rays to the tourists. They were very interested and enjoyed our presentation.
Presenting to the guests
We started our survey at Karang Makassar at 11:40, and I really hoped we could be lucky and find mantas. We used the “flying V” formation, and kept the distance between is to about 5 meters. There was not much current, so we conducted the survey slowly and relaxed. After 30 minutes we hadn’t found any mantas, but we still focus and believe that we can find them.
Searching for mantas
Our depth ranged from 9 to 17 meters, and the water temperature was 27oC. I could feel the disappointment starting to rise in my mind. My pressure gauge showed I had 50 bar of air remaining, and Elitza signaled that it was time for our safety stop. So we didn’t find mantas today, but I still believe maybe tomorrow I can find mantas and get their best ID photo.
